People PC ISP and the blaster worm

[Dan Gerson]

Since about 8/14/03 I've been having lots of problems. They only seem
to happen when I use the People PC online software to get on the
Internet, and they go away if I get off and reboot.

Some of the symptoms.
- message SYCHOST.exe has generated errors and will be closed.

- once I get this message, If I go to NEtwork and Dial up connections,
I only see icons in the leftmost 10% of the window, and a slider bar
appears which you use to see the right part of the window.

Opening up a MS word document it will say: This document could not be
registered. It will not be possible to create links from this document
to another.

_ Error message when trying to get to Live updates of virus
definitions from the Norton.

and some others.

Out of desperation, I signed up for another ISP to get the download
the patch and a service pack 4, which I needed before I applied the
patch. I HAD NONE OF THESE PROBLEMS WHEN I USED THE NEW ISP, and I was
able to download SP4 and the patch.

I have seen none of these problems described as ones caused by the
BLaster worm. Once I got the updated Norton antivirus definitions
(including the one for Blaster), I scanned the system and it found
nothing. So I'm wondering, were all these problems the fault of the
People PC dial up software, and had nothing to do with the blaster
worm? Anybody else had these problems with PeoplePC. Up until know
it's been very reliable, and is half the price of most of the others.

 

[Frances Stewart]

Hi - I have been trying to get the MS critical updates for
2 days now - The strangest things have happened. I have
People PC too. Today, I am not allowed to 'Agree' to the
terms - which means that I can't go any further (agreement
option is grayed out)

Yesterday, I chose the upgrades and the download box came
up and then froze.

Yesterday, also - the MS update site was goofy looking
with the HTML showing and broken images.

Scans do not show that I am infected - but I am nervous as
a cat on a hot tin roof...

Fran

 

[Dan Gerson]

Frances,

You can try two things to get the patch.

Bypass the People PC online dialing software by creating a simple Dial
Up network connection to them (people pc online).

1)_ Start

_ Settings

_ Dial up Network connection


_ use your (e-mail address removed) as the sign on id, use your usual
password, use the usual access number

2)_ or you can do what I did. get a free trial account from somewhere
like Earhtlink and use that to download the patch.

 

[Marina Roos]

Open Taskmanager and look for the msblast.exe- or mspatch.exe-proces. Kill
it and go to www.sophos.com to get the removaltool. After that install
ms03-026 from microsoft to prevent from happening again.

Marina