Setup and Install problems

[Denzil Hathway]

I'll try and make a long story short. I reinstalled Windows XP Home over a
OEM installation that came with my pc. SP1 added by auto-upgrade. The reason
for the reinstall was that I had problems with general sluggishness and
MSExplorer 6 holding on to my personal home page. Also I had popups I'd
never had before. I uninstalled MSExplorer and the XP upgrades by using add
and remove. I hoped to get rid of the sluggishness and MSExplorer problems
like this and then reinstall Explorer with the new XP installation.
I later found that my problem was that I had adware and spyware issues along
with Trojan Bookkeeper viruses. These I dealt with a new copy of Norton's
anti-virus, Ad-Aware 6 and Spyware Nuker. My computer speeded up and
MSExplorer came back to normal as far as home page retention is concerned.
Since then have two major problems.
The most serious concerns installation and setup. I have redownloaded SP1
but it won't install - I just get a message that "Installation Failed." Also
I have had significant problems installing new application software. The
patterns are bizarre and inconsistent. Even if they install, some programs
don't run properly or stick. It seems that my installation and setup
mechanism is corrupt. I don't have these problems with my laptop.
Second thing is I continue to get annoying MSExplorer popups. Spyware Nuker,
Ad-Aware and virus updated Norton antiviral scans are clean, but running an
antivirus scan from the Symantec website shows four viruses present, all
Trojan Bookkeeper. Symantec hasn't answered me when I asked how their
website scan could be positive but a scan using updated Norton 2004 could be
clean.

Anyway, anyone know what's going on? How do I fix setup? Thanks, Denzil.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

The failure of the locally installed Norton AV product to detect the bugs is
actually easy to explain. It is because the bugs themselves disable the AV
products' ability to detect them. This is why serious scanning for problems
is done in Safe mode where the bugs don't load into resident memory.

It sounds basically, like you have one heck of a mess. You may be able to
clean it with some intensive work, but if you just want to get it done with
(like most people), then backup files you don't want to lose and bite the
bullet. Boot the XP CD, enter setup, at the point where you are offered to
repair an existing installation or choose an install location instead delete
the existing system partition. Create a new one from the free space, format
and do a clean install. You will (obviously) need your Product Key for this,
so make sure it's handy before you proceed. Also, do not connect any network
cables during setup, as it has been documented that connected systems can
become infected before installation completes (blaster, sasser will attack
the unprotected machine). You may also want to download SP2 prior to this,
and then install it immediately after completing setup.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...BE-3B8E-4F30-8245-9E368D3CDB5A&displaylang=en


--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org