Restore After ShutDown Failure

[Gary Brown]

Hi,

When my daughter shut down her system (XP Home w auto-update) she
got a message that something was corrupted (this is second hand from
a non-techie) and one of the options was to restore. After restore many
applications disappeared from the OS (files were still there - XP just
forgot
about them). Otherwise, things appear OK.

Attempt to restore before that time are thwarted by a lack of a restore
points from before that problem arose. My understanding is that XP saves
a restore point whenever it is updated (recall, auto-update was on so there
should have been many).

Any ideas what might have caused the shutdown problem (difficult with
such vague info, I know)?

More importantly, what happened to those previous restore points?

Is there a way out of this other than reinstalling those missing
application?

Thanks,
Gary

 

[Galen]

In Gary Brown <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Hi,

When my daughter shut down her system (XP Home w auto-update) she
got a message that something was corrupted (this is second hand from
a non-techie) and one of the options was to restore. After restore
many applications disappeared from the OS (files were still there -
XP just forgot
about them). Otherwise, things appear OK.

Attempt to restore before that time are thwarted by a lack of a
restore points from before that problem arose. My understanding is
that XP saves a restore point whenever it is updated (recall,
auto-update was on so there should have been many).

Any ideas what might have caused the shutdown problem (difficult with
such vague info, I know)?

More importantly, what happened to those previous restore points?

Is there a way out of this other than reinstalling those missing
application?

Thanks,
Gary

I'm guessing that you don't have phsical access to the computer as this info
is second hand from a non-techie? My first guess in this case, and seemingly
more and more cases, is malware of some type. While there may be
unrepairable damage at this point to the system there's some fixes that can
be attempted. I'll enclose a copy of my cookie cutter response for you to
forward to her. As for restore it only holds as much data as it's allowed
per the user's settings unless that's been altered by malware of some type.
As for the shutdown problem I can't say without knowing more. I'd really
consider a malware scan so this...

Here's my cookie cutter response, sorry for the vague response but it's used
so often I store it in my clipboard manager. Let us know any additional
information or how this turns out.

I suspect malware or virus in this case. Update your virus definitions and
scan for the latest malware. Below is a bunch of links to suitable freeware
security software. You might also want to download LSP-Fix in case your
winsock is damaged when you delete malware.

LSP-Fix - a free program to repair damaged Winsock 2 stacks:
http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm

Firewalls:
www.agnitum.com - Outpost Personal Firewall
http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm - Sygate Personal Firewall
www.kerio.com/us/kpf_download.html - Kerio Personal Firewall

Virus:
www.grisoft.com - AVG
www.antivir.com - AntiVir
www.clamwin.com - ClamWin
http://www.my-etrust.com/microsoft/index.cfm - CA eTrust*

Spyware:
www.lavasoft.de - AdAware
http://security.kolla.de/ - Spybot
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx -
Microsoft Anti-Spyware Beta

Trojan:
www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/ - a Squared
http://swatit.org/ SwatIT

All of these are free for home use. All of them are acceptable solutions to
your security needs.
Does not provide full real-time scanning engine.

*My understanding CA is available free for a limited time. Please note that
the page says this:
"Free software offer expires 2/1/05."
The number of times it has been given out as a viable option leads me to
believe that this has been extended. You should, of course, verify this on
your own.

Galen

 

[S.Sengupta]

To know what might have caused the shutdown problem you may look at the
Event Viewer.
Control Panel|Administrative Tools|Event viewer|Application

ALSO:-
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/newsgroups/faqsrwxp.mspx

regards,
ssg MS-MVP