Search & System Restore not working

[Guest]

Several evenings ago, it seemed like something was downloading that should
not have been and then a message popped up, something like “do you want to
install something poker†now. I declined and figured it was adware. I ran
spybot, adaware, hijack this and Norton anti-virus and found and removed the
suggested items-including one or two funny looking items via Hijackthis.
Then I wanted to go to “Search†and see what files had been added to my
computer that night to see if there was anything suspicious that I should
remove. When I clicked on search, I got a message “A file that is needed to
run search companion cannot be found. You may need to run set up.†The
search mechanism won’t work beyond that point. (I checked the Windows and
Program folders by clicking down from the My Computer icon and the only file
I could find that had downloaded at about the time the problem surfaced was
“setupapiâ€, but I think this is a normal windows update file, correct?)

Once this happened I figured there might be a virus or spyware or something
that could not be reached other than from safe mode, with system restore
turned off. However, when I tried to check the turn off system restore
button, I received message “System Restore encountered an error trying to
enable disable one or more drives. Please restart your machine and try
again.†(Restarting did not work.) MS has a page on the search companion
issue, with three solutions, but they have not worked for me because I
already have Windows XP SP2 installed, the hot fix is older than Windows XP
SP2, and my efforts to reinstall srchasst.inf apparently did not take. I
also attempted to correct by Start/Run/Okay regarding jscript.dll,
vbscript.dll, and urlmon.dll. Additionally, for what it is worth, Norton
Windoc indicates I am missing “mscoree.dllâ€, stating “C:\Program Files\Common
Files\Install Shield\Professsional Runtime\0701\Intel32\Dot Net
Installer.exe†cannot access it.

I considered using system restore to return my settings to a time when the
search worked, but when I tried this I got a message that system restore
cannot protect my computer.

I am afraid the more a look around, the more trouble I will find.

Any ideas?

Thank you in advance

(e-mail address removed)

 

[Guest]

Several evenings ago, it seemed like something was downloading that should
not have been and then a message popped up, something like “do you want to
install something poker†now. I declined and figured it was adware. I ran
spybot, adaware, hijack this and Norton anti-virus and found and removed the
suggested items-including one or two funny looking items via Hijackthis.
Then I wanted to go to “Search†and see what files had been added to my
computer that night to see if there was anything suspicious that I should
remove. When I clicked on search, I got a message “A file that is needed to
run search companion cannot be found. You may need to run set up.†The
search mechanism won’t work beyond that point. (I checked the Windows and
Program folders by clicking down from the My Computer icon and the only file
I could find that had downloaded at about the time the problem surfaced was
“setupapiâ€, but I think this is a normal windows update file, correct?)

Once this happened I figured there might be a virus or spyware or something
that could not be reached other than from safe mode, with system restore
turned off. However, when I tried to check the turn off system restore
button, I received message “System Restore encountered an error trying to
enable disable one or more drives. Please restart your machine and try
again.†(Restarting did not work.) MS has a page on the search companion
issue, with three solutions, but they have not worked for me because I
already have Windows XP SP2 installed, the hot fix is older than Windows XP
SP2, and my efforts to reinstall srchasst.inf apparently did not take. I
also attempted to correct by Start/Run/Okay regarding jscript.dll,
vbscript.dll, and urlmon.dll. Additionally, for what it is worth, Norton
Windoc indicates I am missing “mscoree.dllâ€, stating “C:\Program Files\Common
Files\Install Shield\Professsional Runtime\0701\Intel32\Dot Net
Installer.exe†cannot access it.

I considered using system restore to return my settings to a time when the
search worked, but when I tried this I got a message that system restore
cannot protect my computer.

I am afraid the more a look around, the more trouble I will find.

Any ideas?

Thank you in advance

(e-mail address removed)

 

[Guest]

Meanwhile, I've run sfc /scannow and it ran all the way through, but when it
was finished, it didn't indicate whether there were any problems or that
everything was okay-it just stopped. I also downloaded Ransack, as an
alternative to search, to see if any odd files were downloaded at about the
time the problem started (and for weeks before and after). I may have found a
few problem files with it. Is is as good as the regular search?

Could I have removed a file with Hi Jack this that would cause system
restore and/or search not to work? (I could have been mistaken about the
order I did things in.) An item known as "*StateMgr" is not on startup tab
at msconfig--could this be the trouble?

Sorry for the scatter brained approach . . . any assistance greatly
appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

(e-mail address removed)