- Joined
- May 31, 1999
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- 8,339
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- City, State
- Trenton, MI
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- 98 ExSport, '00 F-150
OK, here's the scoop. My fiancee's PC has been surfing the 'net via broadband for three months unprotected (and against my protestations, but since when does she listen to me anyways??). She's running Win XP Home, using IE. Well, as I predicted, her computer got infected.... spy-ware, malware, and trojan horses up the wazoo.
So, I tried installing Norton Internet Security. The scans found 36 different problems. Once those were cleaned, I was still getting pop-ups here and there directing me to an anti-virus/anti-spam (an was clearly spam-ware) program web site. Also, when opening IE, the home page started as about:blank, then redirected to another site. Finally, I was getting an occasional pop-up from another program trying to install itself.
Well, I went through and manually disabled a bunch of garbage in the startup file, and went through the registry as best I could to remove the remaining spy-ware entry, and that seems to have fixed all but two lingering problems:
First, the home page is premanently set to about:blank. If you use a shortcut to open IE that links to ANY other web site (e.g. yahoo or google) IE opens with no problem and takes you right to that site. However, if you attempt to go to the 'home' page, it defaults to about:blank and that starts a couple of pop-ups going for the anti-spy-ware again. Also, I cannot change the home page in IE in her user profile or mine as something has that feature locked-up. It'll allow me to make the change, but it doesn't save it.
Second is the pop-ups. I've got Norton Internet Security's ad-blocking running, IE security set to high, privacy set to high, and IE pop-upo blocking turned on, and I still get pop-ups. How is that possible?
I've run Hijack This and cleaned everything that isn't essential (that solved a lot of problems Norton didn't). I tried running the scan from Kaspersky, but it wouldn't let me run it while booted in safe mode.
I'm completely lost. A clean install is out of the question as she never received the system restore discs or the OEM install disc with her machine. Am I SOL? What else can I try?
Thanks, gang!
-Joe
So, I tried installing Norton Internet Security. The scans found 36 different problems. Once those were cleaned, I was still getting pop-ups here and there directing me to an anti-virus/anti-spam (an was clearly spam-ware) program web site. Also, when opening IE, the home page started as about:blank, then redirected to another site. Finally, I was getting an occasional pop-up from another program trying to install itself.
Well, I went through and manually disabled a bunch of garbage in the startup file, and went through the registry as best I could to remove the remaining spy-ware entry, and that seems to have fixed all but two lingering problems:
First, the home page is premanently set to about:blank. If you use a shortcut to open IE that links to ANY other web site (e.g. yahoo or google) IE opens with no problem and takes you right to that site. However, if you attempt to go to the 'home' page, it defaults to about:blank and that starts a couple of pop-ups going for the anti-spy-ware again. Also, I cannot change the home page in IE in her user profile or mine as something has that feature locked-up. It'll allow me to make the change, but it doesn't save it.
Second is the pop-ups. I've got Norton Internet Security's ad-blocking running, IE security set to high, privacy set to high, and IE pop-upo blocking turned on, and I still get pop-ups. How is that possible?
I've run Hijack This and cleaned everything that isn't essential (that solved a lot of problems Norton didn't). I tried running the scan from Kaspersky, but it wouldn't let me run it while booted in safe mode.
I'm completely lost. A clean install is out of the question as she never received the system restore discs or the OEM install disc with her machine. Am I SOL? What else can I try?
Thanks, gang!
-Joe
