Need help ASAP!!!!

[John]

My family's XP workstation running Windows XP workstation with a 75GB hard
drive, and 512MB of RAM running at 1.91 ghz is down. Well the computer boots
but it cannot access the Internet. We live in a rural area and are using
dialup. We usually can connect at about 50K or around there.

Everytime we connect we try and load a webpage we get the "Page cannot be
displayed message." It does this on every website we try to access. I already
called our ISP and they say our settings are fine. What I did to resolve this
problem was the following.

1) Ran Norton Anti Virus and it found 8 viruses which it removed
2) Ran Norton System Works Win Doctor and it fixed many problems
3) Ran Webroot SpySweeper and it found over 3,000 traces of spyware. They
were all cleaned.
4) To the failure of all the problems above I tried a System Restore to a
date
when the Internet was working which was 2 days ago, but the restore failed and
said that nothintg has been changed since that date. I then tried a restore
to
a week ago and receieved the same message. Personally I think that the built
in restore system is a joke compared to some third party tools.

Just a note just know as I was composing this message on my Windows CE device.

On the desktop the Norton System works icon in the menu below just vanished I
opened the application and the enable auto protect tab is disabled under the
NAV options. So I enabled it and clicked back and it was disabled aagin. Do
you think this could be part of the problem? Perhaps there is a virus that
can
only be removed from a boot disk? On this machine we have not created boot
disks. However on my Windows 98 laptop I have createsd floppy disk boot sets
for fixing virus problems that get below the os. Perhaps this should also be
done on this XP station. I am looking and I do not see the option for
creating
boot disks with Norton System Works 2004.

Thanks...


John

 

[Guest]

My family's XP workstation running Windows XP workstation with a 75GB hard
drive, and 512MB of RAM running at 1.91 ghz is down. Well the computer
boots
but it cannot access the Internet. We live in a rural area and are using
dialup. We usually can connect at about 50K or around there.

Everytime we connect we try and load a webpage we get the "Page cannot be
displayed message." It does this on every website we try to access. I
already
called our ISP and they say our settings are fine. What I did to resolve
this
problem was the following.

1) Ran Norton Anti Virus and it found 8 viruses which it removed
2) Ran Norton System Works Win Doctor and it fixed many problems
3) Ran Webroot SpySweeper and it found over 3,000 traces of spyware.
They
were all cleaned.
4) To the failure of all the problems above I tried a System Restore to a
date
when the Internet was working which was 2 days ago, but the restore failed
and
said that nothintg has been changed since that date. I then tried a
restore
to
a week ago and receieved the same message. Personally I think that the
built
in restore system is a joke compared to some third party tools.

Just a note just know as I was composing this message on my Windows CE
device.

On the desktop the Norton System works icon in the menu below just
vanished I
opened the application and the enable auto protect tab is disabled under
the
NAV options. So I enabled it and clicked back and it was disabled aagin.
Do
you think this could be part of the problem? Perhaps there is a virus
that
can
only be removed from a boot disk? On this machine we have not created
boot
disks. However on my Windows 98 laptop I have createsd floppy disk boot
sets
for fixing virus problems that get below the os. Perhaps this should also
be
done on this XP station. I am looking and I do not see the option for
creating
boot disks with Norton System Works 2004.

Thanks...


John

Norton. Akk!

 

[Ron Martell]

See my comments interspersed.

My family's XP workstation running Windows XP workstation with a 75GB hard
drive, and 512MB of RAM running at 1.91 ghz is down. Well the computer boots
but it cannot access the Internet. We live in a rural area and are using
dialup. We usually can connect at about 50K or around there.

Everytime we connect we try and load a webpage we get the "Page cannot be
displayed message." It does this on every website we try to access. I already
called our ISP and they say our settings are fine. What I did to resolve this
problem was the following.

1) Ran Norton Anti Virus and it found 8 viruses which it removed

It appears that you were using the computer and connecting to the
Internet without an up to date antivirus program in place. That is
suicidal, plain and simple.

2) Ran Norton System Works Win Doctor and it fixed many problems

Running Norton Witch Doctor is among the worst things you can do to
any computer. Do yourself and your computer a big favor and never
repeat never use this piece of unmititaged crapware again.

3) Ran Webroot SpySweeper and it found over 3,000 traces of spyware. They
were all cleaned.

