Constant FREEZES and no infections

[I.C. Greenfields]

No infections of any kind can be found on this PC, yet MSMail, MozillaFF and
IE7 lock up constantly. How can this be fixed short of a reformat and
reinstall of the OS? Vista has been as unstable as W98 for us. Is there any
way to get it as stable as XP? Does anyone know what causes these constant
W98 type freezes so many of us are enduring with Vista?

 

[Mick Murphy]

You don't say whether a clean install or upgrade.
No hardware specs to see if your computer is capable of running Vista
properly.
We don't know what applications you are running.

You don't say what you have scanned your System with.
There are many applications to find different kinds of infections, spyware,
Malware, Keyloggers.

Post a proper question.

"freezes so many of us are enduring with Vista?"
Exact number please!

 

[Grand_Poobah]

--->

No infections of any kind can be found on this PC, yet MSMail, MozillaFF
and IE7 lock up constantly. How can this be fixed short of a reformat
and reinstall of the OS? Vista has been as unstable as W98 for us. Is
there any way to get it as stable as XP? Does anyone know what causes
these constant W98 type freezes so many of us are enduring with Vista?

Are you learning impaired? This answser has been given to you many
times yet you still ask the same question. What par of:

UNINSTALL ZONEALARM

Don't you understand?

Questor

 

[Questor]

--->

You don't say whether a clean install or upgrade.
No hardware specs to see if your computer is capable of running Vista
properly.
We don't know what applications you are running.

You don't say what you have scanned your System with.
There are many applications to find different kinds of infections, spyware,
Malware, Keyloggers.

Post a proper question.

"freezes so many of us are enduring with Vista?"
Exact number please!

This guy has been asking the same question in several groups for the
last couple of days. We all answer him, but he chooses to ignore our
advice. He needs to uninstall ZoneAlarm until they fix the bug that
traps these programs and won't allow killing them.

Questor

 

[Mick Murphy]

Questor, thanks for that. I haven't come across his other posts.

Cheers.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

No infections of any kind can be found on this PC,

Exactly how (using what software) did you look for "infections of any
kind"?

yet MSMail, MozillaFF and
IE7 lock up constantly. How can this be fixed short of a reformat and
reinstall of the OS? Vista has been as unstable as W98 for us. Is there any
way to get it as stable as XP? Does anyone know what causes these constant
W98 type freezes so many of us are enduring with Vista?

In my experience, on my own two Vista machines (one running Vista for
over two years, since rtm in November 2006) and on many others, Vista
has been absolutely stable, and has *never* crashed nor locked up.

So if your experience is different from mine, be aware that the
problem is not Vista, as you apparently believe, but is something
specific to *your* computer. Here are the possibilities:

1. Malware infection (despite what you think).

2. Hardware (or drivers for the hardware) that doesn't get along with
Vista.

3. Software that doesn't get along with Vista.

4. Some error you've made in setting up or configuring your machine.

 

[Questor]

--->

Exactly how (using what software) did you look for "infections of any
kind"?





In my experience, on my own two Vista machines (one running Vista for
over two years, since rtm in November 2006) and on many others, Vista
has been absolutely stable, and has *never* crashed nor locked up.

So if your experience is different from mine, be aware that the
problem is not Vista, as you apparently believe, but is something
specific to *your* computer. Here are the possibilities:

1. Malware infection (despite what you think).

2. Hardware (or drivers for the hardware) that doesn't get along with
Vista.

3. Software that doesn't get along with Vista.

4. Some error you've made in setting up or configuring your machine.

Ken, give up on this guy. He has been asked for that information
several times. No reply from him. And, he still makes these posts
again and again.

Questor

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

--->

Ken, give up on this guy. He has been asked for that information
several times. No reply from him. And, he still makes these posts
again and again.

Thanks. I hadn't remembered that.

 

[I.C. Greenfields]

You don't say whether a clean install or upgrade.
No hardware specs to see if your computer is capable of running Vista
properly.
We don't know what applications you are running.

This is a HP and already had Windows Vista Home Premium installed.

You don't say what you have scanned your System with.

A-Squared, WindowsDefender (runs), Spybot, Ad-Aware, AVG and now Avira -
nothing was found and Task Monitor will not close "Not Responding" programs
of any kind.

There are many applications to find different kinds of infections,
spyware,
Malware, Keyloggers.

Post a proper question.

"freezes so many of us are enduring with Vista?"
Exact number please!

At the office? About 8 of the 15 PCs run no better than W98. Also read
these forums and others. Lockups are not unique with Vista.

