Replies

A stupid question, but how do you display the BIOS’ so that you can take note of them? – I don’t know and would really like to!!
Thanks,
Keith

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Ian,
Were the five ‘threats’ you mentioned DSO Exploits by any chance? If so, I raised a question re these back in November (post 426490) – Bill Bright gave me a very useful and detailed explanation (post 426711) and indicated that the ‘anomalies’ would probably be picked up and corrected in subsequent Spybot updates – looks like they have!
Since turning on Spybot’s Teatimer/Resident program I’ve also begun to experience the ‘congratulations no immediate problems were found’ messages following scans! However, I then run Ad-Aware and always find at least 2 or 3 tracking cookies that Spybot didn’t pick up!
Keith

I had same problem – until I noticed that I’d saved the screen shot as a .bmp – far too big for the Lounge’s 100k max. I resaved as a .jpg and problem solved! HTH

As an afterthought, don’t suppose that going back to a MS ‘System Restore Point’ – “Start, all programs, system tools, system restore” (back to a date before your daughter did whatever she did) would help? Might it, perhaps, undo whatever it was she did? Worth a try?
Keith

My PC is a Packard Bell which came with Windows pre installed (OEM) and thus, with no Windows recovery disc. What I eventually discovered, through the lounge, is that the recovery software (for partial or complete OS restore) is on a hidden portion of my hard drive. It is accessed (at least on my computer) by ‘start’ – ‘all programs’ – ‘packard bell support’ – ‘smart restore’ (I think there’s also an option to access by pressing one of the F keys during the boot process – The options are somewhat limited though, to more or less a factory restore type option.

Don’t know if you might have something similar available on your machine? I can also access mine, should I ever need to, via ‘safe’ mode.

It helps, of course, if you have the computer handbook – relevant info is usually included in there somewhere.

hope this is of use.

Keith

Well! Having said I wouldn’t, but taking note of loungers’ later comments, I took a deep breath, created a restore point, and downloaded the Beta! So far, so good (and it looks good; professional, and even I can find my way around it seemingly painlessly – or at least so far) – and nothing yet has leapt out and smacked my system on the head! I’ve run one, initial, scan and – the Beta found nothing. Haven’t run Ad-Aware or Spybot yet to see if they come up with anything though.

One question if I may – I’ve elected not to activate the Beta’s ‘real time protection’ (Internet/System/Applications agents) on basis that I already have Spybot’s ‘Resident’ running. Am I correct in assuming that trying to run two ‘real time’ protectors is likely to cause some issues (as in running two Antivirus progs eg)?
Oh, and it’s already offered updated definitions files which I’ve accepted and the download appeared straightforward.

Keith

John/Joe/Alan,
Many thanks for inputs, useful stuff, especially the reminder to back-up before installing Beta’s, something I’d probably not have thought of! – and Alan; Didn’t know you knew me so well! ((“It’s not really contingent on user experience though, except to the extent of maybe panicing if something goes awry”))!!!!!!!!.
I think, on balance, that I’ll give the Beta a miss, at least for now, although it’s obviously going to become a firm part of the ‘safety’ arsenal, along with Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D (or at least, that’s the impression I get from the many posts on the subject).
Cheers, Keith

Joe/Gents,
On lounge members recommendations I have readily embraced both Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D, which I run on a weekly basis – I also have Spybot ‘Resident’ running whenever my computer is on. Question: Is a Beta version of anything something that someone like myself (ie, not particularly computer literate) ought really to be toying with? Or should I (we?), perhaps, await a fully fledged version, suitably tested by more experienced loungers? I note in passing that there is a Spybot S&D ‘Beta’, but I haven’t yet seen anyone in the lounge recommending that we should load it (or is this something a bit different?). Bottom line; should I take the plunge and embrace the Beta, including any problems it might cause, or should I await the ‘real mccoy’ at a future date?
Keith

Must admit, I’d had similar thoughts along the same lines – What would be the implications re all the ‘hidden bits’ – However, I note that PB give me the option, using their ‘recovery program’, of creating a set of Master CDs which, in effect, takes all the recovery data (effectively, this is just a factory restore) from the hidden partition and put it all on CD – the system then frees up the hidden partition in the form of a virtual hard disk drive with its own drive letter assigned. I’m assuming (perhaps hoping would be a better word) that if I do this then there will not be any awkward ‘hidden’ bits remaining to give me problems should I need to use TI. That’s my theory, anyway!!!
Thanks for the input – and please let me know if you think my thinking is ‘way off’.
Keith

Tony,
Probably a silly question but ………. I have Windows XP (Home) OEM (Packard Bell). I also have Acronis True Image – If I should ever have to completely reinstall from TI (eg, should my hard disk crash and I used TI to reload my OS and all files) having replaced the disk) am I likely to hit the same problem do you think? – or would something like that be transparent to MS? – Apologies if I’m asking questions to which there are not yet answers – appreciate it’s early days. Worrying all the same.
Keith

Hi guys!
By way of a wrap-up, just to let you all know that I’ve now downloaded all the MS critical patches again and everything is working perfectly. I’ve also cleared out the registry inconsistencies again using Spybot (of course, they reappeared once I’d done a ‘restore’) and everything’s still fine so, fingers crossed ………….. But, just in case, I’m now going to create a ‘system restore’ point so that I know I can get back to where things work okay, before I do anything else.

