Guest Teflon Posted August 6, 2008 Posted August 6, 2008 98SE on an older Thinkpad. Thought it was acting sluggish, ran the CA AV plus Spybot S&D, but nothing, so I decided to run Bit Defender's online scan. Somewhere during the scan, a message flashed on the screen, just got a glimpse of it, said it had found and eliminated a problem, did not get the name of what it had found or eliminated. Did not get any report or find any log of the scan's results. It was my error for not checking to see what the scan would do when it found something. Should have changed it to stop and ask questions, versus the default fix on the fly. Launched an app that has been running for years and got a message that the Unicows wrapper could not be found. Could not continue loading the app. Checked, and Unicows is in several folders, including that apps folder. Just to make sure, I got the Unicode installer and reinstalled it in all folders, including Windows\System. Still no luck launching the app. Reinstalled the app, no difference. Apparently whatever Bit Defender found and eliminated was crucial to the app finding unicows.dll. Any ideas on what was eliminated and how I might go about getting it back. Thanks, and I do appologize for using gmail groups, but I'm normally just a reader, and it's the easiest thing for me to monitor.
Guest Gary S. Terhune Posted August 6, 2008 Posted August 6, 2008 Re: Bit Defender ate something?? While I won't comment on how you got yourself into this predicament, I have to ask what it was that you reinstalled besides the application. Was it this? http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=73BA7BD7-ED06-4F0D-80A4-2A7EEAEE17E2 (TinyURL = http://tinyurl.com/qynq) Regardless, what you need to do is restore a Registry from before the BitDefender incident. And hope all your reainstalling hasn't worsened matters. "How to Manually Restore the Windows 98/Me Registry" http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221512 "How To Backup, Edit, and Restore the Registry in Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me" http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322754 Of course, this will only work if your Scan Registry startup entry has been left intact, so that a new backup is created every day at startup (and if you always leave your system on, you want to schedule "SCANREGW /backup " as a daily event), and only if it's been less than five days since the incident. That's as long as Windows keeps the backups. You should also make a copy of the backup files, because every time you restore a backup, it creates a new backup (before restoring) and that replaces the oldest backup in the list. Do that a couple of times and you have no decent backups left. To backup the files, first use Folder Options to make sure it says, "Show All Files" on teh View tab. Then use Find>Files & Folders to search for RB*.CAB files. When they come up, copy them to a new folder on the Desktop. Note that they'll be useless in a short time, so you can just get rid of them when you've got things figured out. -- Gary S. Terhune MS-MVP Shell/User http://grystmill.com "Teflon" <spambaitmeister@gmail.com> wrote in message news:d62e06fb-920d-4d90-9f15-e6283bd24b82@b30g2000prf.googlegroups.com... > 98SE on an older Thinkpad. Thought it was acting sluggish, ran the CA > AV plus Spybot S&D, but nothing, so I decided to run Bit Defender's > online scan. Somewhere during the scan, a message flashed on the > screen, just got a glimpse of it, said it had found and eliminated a > problem, did not get the name of what it had found or eliminated. Did > not get any report or find any log of the scan's results. It was my > error for not checking to see what the scan would do when it found > something. Should have changed it to stop and ask questions, versus > the default fix on the fly. > > Launched an app that has been running for years and got a message that > the Unicows wrapper could not be found. Could not continue loading > the app. Checked, and Unicows is in several folders, including that > apps folder. Just to make sure, I got the Unicode installer and > reinstalled it in all folders, including Windows\System. Still no > luck launching the app. > > Reinstalled the app, no difference. > > Apparently whatever Bit Defender found and eliminated was crucial to > the app finding unicows.dll. > > Any ideas on what was eliminated and how I might go about getting it > back. > > Thanks, and I do appologize for using gmail groups, but I'm normally > just a reader, and it's the easiest thing for me to monitor. >
