Slyweaver said:
Somehow my regitry has been locked. every time I try to start a virus detection program or even type the word virus in ie, i run into problems. when i try to start regedit, it gives me "regedit has been disabled by administrator" I'm the administrator. I've tried the fixes listed here with no success. Do i have a virus? An if so, is my only hope reformating?
What are the other problems? What happens when you launch an AV
program or when you enter the word virus in IE?
It sounds very much like you have a virus of some kind on your
computer. Try cleaning up your Startup items, as most viruses and
spyware load themselves that way.
Use Start - Run - MSCONFIG and go to the Startup tab. Make note of
which items are currently unchecked and then click on the "Disable
all" button. Do not restart the computer yet.
Then go to the Service tab and click on the checkbox for "Hide all
Microsoft Services" to select it and then click on the "Disable all"
button.
Shut down and restart the computer.
Go to
http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger and download the free Stinger
virus removal tool and run it. This will clean up pretty much all of
the current crop of baddies that may have gotten installed on your
computer.
Then go to
http://www.lavasoft.de and download AdAware (free).
Install it, update it, and run it to clean up any advertising spyware
that may be on your computer.
Get your antivirus software updated as soon as the above items have
finished and then do a full virus scan of your computer. Stinger is
good but not absolutely perfect.
That should have found at least a few items that were causing your
problems. If so then you can probably go back into MSCONFIG and but
your Startup and Services back to the way they were originally.
Post a response back here if you have any residual problems after
completing the above steps; and especially if you are unable to
complete these items.
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."
