RandyL

I've seen Norton removal screw up a lot of computers. Sometimes the Norton removal tool doesn't even help. Just a bad piece of software in my opinion. You are not alone.

Look in Control Panel. Switch to Classic View. Network and Sharing Center>Show me all the files and folders I am sharing. What do you see?

I'm going to have to pass on this one for now. It's way too late for me to set it up and screw it up in order for me to undo it later. Hopefully someone will figure it out before I get time to play with it. Vista is sure is new isn't it?

From the vista home premium help files. "A guest account is an account for users who don't have a permanent account on your computer or domain. It allows people to use your computer without having access to your personal files. People using the guest account can't install software or hardware, change settings, or create a password." I've never set up a guest account. Just administrator and standard accounts. I'm wondering if you may have set up sharing to allow access to other files, folders or directories.

That's true Dave. But remember. Tomorrows history is written today. I would like to be part of history not just an observer. The generations to come depend on what we do or don't do today. Think of our children and their children etc. It is imperative that we do the best that we can do as individualls not the least that we can do. Politics is one of the most important things you can do to help future generations live in a better world. Don't forget your kids will have kids too.

I think you miss the point Dave. We never will know for sure but we can always pressure them by demanding with our votes that ALL our elected officials do the right thing. By doing nothing we allow special interest groups or the vocal uneducated majority to rule us. I would rather fight for my rights then let them rule my life and my childrens lives. If you don't like the status quo fight to make a difference as I have all my life. As for Clinton and Bush or any other politician I have very strong opinions on all of them. However that's another story.

Thank you bee. Don't worry. I get those ******* all the time.

I prefer the theme from The Green Berets. :) Seriously though. I usually don't get too involved in discussions on religion and politics on the forum but I will make a comment this time. I have been voting since the days of Jimmy Carter in 1976. They had just recently lowered the voting age just in time for me to vote. The youth of that time were instrumental in getting the age lowered and I was proud to have a say in government. The world was a different place then and nothing would have changed if not for active voters. Of course not all the changes have been good but I can't imagine living in a 1976 world today. Voter education is the most important thing to institute meaninful change. As a 30 year Union Worker we worked hard to do just that. Unfortunately many voters are uneducated and have always chosen feel good politics or short sighted solutions instead of researching and getting involved. Politicians know this and prey on those sentiments to get elected because We The People have fallen into that due to our self centered short sighted personal agendas. If you want government to be better you have to get involved. Learn, teach run for office. In the name of God do something or nothing will change. All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

To quote Beavis and Butthead "Fire's cool eh eh eh eh".

Some types of files can contain malicious code. Avoid those at all costs. Better yet never download anything that doesn't come from a trusted source. Never download any type of compressed file or any exe file or any other type of file unless it comes from a trusted source. It really doesn't matter where you save most files. What matters is what you do with them after that. If you execute or open them you can be infected. You can scan files say an exe and it will be clean or scan other types and they may be clean too. The list is too large to elaborate. But once executed it may install malware or download malware. It is complicated. Download and save. Scan. That's all. However this will not protect you. Like I said if the files are not from a secure source you will run a major risk. Hopefully your security programs will protect you or clean up the damage but don't hold your breath. Even though scanned files may show clean once run it could infect. The same thing for program or exe files. The only sure way to protect yourself is to research and use good sense.

bee please don't misunderstand me. Word documents etc. won't be infected. What I mean is say is if you have something like a rar file that is infected. If you unrar it and execute the program it contains it is executed from the drive that Windows is installed on. A backup drive can't execute a virus or trojan. It's only if you open or install such a file or program which will use your main drive.

And as far as any malware getting on that's the whole point of a seperate drive or a partitioned drive. Malware can only infect the drive that has an operating system on it. Of course if you have infected backup files on the other drive and you run them (which means you are doing so from the drive that contains the OS) then you could infect the main drive.