 

[I.C. Greenfields]

--->

This guy has been asking the same question in several groups for the last
couple of days. We all answer him, but he chooses to ignore our advice.
He needs to uninstall ZoneAlarm until they fix the bug that traps these
programs and won't allow killing them.

What BUG is trapping the programs and stopping Task manager from working and
causing the lockups? I did remove Zone Alarm this morning, but you failed
to tell me what to replace it with that monitors crap trying to phone home.
MS firewall allows anything and everything to connect to the net.

 

[I.C. Greenfields]

--->

Are you learning impaired? This answser has been given to you many times
yet you still ask the same question. What par of:

UNINSTALL ZONEALARM

Don't you understand?

What part of I did uninstall it and am still waiting for you to recommend
another firewall that blocks unwanted outgoing connections.

 

[I.C. Greenfields]

If it's an OEM -- pre-installed version of Vista, it can be a bad install
of the O/S. If that's the case, you need to get back in touch with the
computer manufacture as you have a software warranty.


If it's not that, then you can try this.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833

Thanks. I'll check it out. What firewall do you recommend that monitors
both ways?

 

[I.C. Greenfields]

Exactly how (using what software) did you look for "infections of any
kind"?

See long list above - including WindowsDefender.

In my experience, on my own two Vista machines (one running Vista for
over two years, since rtm in November 2006) and on many others, Vista
has been absolutely stable, and has *never* crashed nor locked up.

Then why is this one and and at least 7 in the office? Why were there no
problems with the old XP machines locking up?

So if your experience is different from mine, be aware that the
problem is not Vista, as you apparently believe, but is something
specific to *your* computer. Here are the possibilities:

1. Malware infection (despite what you think).

2. Hardware (or drivers for the hardware) that doesn't get along with
Vista.

And how would I know which one is causing so many programs to lock up in
cluding IE7, MozillaFF, WMail, TaskManager etc?

3. Software that doesn't get along with Vista.

And how can I know that? Everything freezes at one time or another. It's
like the BLUE screen of death without the blue screen.

4. Some error you've made in setting up or configuring your machine.

It's out of the box so I don't know what you mean as far as configurations
and setting up.

 

[I.C. Greenfields]

--->

Ken, give up on this guy. He has been asked for that information several
times. No reply from him. And, he still makes these posts again and
again.

What do you mean no reply? If see replies I answer them. Some people have to

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

If you have unwanted outgoing connections then your system is
already compromised. A resident Trojan virus can easily disable
the outgoing portion of the firewall. The primary wall of defense
should be prevention of incoming viruses and malware.

 

[I.C. Greenfields]

If you have unwanted outgoing connections then your system is
already compromised.

It's compromised by WMP for example?

A resident Trojan virus can easily disable
the outgoing portion of the firewall. The primary wall of defense
should be prevention of incoming viruses and malware.

Please recommend software that monitors connections both ways that works
with Vista.

 

[Mick Murphy]

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

Malwarebytes is as the name says, a Malware Remover!
For the Free version scroll down their page to either download from
Download.com, or Major Geeks.com

Sounds like you do have an infection. Defferent programs find different
things.
Give the above a whirl.

 

[Questor]

--->

What BUG is trapping the programs and stopping Task manager from working
and causing the lockups? I did remove Zone Alarm this morning, but you
failed to tell me what to replace it with that monitors crap trying to
phone home. MS firewall allows anything and everything to connect to the
net.

ZoneAlarm traps programs (notably web browsers and email clients) by
holding them in the 'system' area which prevents 'user' programs such as
Task Manager and Process Explorer from killing them. In the ZA forum,
there are quite a few posts pertaining to this particular bug. They
appear to be working on it, but haven't come up with a solution yet.

Questor

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

What part of I did uninstall it and am still waiting for you to recommend
another firewall that blocks unwanted outgoing connections.

I used to recommend ZA because of its outward protection, I've more
recently become convinced that outward protection is an illusion. Once
one of the nasties gets into your computer, it can essentially do
whatever it wants, including circumventing the firewall. So the extra
protection that a firewall that monitors outbound traffic provides is
more apparent than real.

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

Inline:

If you have unwanted outgoing connections then your system is
already compromised.

It's compromised by WMP for example?

Any outbound connections eminating from WMP are benign (not
malicious). It's the malicious malware you should be cncerned about.

A resident Trojan virus can easily disable
the outgoing portion of the firewall. The primary wall of defense
should be prevention of incoming viruses and malware.

Please recommend software that monitors connections both ways that works
with Vista.

Windows Firewall in Vista can be configured to monitor outbound
connections, should you be so inclined. See
http://www.vistastic.com/2007/03/09/windows-firewall-enable-outbound-filtering