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Thread: Win XP Questions

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    Question Win XP Questions

    Right, I use XP on my laptop, not had any problems- not got broadband (yet- coming in the next few days), not got viruses, got AVG and ZoneAlarm installed, got messenger disabled.

    However, my friend came down on saturday with his ill XP box. Some program had got onto his computer, and:

    Always asked, on booting up, to connect to the internet.
    Disabled Search (click search, nothing happened, eventually goes back to the start menu).
    Disconnect (or shut down? Can't remember now) after downloading 400Kb

    Now I thought that sounded a bit like the blaster jobbie, but he told me he'd already got and tried the MS patch, and it found nothing. Okay, so..something else/a different variant.

    Sadly I went in feet first and started disabling services. What resulted was basically I disabled something that everything else depended on. Everything else (read, Installer amongst other services...installer being useful when you want to install AV software!) then stopped, giving *I think* error message 1068 a dependent service isn't running (maybe 1082 as well? 1072?) when I tried to restart in Services.

    This also caused the taskbar to default to being 0 bars high, and...windows not docking on it at all (minimising would do what used to happen in W 3.1, kinda like windows itsself being a big window and everything else being a sub-window...). Contextual menus (right click) stopped working too..couldn't copy and paste between drives, windows, even within a window. Fortunately cmd still worked, and so did burning software, so I was able to trawl off all his..er..pictures.

    In the end I just reinstalled over the top, and got him to get Norton...which I haven't heard if it found anything yet.

    So, anyone have a diagnosis, list of services you don't f*** with, etc?

    Funny thing is, I'm sposed to be looking at my boss's niece's computer too, which I have the green light to reformat. Its also giving "choose how you'd like to connect" messages on startup (plus MS error messages). Some "XXXFreeWebsite" crap has installed itsself...could anyone give me a brief overview of how these things get installed? I don't think anyone would have been going to dodgy websites with it...

    Could someone give me an answer on whether viri and ad-software that Lavasoft detects are totally different, or is there a meld at some point?

    My boss, for example, gets bad popups from porn sites when going to totally innocuous sites..how/how do you disable? He's got NAV 2004 and Lavasoft Ad-Aware running...what do you need to clean THAT kind of popup off? Personally I use MyIE, but he doesn't like it....

    Okay so thats my longest post on here by far. I'm genuinely interested to hear full and in depth answers, as well as be pointed to dozens of links (even if it is just google with keywords!).

    Cheers!
    Well Hello!

  2. #2
    only the finest beef
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    Sorry to be blunt mate, but for the list of services you don't f*** with:- really should be anything you don't understand.

    But then if you don't mind doing a reinstall - go for it and learn form what you find out

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    Oh no!I've re-dorkalated! Jiff Lemon's Avatar
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    there's a list floating round the web of services that are "safe" to disable, though I think the advice above sums it up. In the above scenario, you could have tried either booting into safe mode or into the recovery console to try restart the services.

    First port of call would probably be Spybot search and destroy. Make sure you download the updates too. It'll trawl through the system and pull out most of the malware such as dialler progs and search page hijackers.

    Next port of call would be updated antivirus - AVG completely free and is the absolute bare minimum you should have. Also remember to keep it updated.

    Finally, the good old google toolbar, installed without the advanced features does two fab things: (1) gives you instant access to google search and (2) has a handy popup stopper!

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    Is there a dependency list/map anywhere?

    Reinstall doesn't bother me at all...bought the MCSE/MCP Windows 2000 book thingummy over xmas, but its not actually that in depth...well as far in to it as I have got so far, anyway.

    So in short there are things that you can turn off that won't turn back on?? I did boot in safe mode but that had no effect, same services not started.
    Well Hello!

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    Just having a look at an article on techspot now, seems interesting...

    http://www.techspot.com/tweaks/win2k...es/index.shtml
    Well Hello!

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