tonko

Thanks for your help. I have actually scanned using Zone Alarm Security Suite (AV and AS), and Superantispyware and Malwarebytes in the last 24 hours. Not much came up.

Thinking about it, doesn't that just turn off Auto Complete rather than the prompt that asks you if you want to turn it on? What puzzles me is that it has only just started prompting me.

Is that all there is to it? I thought you had to go stomping around in the system registry! Thanks for that.

Can somebody please explain to me how to disable the Auto Complete prompt in Internet Explorer? I'm running XP Pro. I know it has something to do with the registry key [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Intelliforms but, having navigated to it, I don't know what to do with it!

Yes

Thanks for that. Could do the trick, though I'll probably have to lie down after implementing it! I don't think this is related to my problems with OE though - do you?

I can download them but when I 'press' install, the validation process starts and I get the message described previously and the pop-up is installed. So I have disabled the updates. I appreciate you trying to help on this issue but I'm sure it will be sorted whenever we get our IT consultants in. As I have said, they are expensive and as the problem is not critical I will wait until we really need them. The reason why I came onto this forum yesterday was to, hopefully, quickly solve the problem I have with OE. If not, I'll have to call them in anyway!

1. The 'robots' on the MS Windows update site. 2. After the routine (automatic) download of the updates, as I recall (remember, this was about a year ago) a systematic check is made to 'Validate' your copy of Windows and it came back with a message saying that my Windows was not a genuine copy, yet I had changed nothing and had happily been installing the updates for years. I didn't know, but I put it down to some software conflict on my PC. 3. After the validation check, if it rules your copy is not genuine, it plants a pop-up message on your PC which does just that when you boot up and at frequent intervals while you use your PC. I think it was called "Genuine Validation" or something similar, but it was certainly persistent and annoying. The message informed me that my Windows was not genuine and invited me to purchase a 'genuine' one. Having already paid for my software I (or my company) was not going to do that. 5. On querying all this through the MS site, at some stage, I was asked to input the software licence no.. I did this and still it came back as 'not genuine'. This is the same number that the other office PC Windows are working under and there are no update problems with those. I presume the licence no. has to tie up with some code included with the Windows software which had, perhaps, been corrupted on my PC. 6. The pop-up was annoying and I visited several forums like this to get advice on how to get rid of it. Believe me, I was not the only one with this problem and the forums that did give out the removal method justified it by saying that MS planting the pop-up on your PC was akin to planting spyware or similar as it caused disruption. Anyway, the method involved going into command mode while in safe mode and removing certain lines of code or commands. 7. The hoops I refer to was the seemingly complex (for a non-IT person) sequence of 'do this, then do this, then....' to get rid of the pop-up.

I realise that this is not the place for a 'your turn - my turn' row, and I wouldn't blame you for not continuing with this, but to be suddenly cut out because somebody who is completely remote from the facts has decided that my software is illegal WHEN IT IS NOT, is very annoying. I have not "freely admitted" anything of the sort, quite the opposite, and I don't know why you have said that. Also, we do not have an IT dept, just consultants we call in when there is a problem. But it has to be a big problem at the rates they charge. I will try to sort my Outlook Express problem (remember that?) elsewhere and not waste any more of your or my time. I know you mean well and do good deeds for free but I'm afraid you've botched up this time. I wish you well. Really.

Further to Wolfeyman's response to my last submission on the Peculiar Problem thread, my copy of Windows is NOT illegal, we are nowhere near the limit of machines we are allowed to install the software on and I also suspect that the licensing problem has arisen through a conflict with another software installation. I simply have not bothered to pursue the matter because once the pop-up message had been removed it did not affect me. As I said, I am going to bring the matter up when we need to bring our IT specialists in for more serious probelms. I sincerely hope you don't conduct your real life like this; casting judgements based on minutiae of information. Your reaction is both offensive and cretinous.

After months, years even, of having automatic Windows updates switched on and working fine, the powers that be suddenly decided (about a year ago) that my copy of Windows is not genuine. It's ridiculous because it came as part of a company package and nobody else in the company has problems. It just doesn't seem to like the particular installation on my PC. After that, every time I booted up I got some message that paused the process and asked me to purchase a "genuine version". The message also popped up from time to time while the PC was in use. I got nowhere with MS despite entering the same Licence number as my colleagues so I just gave up and decided to wait until we need to get the IT guys in for a more pressing reason and let them sort it out (at £100/hour or whatever). Looks like that time is approaching! I can't remember too much but I had to fiddle around in Command mode while in safe mode to get rid of the pop-up, but it worked in the end.

Thanks. I'll let you know. The Zone Alarm Security Suite is actually a firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware "on all the time" scanner amongst other things, and I also frequently run the other scanners. So I'll be annoyed if something has got through! If the problem is with OE, is there any way of re-loading OE only, without the rest of the MS suite? I'd probably have problems getting the download from the MS site as it seems to think my copy of Windows is pirated, even though it isn't ( I had to jump through all sorts of hoops to get rid of the "Genuine Validation" alert or whatever it is called).

I have SUPERAntispyware, Malwarebytes and Spybot installed alongside ZA, but only ZA is constantly 'monitoring' (I think) to avoid conflict. I will run scans using all of them to see if anything is picked up. The problem with the problem(!) is that it occurs inconsistently so if I did temporarily disable ZA and everything works fine I would still not know for sure if the problem is attibutable to ZA. I suppose I could try it over a period then switch ZA back on and see then.

Hi Maynardvdm I am running IE7.0 and XP Prof. I will try without Zone Alarm running, but is that wise in the long run?

I use OE6 and have been for some time. Recently, however, it has developed a peculiar problem. If someone sends me an email and I use the reply option, when I press send after adding my bit to the mail, OE closes down without sending the mail. This has got worse, as now, the same thing happens and the original email gets deleted. This has also started happening when I try to print an email and, just now, it happened when I 'pressed' the "To:" button to access the Address Book on starting to Create an email. It doesn't do this every time which is even more baffling, but it is getting more frequent. The only software I have added recently is Zone Alarm Security Suite but the problems did not start immediately on using that. Any ideas anyone?