RandyL

Please read the sticky at the top of this forum section on HJT. IMPORTANT We notice there are signs of one or more P2P (Person to Person) File Sharing Programs on your computer. Please note that as long as you are using any form of Peer-to-Peer networking and downloading files from non-documented sources there is a high probability that you will be infested with malware. Once upon a time, P2P file sharing was fairly safe. That is no longer true. You may continue to use P2P sharing at your own risk; however, please keep in mind that this practice may be the source of your current malware infestation. References for the risk of these programs can be found in these links: Malware: Help prevent the Infection IM And P2P Malware Threats Nearly Triple - Technology News by TechWeb How to Prevent Online Invation of Spyware, Adware and Malware We would recommend that you uninstall these P2P programs, however that choice is up to you. If you choose to remove these programs, you can do so in the Control Panel via Add/Remove Programs. If you have Vista it's Programs and Features. However in order for us to provide future assistance on this matter you must remove the P2P first as it would be fruitless unless the possible cause is ruled out first and to prevent future infestations.

Well I'm guessing you have XP and 512MB actually so in nearly all cases XP should run fine as long as there isn't a slew of startup items. The first thing I would do to narrow down possible causes is check for malware. Your computer could be infected with Malware. Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner's informed consent. It is a combination of the words malicious and software. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code. Required Cleanup StepsDisable the Spybot Search & Destroy TEA TIMER if you use it and if it is enabled Run a Temporary file and cache cleaner (ATF) Run 2 Anti-Malware scanners (Listed Below) Run an Online Anti-Virus / Anti-Malware Scanner (Listed Below) Clear out old System Restore points If continued Malware type activity is present you may be asked to post a TrendMicro™ HijackThis™ Log file, do not do so unless requested. The reason to run multiple scanners is to ensure that no single scanner is missing something. The time it takes will vary depending on your system and your internet connection speed. Typically the SUPERAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes scanners will take between 10 to 90 minutes. The ESET online scan should take between 1 to 3 hours. In most cases, these scans will suffice to clean and disinfect your computer. Heavily infected systems or slower PCs can take much longer to scan and clean. For best results print the following instructions and bookmark this Web page To keep this guide printer-friendly, use your cursor to highlight the contents below. From your browser select File - Print and in the printer dialog box under "Print range" click the Selection choice to print out these instructions for removal of malware. http://kixhelp.com/wr/images-freepchelp/printer-selection.gif __________________________________________________ STEP 1 Disable Spybot Search & Destroys' TEA TIMER: (if installed)Run Spybot-S&D in Advanced Mode. If it is not already set to do this Go to the Mode menu select "Advanced Mode" On the left hand side, Click on Tools Then click on the Resident Icon in the List Uncheck "Resident TeaTimer" and OK any prompts. Restart your computer. __________________________________________________ STEP 2 Follow these instructions carefully. Download ATF-Cleaner from Snapfiles.com to remove un-needed temporary files from your computer that may contain malware. You can also download it from Majorgeeks.com When you run ATF-Cleaner, check the items as shown below for Main. For FireFox, be sure to click on the FireFox tab on top and check the items as shown below for FireFox NOTE: If you don't have FireFox or Opera installed then they will be grayed out and can be ignored Then click on "Empty Selected". http://kixhelp.com/wr/images-freepchelp/atf-cleaner01.gif . http://kixhelp.com/wr/images-freepchelp/atf-cleaner02.gif __________________________________________________ STEP 3 Install and run the free version (not the Professional version) of SUPERAntiSpyware from SUPERAntiSpyware.com Accept any prompts to allow SUPERAntiSpyware to install the latest rules and infection definition files. You do not have to send them your e-mail address, just click next. You can leave the automated check for updates on. You can uncheck "Send a diagnostic report to research center" if you don't want to send the information. DO NOT allow SUPERAntiSpyware to protect your Home Page settings. On the Top Left select the Scan your computer button. Make sure there is a CHECK MARK on all Fixed Drives. Click "Perform a Complete Scan". Click "Next" to Repair issues found and reboot the computer when prompted to do so. __________________________________________________ STEP 4 Install and run Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware from Malwarebytes - (direct download) Accept all defaults for the installer Allow the program to update the definitions Click on the Quick Scan and click Next. If any items are found allow it to clean them and then Reboot your computer. __________________________________________________ STEP 5 Run an online scan with ESET from Free Virus Scan: Use ESET's Online Antivirus Scanner You must use Internet Explorer for this online scan. FireFox, Opera, etc will not work for this scan. If your computer is running Window's Vista, then you must first start Internet Explorer as an Administrator. To do so, right-click on the Internet Explorer icon in the Start Menu and select "Run as administrator" from the popup context menu. Accept the terms and click "Start". Once the scanner is ready, check "Remove found threats" AND "Scan unwanted applications". Click "Start" to begin the scan. When completed restart your computer __________________________________________________ Make sure your internet firewall security is enabled, and then please return to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help and tell us how the computer seems to be operating. At that time, you will receive instructions to assist you in removing malicious programs from your Add/Remove program list if warranted. If required this is the download link for TrendMicro™ HijackThis™ Unless instructed to by the Technician helping you then do not download this tool. Once you and the Technician agree that your system appears to be clean then you should delete all your System Restore points and recreate a new one. Please follow the instructions here How to turn off and turn on System Restore in Windows XP How to turn off and turn on System Restore in Windows Vista

