XP Problems!

[Fred S]

Hi,

A relative who lives far from me called about her Dell PC running XP Home.

Apparently she is getting a pop up that can't be stopped referring to
the installation of MS Money 2002 - she doesn't have MS Money 2002. The
pop up box says it needs the CD for the install to continue.

Next, she says the Start, All Programs Menu has nearly all items empty
that is, only a few of her programs show. As an example Word is there
but will not run. She can, however, click on a "doc" file using Windows
explorer and it will print the document.

Her son has been on the WWW a lot and DL's music as well as other stuff
and she has McAfee running. I had her run Trend Micro's web scan and it
found 11 viruses and AdAware also found and removed 30-50 spyware items.

After all this, the Money 2002 pop up continues and the All Programs
menu is still missing nearly all entries.

Looks like the viruses have been the cause.

I've told her that she needs to save as many data files as possible as a
reinstall is probably needed.

Can anyone offer any advice before we go on?

Thanks, Fred

 

[AnonPoster]

Hi,

A relative who lives far from me called about her Dell PC running XP Home.

Apparently she is getting a pop up that can't be stopped referring to
the installation of MS Money 2002 - she doesn't have MS Money 2002. The
pop up box says it needs the CD for the install to continue.

Next, she says the Start, All Programs Menu has nearly all items empty
that is, only a few of her programs show. As an example Word is there
but will not run. She can, however, click on a "doc" file using Windows
explorer and it will print the document.

Her son has been on the WWW a lot and DL's music as well as other stuff
and she has McAfee running. I had her run Trend Micro's web scan and it
found 11 viruses and AdAware also found and removed 30-50 spyware items.

After all this, the Money 2002 pop up continues and the All Programs
menu is still missing nearly all entries.

Looks like the viruses have been the cause.

I've told her that she needs to save as many data files as possible as a
reinstall is probably needed.

Can anyone offer any advice before we go on?

Thanks, Fred

First piece of advice is for her to forbid her son using P2P to download
music, or anything else for that matter, ever again.

Sometimes, with multiple viruses and other malware infections, the best
thing to do is back up your data and start over. You're correct there.
If she has a CDRW, she should copy all of her documents, pics, emails --
anything she wants to save over to CDs. Make sure she thinks thru what
needs saving. [The procedure I follow is to create a folder on the
desktop and copy everything there first to make sure I get everything I
want to save.] Then, she should proceed with a recovery according to
Dell's protocol. If she still has their tech support, she might want to
call or have you call for assistance.

As far as saving things like her emails and address book (I'm guessing
OE) you can post on their newsgroup for procedures. I'm not familiar.

I went thru almost this exact same scenario with a friend whose son did
the same thing and really junked the computer. [I let him know in no
uncertain terms what he'd done and how] The only thing to do was a
reinstall from the manufacturer's files. I called them for assistance.
In her case, it was boot to a floppy and recover from a hidden
partition. Dell may or may not have provided recovery disks with your
friend's machine -- the recovery could be in a partition. [BTW, Dell
currently will supply recovery CDs for add'l $10]

 

[Plato]

Looks like the viruses have been the cause.

Agreed. Even if you remove them, the damage remains.

I've told her that she needs to save as many data files as possible as a
reinstall is probably needed.

She needs to stop allowing her son from downloading files from unknown
sites via peer to peer file sharing prgrams. Or, even after the fix is
done, the same thing will happen again in a week or so.