S
Stro Asquit
My new (less than 2 months) PC has become very, very slow,
to the point I cannot watch streaming video on Windows
Media Player. Instead I watch a sequence of freeze frames
with blurts of sound. Also, the hard drive light is now
flickering significantly more than before, especially
after boot up. This started within the past 1 - 2 weeks.
I haven't downloaded anything off the web in that time,
except Windows, Norton, Ad-aware & Spybot Search & Destroy
product updates. My PC has Windows XP Home Ed, 512 MB
RAM, 160 GB hard drive and runs a 2.17 GHz Athlon 3000+
chip.
I have two specific questions regarding my problem.
1) Can adware hog so much of my PC's resources that it is
causing my problem? I ran Norton Anti-Virus full system
scan two days ago and found two adware files that NAV
classified as low risk. NAV was unable to delete them,
and they are still in my PC (question #2 relates to this).
2) How can I delete the adware files? As I said NAV
could not delete them, but the NAV program told me the
folder they are in. The NAV web page on these adware
files said to delete them using Windows Explorer, and if
that was not possible, to boot up in Safe Mode and delete
them. I'm familiar with this process that I used to
delete two other adware files a week ago. But the strange
thing with the two NAV identified adware files currently
on my PC is that I cannot find them. I used Windows
Explorer's Search feature to look for them, first in the
folder specified by NAV, then on the entire C: drive, but
I cannot find them! The Search for Hidden Files and
Folders box is checked in the Advanced Options search
area. So how can I manually delete these bad boys if I
cannot even find them? Is there another Hidden Files &
Folders check box somewhere I need to click on? I seem to
remember a second hidden files/folders check box from my
telephone session with the Zone Alarm tech support fellow.
I appreciate your advice.
Thanks & regards,
Stro Asquith
to the point I cannot watch streaming video on Windows
Media Player. Instead I watch a sequence of freeze frames
with blurts of sound. Also, the hard drive light is now
flickering significantly more than before, especially
after boot up. This started within the past 1 - 2 weeks.
I haven't downloaded anything off the web in that time,
except Windows, Norton, Ad-aware & Spybot Search & Destroy
product updates. My PC has Windows XP Home Ed, 512 MB
RAM, 160 GB hard drive and runs a 2.17 GHz Athlon 3000+
chip.
I have two specific questions regarding my problem.
1) Can adware hog so much of my PC's resources that it is
causing my problem? I ran Norton Anti-Virus full system
scan two days ago and found two adware files that NAV
classified as low risk. NAV was unable to delete them,
and they are still in my PC (question #2 relates to this).
2) How can I delete the adware files? As I said NAV
could not delete them, but the NAV program told me the
folder they are in. The NAV web page on these adware
files said to delete them using Windows Explorer, and if
that was not possible, to boot up in Safe Mode and delete
them. I'm familiar with this process that I used to
delete two other adware files a week ago. But the strange
thing with the two NAV identified adware files currently
on my PC is that I cannot find them. I used Windows
Explorer's Search feature to look for them, first in the
folder specified by NAV, then on the entire C: drive, but
I cannot find them! The Search for Hidden Files and
Folders box is checked in the Advanced Options search
area. So how can I manually delete these bad boys if I
cannot even find them? Is there another Hidden Files &
Folders check box somewhere I need to click on? I seem to
remember a second hidden files/folders check box from my
telephone session with the Zone Alarm tech support fellow.
I appreciate your advice.
Thanks & regards,
Stro Asquith