If your drive is a combo cd/dvd it may well be that you can read cd's on it but not dvd's. Check to see if you can read a different dvd. If you can't then you need to replace it.

Have a look at here. You may need to change your defaults. If you scroll way down that list you may see your camera under Devices.

That's great pete. Thanks for letting us know what worked.

Vista on CD? Do you mean DVD? Do you know how many CD's it would take for Vista?

If it's a corrupt boot ini file. From Dell.

By any chance is this an HP or Compaq computer? That's a common error for some models. If so what exact make and model is it?

elitist

An excellent point Jared.

go hunting polar bears and politicians to consume one and

Hi breeza; Why do you think it's a memory issue? Have you added or changed it? How much memory do you have? The usual causes of a slow running computer is an infestation of malware or a failing hard drive.

Hi bigmack; Configure Firefox and Mozilla to display PDF files.

Select run instead of save.

In your other post you asked the exact same thing except this time you left out the information that you were attempting to crack the Windows password. Since we know what you are attempting to do we can not offer assistance on this as previously stated. Any future attempt at circumventing the rules or the intent of the rules may cause a ban to be implemented. This thread is also closed.

Hi Nikki; I'm glad you got it sorted for now. The fact that ESET found 6 trojans means there is still a high probability you have other infections. Please look at the guide again and follow all the steps exactly. Make sure you update Malwarebytes and Superantispyware before you run the scans. Also note that it's recommended you turn System Restore off. Then turn it back on. The instructions are near the end of the guide. Now is also a good time to examine your antivirus program and it's settings.

I resurrected this thread because I can now say that the Vista Startup Repair worked great for me. The last known good configuration did nothing. It wasn't easy but with great effort I managed to screw up my system. It took a Linux CD and a hard shutdown while it was running to do it. I never had to work that hard to screw up Millennium Edition. So yes Vista is harder but I managed to mess it up eventually. With great effort though. :p

I haven't tried it but you can look at this article "Export and Backup Emails from Outlook to Gmail Online". In case you miss the link in the article you might also want to look here. Another thing that I've done in Outlook Express is simply save the mails you want to keep as a file then burn to disk. They'll open just fine in Windows Mail that comes with Vista. Of course this is not practicable if you have a huge amount of mail. Then of course there is always the option to just forward the individual mails to a web account. Again not practicable if you have a huge amount of mail.

Before you began the Eset scan you would have seen the below picture. You should have checked both boxes. http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh285/randy4468504/Esets.jpg

Hi Giles; You said you can't find the Recovery CD but your model should also have shipped with a Drivers & Utilities CD/DVD. According to your manual this will sometimes Restore Windows. Please wait for advice on repairing your system since you don't want to lose your files. I'm just throwing this out there as a method of last resort.

There were a few instances where I had to used advanced tools including ComboFix. It was not a pretty picture. I'm also familiar with Web CureIt. These are good tools for major problems but like anything have to be used carefully. Obviously not for forum use unless the system is already so screwed up there is nothing to be lost. If I were doing it for the money on a personal computer that was that messed up I would find it unethical to charge the real cost versus a format. For now our guide works well for the most part as long as the computer can boot, access an account and hopefully connect to the internet. Like always it's a cat and mouse game with the bad guys.

We see that you are using P2P. Since we do not support these programs and they are often the source of problems we can only offer limited assistance. P2P or Peer To Peer programs are programs typically used to download music, movies or other types of files. We can provide you with the steps to remove the P2P. We can provide steps to remove malware. If the malware is not removed or returns then P2P needs to be uninstalled for us to provide furthur assistance. Furthur attempts would be fruitless unless this is ruled out. The choice is yours but we can not offer assistance on the use of P2P programs.

Now if that was a coupon and if I could print it I would try harder to crash my system. But alas no printing in bsod and I haven't been able to crash my Vista yet.

Don't confuse copying data and retrieving files with running programs. You will need to reinstall the programs on the new computer.

Hi Denil; Do you want to set up a dual boot system with XP and Vista? Will your Vista machine support XP? There may not be drivers for it? Do you have a retail XP CD? Either way as this is unrelated issue you should start a new thread in Vista as that is your current OS.