limited account won`t work properly

[Guest]

i have an administrator account and a limited account on my system.the
trouble is that when connected to the internet on the limited account a lot
of web links,search engines won`t work.is my security set wrong.do i have to
give the limited account access rights.i am using windows media edition.i am
a broadband user.any help gratefully recieved.

 

[JW]

Depending on the web links and search engines, it might be good that
they don't work on limited accounts, though they work OK on
administrator accounts. Maybe the web links and search engines don't
work right on limited accounts, because they are trying to download crap
onto folders that limited accounts don't have proper access to.

You might get more help here, if you provide specific information about
which web links and search engines do not work on your limited account,
and specific information about the error messages you get.

 

[Guest]

hello jw.
i have a list by no means all of them but here are some of the web pages
that don`t work.
yahoo home page(my son uses yahoo mail).only the news links work on this page.
google home page inc the search box.
alta vista search
ask jeeves search
msn hotmail sign in(my son has a hotmail account)
no error messages come up.
if you try opening them up in a new window all you get is a blank window.
hope this info is of any help.
i don`t want to give my son administrator rights as he would then have
access to make system wide changes.

 

[JW]

my first gut feeling is that you have a hijacker on your PC, that
hijacks web page requests (without error messages) and often redirects
attempts to reach popular web sites and search engines.

Try using HiJack This, CWShredder, Spybot Search & Destroy, and a
proactive anti-spyware program like CounterSpy.

Be sure to let us know if these find anything.

 

[Guest]

hello.
no i tried spybot search and destroy but it came up with nothing.
i wouldn`t have thought i`d caught something so quick as my drive in my
system is brand new and i had only got into setting up the accounts.

 

[JW]

that was my best guess, based on the symptoms (most of the sites you
listed are either search engines primarily or offer web search
capability as a feature). If it were me, I still would try at least the
following: HiJack This (specializing in hijackers), CWShredder
(specializing in a particularly stubborn hijacker), Microsoft's free
anti-spyware detection/removal tool, and the 15-day trial version of
CounterSpy.

Don't think that one anti-spyware product will detect all known
infections. Even the best anti-spyware product detected less than 67%
of all spyware infections placed on a test computer by a testing lab,
according to the last article I read on the subject.

Also read the section titled Leak Test at www.grc.com.
You will be amazed how easy it is (on the great majority of
insufficiently configured PCs) for any evil program to rename itself to
explore.exe (after renaming the real explore program to something else),
and then start using default permissions already granted on the cheap
hardware router or pseudo-security suite (e.g. port 80 or port 110) to
start sending all your personal data to Russia.

Which leads to my last suggestion. Delete or rename your explore.exe
and replace it with one from work. Compare the version, date and size.
If different, maybe you have an infection masquerading as explore.exe.
Of course, this suggestion is only valid if your work PCs are not
using an infection masquerading as explore.exe too.

 

[JW]

please pardon me for a mistake I made.
The last two paragraphs of my reply just minutes ago pertain to a
different person with a different problem, but you might still find it
informative.

 

[Guest]

thanx for all your help but the problem has been solved.i reformatted and
reinstalled windows and started again and this time the problem never showed
up.i didn`t do anything different than last time.once again thanx for taking
the time to give me some advice.