G
Guest
Windows XP Pro, 2002, SP2
Boss had his techie come in last week to track down a virus or something
that had been causing problems when web browsing, getting worse over a couple
months, when it became obvious it was caused by *something*. He took off the
Norton AV he had installed back when, and replaced with Avast and CCleaner.
Sometime back in May or June, I went out on the web to look up something at
the company's bank website, and about half a dozen pop-ups came up very
quickly, including one that showed something was downloading something.
Couldn't close them, and more just kept opening. Ctrl+Alt+Del wouldn't work,
so had to just turn off the computer. When I re-booted, set the IE blockers
to as high as they would go, but over the next few weeks, going on the web
just deteriorated to a hopeless problem. Had my techie friend download
Mozilla's Foxfire, as he put it on my home computer and everything runs
great. At work, tho, Foxfire had as bad a problem as IE, and sometimes would
freeze up everything to the point I would just have to restart. Eventually,
told my boss either his techie or mine would have to do something, because by
mid-July, it was obvious it would only keep deteriorating, and I was
beginning to worry about the safety and privacy of my daily work (QuickBooks,
Excel, Word, etc.)
The one problem I need help with, started a week or so before the boss'
techie came in, the other right after, but not sure if it is even related to
anything he did.
Problem 1: Everytime I start the computer, it now stops at that "choose
administrator or user" window, where it did not do that before. It only
shows 'user'. I did not ask it to do this; just want it to go straight to
the desktop. I am the only user, but now worry about what/why switched it
over to doing that.
Problem 2: About every other time I start the computer, when it does get to
the desktop, it auto-opens Windows Explorer, specifically to the My Documents
window. Didn't ask it to do that either. There is NOTHING in ANY of my
Startup folders; anytime I add a program, I double check ALL the startup
sub-folders under the "Documents and Settings" folder. There is nothing
there, much less any shortcut to the My Documents folder. Plain weird.
Now, there is a little yellow shield in my icon tray that wants me to
re-start for something, and I obviously don't want to do that, especially
since its message box, with the "Restart now" and "Restart later" buttons,
fails to identify (in its title bar) the program that is demanding I restart,
just says "Automatic Updates", but no one has set anything to automatically
update. Anytime I open Windows Explorer, that message box pops up, so now
it's worrying me, too.
Any ideas? While the boss' techie was here, told him about Prob #1, and he
said that was a simple re-set, but he was going to have the computer running
a system check for awhile, and to call him and he would walk me through it.
But now with the auto-opening of My Dox, I feel *something* may still be out
there, doing whatever the heck it wants. His virus checker found a few
things, but there is this odd little DLL file it finds every couple of days,
back in the same place it found it before, and though I tell it to remove it,
in a couple days, it's back again. Meaning something is still on my
computer, putting it back there, and the techie's programs didn't find the
mother program that keeps laying this freakin' egg.
Obviously, I no longer have much faith in the boss' techie, even if the guy
does make his living doing this (self-employed, 1-man op, but he makes a good
living at it). My techie doesn't quite make a living with the odd-jobs he
picks up, but when I have him fix something, it doesn't pop up again.
However, don't want to get in a fuss with the boss over the techie he's used
for years, just want to stop the stuff that is happening. Besides, my boss
barely understands computers, and rather than think his techie didn't know
what to do, he would presume the virus was one of those unfixable problems
you hear about, and I would have to suffer through yet another HD wipe-out &
total reinstall. They did one of those in Apr 2005, right before I started,
and then we had to do it again in Sep, so no, I don't put a lot of faith in
what that techie can do.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Am hoping the Probs 1 & 2 are simple
to fix; will deal with the techie issue with my boss later (unless my
computer just gives up the ghost because of it).
Boss had his techie come in last week to track down a virus or something
that had been causing problems when web browsing, getting worse over a couple
months, when it became obvious it was caused by *something*. He took off the
Norton AV he had installed back when, and replaced with Avast and CCleaner.
Sometime back in May or June, I went out on the web to look up something at
the company's bank website, and about half a dozen pop-ups came up very
quickly, including one that showed something was downloading something.
Couldn't close them, and more just kept opening. Ctrl+Alt+Del wouldn't work,
so had to just turn off the computer. When I re-booted, set the IE blockers
to as high as they would go, but over the next few weeks, going on the web
just deteriorated to a hopeless problem. Had my techie friend download
Mozilla's Foxfire, as he put it on my home computer and everything runs
great. At work, tho, Foxfire had as bad a problem as IE, and sometimes would
freeze up everything to the point I would just have to restart. Eventually,
told my boss either his techie or mine would have to do something, because by
mid-July, it was obvious it would only keep deteriorating, and I was
beginning to worry about the safety and privacy of my daily work (QuickBooks,
Excel, Word, etc.)
The one problem I need help with, started a week or so before the boss'
techie came in, the other right after, but not sure if it is even related to
anything he did.
Problem 1: Everytime I start the computer, it now stops at that "choose
administrator or user" window, where it did not do that before. It only
shows 'user'. I did not ask it to do this; just want it to go straight to
the desktop. I am the only user, but now worry about what/why switched it
over to doing that.
Problem 2: About every other time I start the computer, when it does get to
the desktop, it auto-opens Windows Explorer, specifically to the My Documents
window. Didn't ask it to do that either. There is NOTHING in ANY of my
Startup folders; anytime I add a program, I double check ALL the startup
sub-folders under the "Documents and Settings" folder. There is nothing
there, much less any shortcut to the My Documents folder. Plain weird.
Now, there is a little yellow shield in my icon tray that wants me to
re-start for something, and I obviously don't want to do that, especially
since its message box, with the "Restart now" and "Restart later" buttons,
fails to identify (in its title bar) the program that is demanding I restart,
just says "Automatic Updates", but no one has set anything to automatically
update. Anytime I open Windows Explorer, that message box pops up, so now
it's worrying me, too.
Any ideas? While the boss' techie was here, told him about Prob #1, and he
said that was a simple re-set, but he was going to have the computer running
a system check for awhile, and to call him and he would walk me through it.
But now with the auto-opening of My Dox, I feel *something* may still be out
there, doing whatever the heck it wants. His virus checker found a few
things, but there is this odd little DLL file it finds every couple of days,
back in the same place it found it before, and though I tell it to remove it,
in a couple days, it's back again. Meaning something is still on my
computer, putting it back there, and the techie's programs didn't find the
mother program that keeps laying this freakin' egg.
Obviously, I no longer have much faith in the boss' techie, even if the guy
does make his living doing this (self-employed, 1-man op, but he makes a good
living at it). My techie doesn't quite make a living with the odd-jobs he
picks up, but when I have him fix something, it doesn't pop up again.
However, don't want to get in a fuss with the boss over the techie he's used
for years, just want to stop the stuff that is happening. Besides, my boss
barely understands computers, and rather than think his techie didn't know
what to do, he would presume the virus was one of those unfixable problems
you hear about, and I would have to suffer through yet another HD wipe-out &
total reinstall. They did one of those in Apr 2005, right before I started,
and then we had to do it again in Sep, so no, I don't put a lot of faith in
what that techie can do.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Am hoping the Probs 1 & 2 are simple
to fix; will deal with the techie issue with my boss later (unless my
computer just gives up the ghost because of it).