While I have not seen any really negative reviews regarding Spy
Sweeper it is a general rule that no single spyware removal program is
going to do a complete job. Effective detection and removal usually
requires a combination of several programs. See MVP Jim Eshelman's
Spyware Quick Fix page at http://www.aumha.org/a/quickfix.htm for a
well tested and proven procedure.

4) To the failure of all the problems above I tried a System Restore to a
date
when the Internet was working which was 2 days ago, but the restore failed and
said that nothintg has been changed since that date. I then tried a restore
to
a week ago and receieved the same message. Personally I think that the built
in restore system is a joke compared to some third party tools.

The last thing you want to do after cleaning up viruses and spyware is
a System Restore, as that is liable to bring back at least some of the
items that you just removed.

System Restore works well, and I have yet to see a third party system
that offers any substantive advantages except perhaps for full disk
imaging systems, and these are time consuming and require large
amounts of storage capacity.

Just a note just know as I was composing this message on my Windows CE device.

On the desktop the Norton System works icon in the menu below just vanished I
opened the application and the enable auto protect tab is disabled under the
NAV options. So I enabled it and clicked back and it was disabled aagin. Do
you think this could be part of the problem? Perhaps there is a virus that
can
only be removed from a boot disk? On this machine we have not created boot
disks. However on my Windows 98 laptop I have createsd floppy disk boot sets
for fixing virus problems that get below the os. Perhaps this should also be
done on this XP station. I am looking and I do not see the option for
creating
boot disks with Norton System Works 2004.

Thanks...

Highly unlikely that you have an unremovable virus. However your
installed Norton could be badly compromised as interfering with
antivirus software is a common trick for the newer viruses.

Go to http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger and download the latest version
of Stinger (free). This will detect and remove the most common of the
current crop of viruses and that may be enough to restore full
functionality to your Norton. Stinger is small enough to fit onto a
3.5 inch diskette.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP\)]

Ron has given advice on most issues.

With regard to System Restore, given the viruses and potential
spyware/malware, it is likely the System Restore file store was severely
compromised. Had you had a similar third party utility, given the
information you posted, it's likely the same would have been true of its
file store as well.

That said, you should understand, System Restore is only meant to be a first
line of defense, a means of taking your system settings (and nothing else)
back to a time when things were working and is meant to be used in
circumstances where you might have installed something, an application,
hardware, new drivers and update, etc. that might cause your system to
become unstable.

As Ron Martell pointed out in his post, if you suspect a virus or some other
form of malware, you should not resort to System Restore.

In order to fix a compromised or corrupted file store, you need to turn off
System Restore, reboot and turn it back on. Open Control Panel, open
System, go to the System Restore tab, place a check next to "Turn off System
Restore on all drives," then reboot and remove the check to turn System
Restore back on. This will delete all current restore points but since they
are useless to you at the moment anyway, that shouldn't be an issue.

System Restore was not meant to replace backing up your system on a regular
basis and it's also a good idea to look into imaging software as you can
then supplement your backups with an image of your setup in good condition,
quickly replace a setup that has gone bad and then restore your data from
the backup.

 

[John]

See my reply

----------

See my comments interspersed.



It appears that you were using the computer and connecting to the
Internet without an up to date antivirus program in place. That is
suicidal, plain and simple.

Its my family's PC and they are not computer people. I've tried to tell them
to be more into maintenence, but they do not listen. I believe the 8 viruses
were active long before the definitions were updated. They last told me they
updated the defs a month ago.

Running Norton Witch Doctor is among the worst things you can do to
any computer. Do yourself and your computer a big favor and never
repeat never use this piece of unmititaged crapware again.

I dont know about XP, but I've used Norton on my own PC's since win95 and
aolmost never had any problems. XP is what they are using, and Norton may be
crap on this os. Norton has fixed many, many problems on my own personnal 9x
PC's over the years, honestly... However I once got a virus in 1998 that wiped
out my entire hard drive and McAfee was unable to clean it,even though I was
running the latest defs. McAfee said I needed to upgrade my virus engine to
clean the virus. After this horribe experience, I moved to Norton and have not
looked back since. But as I said XP I cant comment on, its way different than
Windows 9x.

While I have not seen any really negative reviews regarding Spy
Sweeper it is a general rule that no single spyware removal program is
going to do a complete job. Effective detection and removal usually
requires a combination of several programs. See MVP Jim Eshelman's
Spyware Quick Fix page at http://www.aumha.org/a/quickfix.htm for a
well tested and proven procedure.

