pchnotify error on boot-up

[Guest]

I'm running Windows XP on an HP machine which has always worked really well
for the last two years. However, some months ago I lost MSPaint and the
Calculator. I was trying to remove MSN Messenger from the system - to stop my
son using the damned machine! - and when I rebooted I had lost those programs.

Now, as I couldn't download them from the t'nterweb I went for the next best
thing and downloaded Paint.net and all the associated .net files that had to
come with it.

HOWEVER ... since then, I get the following message on-boot-up ...

"pchnotify.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry
for the inconvenience."

And now my Norton continually tells me that my anti-virus and firewall are
turned off, although it corrects itself within a few minutes. As to the pch
error message, simply closing the message gets rid of it and as yet I have
encountered no problems with software, but one day I just might!

I have contacted HP and they made a couiple of suggestions which failed and
ultimately they suggested I use my recovery discs to get back to square one,
which I don't want to do. I have subsequently managed to reinstall both the
MSPaint and Calculator programs but would like to keep Paint.net as it's
rather good.

So ...

Can anyone suggest anything please?

Thanks in anticipation.

 

[Justin Brown - SYNACS]

Your symptoms with Norton sound like one of two things has occurred.
You've either obtained a virus that infected you an continues to
attempt to turn off NAV/NIS, or your Norton Internet Security has
somehow been corrupted. Either way, I would take HP's advice. Backup
anything important to CD or flash drive, run the recovery procedure,
and reinstall all of your programs. Your life will be much easier after
that (possible for another two years too).

Be sure to backup your e-mail store if you use Outlook or Outlook
Express.