Hi pc; There is absolutely no chance that I would ever recommend or use this program or any other like it. Almost every aspect of it has the ability to mess up your system. A third party defrag, a registry cleaner. data elimination, windows congiguration and startup items are just a few. Programs like these especially those that affect the registry are extremley dangerous even in the hands of skilled users. Please do not use these type of programs. Use the Windows programs instead. i would hate to see you have to reinstall Windows. In addition when looking at their site I see no real support options or privacy policy. This is in itself a red flag.

If you want to turn off Autoplay in XP for that drive I think you need to right click the drive then click properties and you should see where to turn it off. As for the software that came on the drive they are probably just .exe files that you can choose to install and use or not. I usually just keep them on a drive or CD in case I ever feel like playing around with them but so far I never have. Have a read about WD Sync.

And don't forget that the Microsoft support for XP is getting closer to ending. Just another reason for going with the latest OS.

Hi Rodney. I'm confused here. Gozilla is a download manager not a spyware removal program. It is also considered spyware/adware in itself. I highly suggest to uninstall it immediately. Which browser do you normally use. Is it IE6, IE7, Firefox or something else? Once Gozilla is uninstalled let us know how your browser is working. You may need to run our suggested malware programs to clean up your machine properly. Also what security programs do you have and what type of scans have you done.

HAVE A GREAT BIRTHDAY OLD FRIEND

Since it was slow to get to the logon screen but it worked fast to get there in safe mode I doubt it's malware or a hard drive issue. Since you say you have minimal startup items then the only think I can think of is a device or driver issue. Check Device Manager or Event Viewer for problems.

Thanks seth. Since your home page is the only page you can load I think seth is right that it's just a cached page and you might not be on the internet at all. To check this open a command prompt from accessories or by typing command in the Run box. At the command prompt type ping www. yahoo.com making sure you leave a space after ping. Let us know if you received all the packets or if any were lost. As Kelly said have you checked with your ISP to see if there was a problem with them? How are you connecting to the internet and who is your ISP? Are you using IE6 or IE7 or another browser?

You're welcome and I think personally that you would be better off if you used a different Antivirus then Norton. That's my personal opinion.

Good to know it's working sparky but if you have any reason what so ever to suspect an infection for other reasons you should post about that in the Malware Removal section. We have an excellent guide to assist with the removal of such things.

Have a look at the security products that we reccomend. You can uninstall Norton via Programs and Features in the Control Panel. There should be two entries. Uninstall Live Update first. You can also uninstall with the Norton Removal Tool but be warned. If you choose to run Avira as an AV this method will interfere with it. Also running this tool on my Vista corrupted a couple things. I had no problem with the normal method of uninstalling.

Why is there a proxy over ride on this computer?

It seems that you are still infected or your internet connectiion is being leeched. Many poker programs are known to do this. They use your computer to act as a server. P2P and torrents will also leech a connection. I suggest formatting and re-installing again. At this point everything should work great. Then install those types of programs again one by one. The culprit will surely rear it's ugly head. Then you will understand the second half of our position of these types of programs. I also see that you have next to nothing for security programs. All I see is AVG which is not good enough. Where is your spyware protection? Are you running a firewall? It's really hard to tell since I expected to see much more in the HJT log.

I'll just try to summarize here in order to facilitate. 1. You recently formatted which I assume means you reinstalled Windows. You said you did this Sunday the 5th of October, correct? 2. This should have put your system back to factory specs and everything should work perfect. After all it did when this computer was new. 3. You ran an un-updated Norton scan and an inferior AVG scan. When did you run these? Before or after you installed additional programs? 4. On the 9th of October 4 days after the reinstall your HJT partial log shows poker programs etc. 5. You have not run our malware scans after installing dubvious programs after the reinstall of Windows. You stated that you had been infested before. You have reinstalled. Your partial log shows a possibility of an infestation. It seems you are reinstalling malware programs. In my opinion you are installing malicious software immediately after reinstalling Windows. This is most likely the source of your problems. It only takes one piece of software. Also you need to install a current decent AV immediately and update it. A system can not run properly if you deliberately install malicious programs. You also need to install and update a GOOD AV. After a reinstall this seems obvious.