I've tried to get my family to go to Best Buy and buy themselves a commercial
spy cleaner and updated defs, but they do not want to spend the money.
SpySweeper is free... McAfee makes a good spy cleaner I understand.

The last thing you want to do after cleaning up viruses and spyware is
a System Restore, as that is liable to bring back at least some of the
items that you just removed.

Did it do anything? It said nothikng was changed, does this mean the viruses
are back?

System Restore works well, and I have yet to see a third party system
that offers any substantive advantages except perhaps for full disk
imaging systems, and these are time consuming and require large
amounts of storage capacity.


Highly unlikely that you have an unremovable virus. However your
installed Norton could be badly compromised as interfering with
antivirus software is a common trick for the newer viruses.

Yes I believe this to be the fault.

Go to http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger and download the latest version
of Stinger (free). This will detect and remove the most common of the
current crop of viruses and that may be enough to restore full
functionality to your Norton. Stinger is small enough to fit onto a
3.5 inch diskette.

I have a problem. None of the laptops availble have a floppy disk drive. Darn
how I wish I would have brought down my laptop instead of my Jornada 720 HPC.

Thanks,

John

 

[Guest]

My family's XP workstation running Windows XP workstation with a 75GB hard
drive, and 512MB of RAM running at 1.91 ghz is down. Well the computer boots
but it cannot access the Internet. We live in a rural area and are using
dialup. We usually can connect at about 50K or around there.

Everytime we connect we try and load a webpage we get the "Page cannot be
displayed message." It does this on every website we try to access. I already
called our ISP and they say our settings are fine. What I did to resolve this
problem was the following.

1) Ran Norton Anti Virus and it found 8 viruses which it removed
2) Ran Norton System Works Win Doctor and it fixed many problems

Norton's Win Doctor has had some compatability issues (in my experiences)
with Windows XP (Home, Pro and Media Center Edition). You may want to look
into Third PArty software other than Norton's for repairing Windows problems.
For registry problems try using JV16 PowerTools from www.jv16.org (it does
wonders with other "Windows" problems as well as cleaning the registry of
unneeded and old junk).

3) Ran Webroot SpySweeper and it found over 3,000 traces of spyware. They
were all cleaned.

Also try using Spybot S&D to remove any other traces of spyware\adware.
Another good spyware\adware removal tool is Ad-Aware from Lavasoft.

4) To the failure of all the problems above I tried a System Restore to a
date
when the Internet was working which was 2 days ago, but the restore failed and
said that nothintg has been changed since that date. I then tried a restore
to
a week ago and receieved the same message. Personally I think that the built
in restore system is a joke compared to some third party tools.

The only third part "restore" program that I have used is GoBack from
Symantec (bought from Roxio). It works great but it is a resource hog and
tends to slow systems down considerably. I personally and professionally
recommend drive imaging using tools like DriveImage (now from Symantec),
Ghost (includes DriveImage Technolgy - from Symantec), or True Image (from
Acronis).

Just a note just know as I was composing this message on my Windows CE device.

On the desktop the Norton System works icon in the menu below just vanished I
opened the application and the enable auto protect tab is disabled under the
NAV options. So I enabled it and clicked back and it was disabled aagin. Do
you think this could be part of the problem?

I have seen this problem several times and was able to "repair" the problem
by downloading the latest version of "Live Update" from Symantec, installing
it, rebooting the computer and then running live update to get Norton as up
to date as possible.

Perhaps there is a virus that can
only be removed from a boot disk?

This is deffinately true - there are some viruses that need to be removed by
use of a bootable disk but remember that the bootable disk needs to be
running a form of DOS that will recognise NTFS (most of the tools that you
would use to remove this type of virus will boot to a version of DOS that
will read NTFS).

On this machine we have not created boot
disks. However on my Windows 98 laptop I have createsd floppy disk boot sets
for fixing virus problems that get below the os. Perhaps this should also be
done on this XP station. I am looking and I do not see the option for
creating
boot disks with Norton System Works 2004.

I do not know if this option exists within NSW 2004.

Thanks...


John

For recovering from disk errors do not use Disk Doctor or ScanDisk or
CheckDisk (these last two are part of Windows). I recommend using Spinrite 6
from www.grc.com. It does a much more comprehensive job of checking and
repairing disk errors.