ActiveX disabled - even when it's not.

[Andy Lord]

I've just spent a frustrating day 'sorting out' my sister's pc. It's less
than a year old running XP Home SP1 completely unpatched and was riddled
with spyware, malware, trojans and viruses. It had an antivirus on it that
hadn't been updated in over 6 months and an old copy of Adaware 6 that must
have been updated around he same time. It was running Kerio but it was set
to allow access to the internet from any application without any warnings!
Surprisingly it also had current versions of Firefox and Mozilla on it with
Mozilla set as the default browser. Apparently one of her friends is a
computer buff (!) and he checks her system every now and again and he
installed the alternative browsers for her as they were 'safer'.

Having cleaned up the system I attempted to run Windows Update only to get a
message that I needed to change the browser settings to allow ActiveX
controls. On checking the IE browser settings I found that there should have
been nothing to stop ActiveX controls running as intended. I checked,
re-checked and checked again, then moved all zones to 'Low' settings and
still got the same response.

I uninstalled and re-installed IE from the XP disc with restarts in between.
Still no joy.

I tried installing SP2 from a disc and got a 'file not found' error message.

Could the 'computer buff' have used some application to stop ActiveX from
being enabled? Could the installation of Firefox 1.0 or Mozilla 1.7.5 (I
think) have locked the ActiveX settings.? Or is this the work of one of the
viruses etc?

I also noticed that I can't reach Shields Up at
http://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?rh1dkyd2 using IE but I can using Firefox or
Mozilla on the same system.

Has anyone any idea of what's going on and what I can do to get the system
cleaned up. uipgraded and functional?

Andy

 

[Guest]

Firefox has no Active X,,,http://www.surferbeware.com/free-downloads.htm,
further do you have Java Installed ? can get at here
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html, You may want to download update
to windowsupdate also so that you can get to V5 , if you cany access windows
update, Firefox may be the problem, may need to run Windows Explorer to
to access windowsupdate site.
Rho_1r(VIP)

 

[Andy Lord]

Firefox has no Active X,,,http://www.surferbeware.com/free-downloads.htm,
further do you have Java Installed ? can get at here
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html, You may want to download
update
to windowsupdate also so that you can get to V5 , if you cany access
windows
update, Firefox may be the problem, may need to run Windows Explorer to
to access windowsupdate site.

I can get to Windows Update no problem, but it won't go any further, whether
it's accessed through IE or with IE uninstalled, because it says that I need
to change the browser settings, even though ActiveX is allowed in the
settings. The latest Java is installed, I don't think that's an issue though
is it?

Andy