Help!! Vista suddenly goes crazy!

[MeNotKnow]

You don't really need to protect the Internet from your computer by blocking
outgoing traffic. If you're doing this to try to detect malware that's
already infected your computer, chances of that working are slim to none. So
you might consider just leaving the firewall as-is. I've used the built-in
firewall with the default settings since it was the ICF in the first release
of Windows XP and I've never had a single firewall-related security breach.
Most that stuff about blocking outgoing ports if bs written my marketing
people who know nothing about computer security just trying to convince you
to buy a product you don't really need.

By the way, I teach computer security at the college level. So it's not like
I'm just making this up. Search anything about this topic not written by
matketing people trying to sell you a product (or people who got their
education from those people) and you'll see. The real pros look at outgoing
port blocking as a means of "after the infection malware protection" as a
total joke.

 

[MeNotKnow]

Disregard that preceding reply. Was supposed to go with a different post.

 

[Guest]

Hi all,

This morning my good-running Vista crashed suddenly and restarted itself
automatically. After that, my Vista is now behaves like crazy and weird!

The problems are:

1) If I double click folder in Explorer, it now Open to New Window. The
option is currently set to "Open in same window". I really hate it to Open
the folder to New Window, how do I stop this?

2) IE7 suddenly can't open in New Window. When I right click to a link then
click "Open in New Window", it just sits there, nothing happened. Same thing
if we used window.open javascript. Looks like IE7 suddenly corrupted or kind
of that, but I can browse and Open in new Tab without problem. Any ideas?

3) Many shortcuts suddenly can't be opened. Usually I can double click to
open jpg, gif or png picture. Now double click on them won't do anything.
Weird!

4) If I right click on the image, there are two "Preview" menu items. One
with bold, one without. Both of them didn't work as well. (This might related
to #3).

5) If I clicked on the "picture slideshow" in the SideBar, usually it will
open the Photo Gallery Viewer automatically. Now it said, "No such interface
supported".

Please note that all of these problems appear suddenly this morning! I
didn't install or configure anything prior to it!

Please help! What should I do now to get back to my good running Vista? I
certainly dont want to reinstall because I have many development applications
installed.

---------------

I found more problems.

The standard commands for built-in supported extensions now no longer work
as well. For example, previously if I currently selected on a zip file, the
"Extract All Files" command will appear in the toolbar. Now, it just has
"Open" option, and the sub options only contain "Internet Explorer". Is Vista
going crazy? Opening a zip file with "Internet Explorer"? Hmm...

I think I just need to reset the shell extensions/built-in commands to the
Vista default, or kind of that. I just need to do how to do the tasks without
has to perform reinstallation. Thanks.

Read the discussion in another forum:
https://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1328814&SiteID=17

Regards,
James.

 

[Paul Smith]

Have you tried running System Restore?

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User.
http://www.windowsresource.net/

*Remove nospam. to reply by e-mail*

 

[Guest]

Paul,

No, I can't run System Restore because I don't enable it. My C Drive is
running low so it is disabled automatically I guess.

Any ideas?

 

[Guest]

Hi, James.
This sound very familiar to me. I had the same problem on my previous laptop
with XPH. I do not know if my suggestions will help you on the Vista
platform, but here is what I did.
First I downloaded and installed a brand new anti-virus software. I used
AVG-antivirus FREE edition (www.free.grisoft.com) After this i run Spybot
Search and Desreoy (http://www.spybot.info/). In addition I ran the AdAware
from Lavasoft. (http://www.lavasoft.de/products/ad-aware_se_personal.php).

This recepie found to trojan viruses, 150 items of spyware/malware. The
AdAware found a couple of more spys that the S&D didnt find. I ran them
several times just to be sure.

In the end my XPP returned to "normal"

If this does not help at all, you might consider that some of your hardware
is beginning to fail. Possible RAM, prosessor or some other card.
It is a longshot but regulary run some antivirus and antispyware program
prevents the PC to go on a roadtrip...

Good luck!!

 

[Guest]

Hi Newton,

My Windows Defender is active and reported that it is running normally. It
never found any kind of trojans or spy/malware before.

However, I will give AVG anti virus a try.

Thanks,
James.

 

[Guest]

Hi.
Yes. Defender is a great tool, but not always 100%. It is recomended that
you use several spyware programs just to be sure.... Just humor me and try
spybot and AdAware.....

 

[Guest]

Hi Newton,

Ok, I installed both of the programs you mentioned. Run them. The spybot did
detect some issues but all of them are only cookies related. Ok, I fixed them
all. The same thing goes to the ad aware.

However, it didn't fix the problem.

Any other ideas?

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

Why did it do that?
- was there a mains power glitch?
- were you online at the time, or WiFi-exposed?
- what apps were running?
- what were you doing?

Kill "Automatically Restart on System Errors" at birth - it's a really
dumb duuuuhfault that just hides what you need to know and forces the
OS to attempt to startup straight after something knocked it down.

At least then you can read and digi-photo any BSoD you get.

Sounds like you have a barfed HKCR (H_KEY_CLASSES_ROOT) in your
registry - that is what defines file associations and CLSID shell
integrations. This is in turn built up from a mix of system-side
HKLM...Classes and per-account HKCU...Classes, with an added Vista
wrinkle that there may be virtualized "HKLM" settings as well.

If you have a different user account, try that - that will avoid the
per-account component of HKCR.

At this point, I'd want to harvest backed-up registry hives from
System Restore points; you'd need a Bart CDR boot or similar
non-HD-based boot to do that.

Aside from a one-shot (Win95-style) partial backup on boot, these SR
copies are the only registry backups maintained by Vista. Crazy, but
there you are... you may want to use ERUNT in future for this purpose
(run as admin, set up as a Task) if running without SR on C:

Step one is to determine why the PC crashed and ate the registry in
the first place. See initial Qs... were you running something you
were busy writing when it crashed?

Still pointing to HKCR.

--------------- ---- --- -- - - - -

Saws are too hard to use.
Be easier to use!

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 02:52:02 -0700, Newton Tech

Yes. Defender is a great tool, but not always 100%. It is recomended that
you use several spyware programs just to be sure.... Just humor me and try
spybot and AdAware.....

....and once you've formally excluded traditional "hard" malware, other
good free "antispyware" scanners are A-Squared and AVG AntiSpyware
(formally Ewido, which was one of the best).

If working from Bart as your formal scanning mOS, you can use...
- F-Prot CLI scanner
- McAfee CLI scanner *
- Sophos CLI scanner *
- KAV CLI scanner *
- Trend SysClean *
....as your "hard" malware scans from Bart, and these...
- AdAware
- Spybot
- A-Squared
....via the RunScanner plugin. I've not been able to use AVG
Antispyware from Bart boot, so I use that from Safe Cmd.

* Easiest obtained and updated via Dave Lipman's Multi-AV

--------------- ---- --- -- - - - -

Saws are too hard to use.
Be easier to use!