New windows update

Nanor

Nanor

Well-Known Member
After downloading the new update and installing, windows is being a biatch. Every time I connect to the net Windows Explorer must close. And if I open some programs the same happens and it requires a restart. When I restarted it, windows opened up 55 Internet Explorers.

Anyone else getting problems like this?
 
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Fi$hy

Guest
Personally it sounds like you havn't got completly rid of your viruses. IE opening randomly sounds like a browser highjacker. Try hijackthis http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html

If you've run all the spyware stuff, then hijackthis might sort you out, but consider it a last stand option.

Secondly, why are you using I.E??? use firefox or opera lol!
 
Haven

Haven

Administrator
Staff member
Heh my web proxy has prevented me from running any windows updates for the last six months ... the machine has never run so well :)

My advice:

Grab a copy of ClamWin
Then grab adaware

Spend a little time getting intimate with them both i.e. installing and running both to clean your system as much as possible.

Next step time to remove some crap from your system - go to add/remove programs and remove everything that you don't need ! We all have crap in there and nows a good time to clear it all out so be brutal.

Onwards and upwards - next up we're going to do a Disk Cleanup - right click on a drive icon in either "My Computer" or "Windows Exploder" and choose "Disk Cleanup" again be brutal :)

We're nearly done ... time to defrag your hard drive partitions. If you don't know how then ask.

Finally we don't need no steeenkin IE - Firefox is your friend, grab it and abuse it. If you do a lot of emailing then also grab a copy of thunderbird as outlook and outlook express are crap at protecting your system from viruses.

Oh and I assume you are running windows XP SP2 with the firewall turned ON!! If not then get it switched on a.s.a.p.

Do all the above and you'll have done a lot to protect yourself from any such nastiness happening again.
 
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Fi$hy

Guest
Yup and finally if you get your immediate problems sorted consider replacing windows firewall with something a bit better and adaptive.

I recomend either Zone Labs or Norton security centre
 
Haven

Haven

Administrator
Staff member
bah now you had to go and start a flamewar didn't you :)

I think windows firewall is actually a very nice piece of software and I reccomend using it - you only need zonealarm if you really want to sit and watch whats going through your connection (99% of people really dont care) :)

As for Norton ... I pity the poor fool that runs that shoddy (*"£$"
 
M

MoTo^

In Cryo Sleep
haven said:
bah now you had to go and start a flamewar didn't you :)

I think windows firewall is actually a very nice piece of software and I reccomend using it - you only need zonealarm if you really want to sit and watch whats going through your connection (99% of people really dont care) :)

As for Norton ... I pity the poor fool that runs that shoddy (*"£$"
Click to expand...

lol couldnt agree more
 
thatbloke

thatbloke

Junior Administrator
Ok so like ur computer is screwed. GET FIREFOX!

Next, you need to download, install and update 2 spyware removal programs... one is called ad-aware and the other is called Spybot.

THESE ARE FREE and I find that, when using one after the other, they clear 99% of all crap that manages to get onto your computer.

I would guess the "update" you downloaded was not a windows update at all and was in fact spyware.

When these 2 programs are installed, your best bet is to boot into safe mode and run them then, BUT ONLY AFTER YOU HAVE UPDATED THE DEFINITIONS FOR BOTH PROGRAMS! You must do this or it will not find everything.

Next, after this, if you are still having problems, then you need to check your startup sequence to make sure that you have nothing in there running that shouldnt be. to do this, go Start -> Run -> type "msconfig"

A window will pop up, click the selective startup button then click on the startup tab (at the top right). In here is a list of all programs that start when windows boots... A tick next to it means that it runs on startup. Look at each entry (expanding the "command" bit by dragging it so you can see exactly which file is being executed) and if it is not a program you want running on startup, or you do not know what it is, or if it looks suspicious in any way, untick it. If it turns out that you do want/need this program running on startup, you can re-enable it by following this same process in reverse.

When you reboot after doing this, you will get a message window saying something about the windows configuration utility being used to modify startup... simply tick the box saying "do not notify me of this again and do not run the utility when windows starts" and press ok.

You should find it loads quicker. Any problems, let me know :)
 
Ronin Storm

Ronin Storm

Administrator
Staff member
If you're getting yourself into msconfig territory then I suggest that you Google anything you're considering turning off. There's a few neat sites that come up close to the top with explanations of what each process/executable/service does and a threat assessment.
 
M

MoTo^

In Cryo Sleep
i usually turn everything off except any antivirus/firewall i have, or anything else i specifically want to start, say xfire (which i dont actually). i dont think you really need any of the other ones
 
thatbloke

thatbloke

Junior Administrator
Seriously, theres about 30-40 entries in my startup registry entries list, but I actually only use 5. Two are for MSN messenger (and Msgplus), one for my printer monitor, one, is for MS office and keeps reappearing even though i keep removing it... and the other one I just checked and realized it was something to do with my old nvidia grafix card and as I have a shiny Radeon 9800 pro in my system now it doesn't need to be there :)
 
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Fi$hy

Guest
Odd, have you told windows to use F-Fox by default (not that it would help much if it was a virus, but it would tell you if it was windows doing it!)

ahh Haven, I love ZLabs (gotta love the flashing bars) I'm not too impressed by windows Firewall because it seems to "simplistic" (I guess I like complication) and it seems to know what it thinks is best for you!

Oooh and I love seperate firewalls as most of my stuff comes from IBM so i'm used to rediculous security measures!
 
Taffy

Taffy

New Member
Try installing Webroot Window Washer as well. Every time you turn your machine off, it'll run through all your temp folders such as your downloaded folder memory and clear it out. I have this and Webroot Spy Sweeper, the thing has never been faster!
 
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