Thanks for all the help, suggestions and pointers/links. It’s really nice to know that there are people ‘out there’ who are prepared to help poor (software) innocent souls like myself – it really is appreciated.

Keith

Doc, Tony, Dave and Bob,

Success!!! But only after two restores!!! Went back to 6th Feb restore point and all the problems were still there – In desperation, I decided to go back to 20th Jan, not really expecting anything to change as the 6th Feb hadn’t. But, lo and behold, everything seems to be working normally again. The script error has gone and I can now use my print facility through my browser; my e-mail address book and spell checker are working again and, finally, I don’t get any more blank screens when I click on links!
The only problem is that I don’t know what caused the problems in the first place! And, I have a number of MS critical patches that I need to download again now – might I cause the problems to resurface I wonder? I think I’ll give it a good 24 hours before I do anything else!
Anyway, for now I’m back up and running and feeling pretty good after several days of despondency.
Thank you all for seeing me through the problems – I’ll repost if I get any subsequent problems as result of MS critcal patches downloads.
If anyone can come up with any ideas/educated guesses as to probable causes I’d be most grateful.

Keith

Thanks one and all. I’ll try and find a restore point prior to 9th Feb, do a restore and see what comes! I’ll post results here in due course. Many thanks.

By the way, my Yahoo toolbar doesn’t have the pop-up blocker icon – I loaded the toolbar way back and haven’t bothered to update it. But, just to cover all the bases, I’ll uninstall the toolbar anyway before I do the restore. Fingers crossed!!
Keith

Doc, Dave,

Doc: Anything to do with the registry is way out of my league, believe me! Although, I could manage the “rundll32.exe iedkcs32.dll,clear” that is in the previous post (but why?), but think I’ll hang fire on that and try something a bit simpler first (see below).

Dave, The only addition I have in IE is the Yahoo toolbar – I have a separate e-mail account on Yahoo and use the toolbar as a quick way of “signing in”. I’ve had the toolbar loaded for nearly a year now and it hasn’t (as far as I know) caused any problems in the past – however, I’m open to suggestions.

Before I do anything that I might have trouble understanding (!) I think it might be best if I do a system restore and try and go back to before I downloaded the MS critical patches (9 Feb) – Question; do you think I should uninstall the MS critical patches before I do the restore? My thinking is a) I could then see if anything was different before I did the restore, and after doing the restore, MS database would recognise that I didn’t have the patches loaded and offer them up again. What do you think?

Thanks for help and suggestions, much appreciated.
Keith

Hi Doc and thanks for the reassurance – I was beginning to feel a bit lonely!

I had some problems with Norton about six months ago and had to uninstall/reinstall Norton (Symantec) Internet Security package – suspect that that’s where the hang overs came from. Anyway, I took a deep breath yesterday and let Spybot clear them all up for me! They’ve all now been deleted and, although I still have all the original problems I noted, nothing else seems amiss, so I’m fairly confident that I’m not missing them, or that they are related to the original problems.

I’m running Norton Internet Security package and using Norton firewall with the MS one switched off. Norton Anti-virus is running and the whole package has been performing A-OK for long time – Live updates working fine. MS security centre acknowledges that I’ve Norton firewall and Norton anti-virus running.

Only ever use the correct install/uninstall options provided with XP OS – The only prog that I have recently installed/uninstalled is the one mentioned in original posting (Memory Map) – I think this is probably a red-herring. Anyway, uninstalling it hasn’t made any difference.

Agree with your comment re pop-up blocking, but not sure why it should suddenly become a problem having been perfectly okay until recently (that’s why I mentioned the 9 x MS critical downloads I performed). Anyway, I’ve tried turning pop-up blocking off (tools – popup blocker – turn off pop up blocker) but it makes no difference – I get the popup screen but it’s blank. I’ve also tried changing the popup blocker settings to allow my home site (*.wanadoo.co.uk) – again, this allows the popup screen, but it’s blank)).

I’m at a loss (I usually am with anything to do with computers!) so would be grateful for any ideas/pointers you might have.

Thanks,
Keith