Guest Gary S. Terhune Posted August 6, 2008 Posted August 6, 2008 Re: Bit Defender ate something?? FYI, after you install teh Active-X and you get presented with the Start Scan button, this is what's in the box, right above the button: "Scanning Options" "Select what you want to check for viruses. "By default, your entire computer will be checked for viruses and other threats. To scan just some of your folders, click here. "Settings: "By default, BitDefender will try to clean the infected files it finds. "Warning If the disinfection fails, the infected files will be deleted without prompt. To change this and other settings, click here. Please use these options with care." (And, of course, there are a cople of links to go along with the "Click here" text.) -- Gary S. Terhune MS-MVP Shell/User http://grystmill.com "Teflon" <spambaitmeister@gmail.com> wrote in message news:d62e06fb-920d-4d90-9f15-e6283bd24b82@b30g2000prf.googlegroups.com... > 98SE on an older Thinkpad. Thought it was acting sluggish, ran the CA > AV plus Spybot S&D, but nothing, so I decided to run Bit Defender's > online scan. Somewhere during the scan, a message flashed on the > screen, just got a glimpse of it, said it had found and eliminated a > problem, did not get the name of what it had found or eliminated. Did > not get any report or find any log of the scan's results. It was my > error for not checking to see what the scan would do when it found > something. Should have changed it to stop and ask questions, versus > the default fix on the fly. > > Launched an app that has been running for years and got a message that > the Unicows wrapper could not be found. Could not continue loading > the app. Checked, and Unicows is in several folders, including that > apps folder. Just to make sure, I got the Unicode installer and > reinstalled it in all folders, including Windows\System. Still no > luck launching the app. > > Reinstalled the app, no difference. > > Apparently whatever Bit Defender found and eliminated was crucial to > the app finding unicows.dll. > > Any ideas on what was eliminated and how I might go about getting it > back. > > Thanks, and I do appologize for using gmail groups, but I'm normally > just a reader, and it's the easiest thing for me to monitor. >
Guest Gary S. Terhune Posted August 6, 2008 Posted August 6, 2008 Re: Bit Defender ate something?? PS -- Vague sentences like "I launched an app that has been running for years..." aren't particularly helpful. The NAME of the app (and version, etc.), is what's helpful in researching and diagnosing any issues. And I know I originally said I wouldn't comment on how you got into the predicament, I just can't help it. For the sake of others who read this thread, I have to point out all the places you should have made different choices. Just to rub it in a little more, BitDefender does offer the opportunity to save a report when it's finished. First, it asks you to send the report to BitDefender for analysis. In that dialogue, there's a link that says, "Click here to view the report", and it provides a nice, plain-text HTML file suitable for saving as TXT. -- Gary S. Terhune MS-MVP Shell/User http://grystmill.com "Teflon" <spambaitmeister@gmail.com> wrote in message news:d62e06fb-920d-4d90-9f15-e6283bd24b82@b30g2000prf.googlegroups.com... > 98SE on an older Thinkpad. Thought it was acting sluggish, ran the CA > AV plus Spybot S&D, but nothing, so I decided to run Bit Defender's > online scan. Somewhere during the scan, a message flashed on the > screen, just got a glimpse of it, said it had found and eliminated a > problem, did not get the name of what it had found or eliminated. Did > not get any report or find any log of the scan's results. It was my > error for not checking to see what the scan would do when it found > something. Should have changed it to stop and ask questions, versus > the default fix on the fly. > > Launched an app that has been running for years and got a message that > the Unicows wrapper could not be found. Could not continue loading > the app. Checked, and Unicows is in several folders, including that > apps folder. Just to make sure, I got the Unicode installer and > reinstalled it in all folders, including Windows\System. Still no > luck launching the app. > > Reinstalled the app, no difference. > > Apparently whatever Bit Defender found and eliminated was crucial to > the app finding unicows.dll. > > Any ideas on what was eliminated and how I might go about getting it > back. > > Thanks, and I do appologize for using gmail groups, but I'm normally > just a reader, and it's the easiest thing for me to monitor. >
Guest Teflon Posted August 6, 2008 Posted August 6, 2008 Re: Bit Defender ate something?? On Aug 5, 11:31 pm, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote: > PS -- Vague sentences like "I launched an app that has been running for > years..." aren't particularly helpful. The NAME of the app (and version, > etc.), is what's helpful in researching and diagnosing any issues. > > And I know I originally said I wouldn't comment on how you got into the > predicament, I just can't help it. For the sake of others who read this > thread, I have to point out all the places you should have made different > choices. Just to rub it in a little more, BitDefender does offer the > opportunity to save a report when it's finished. First, it asks you to send > the report to BitDefender for analysis. In that dialogue, there's a link > that says, "Click here to view the report", and it provides a nice, > plain-text HTML file suitable for saving as TXT. > > -- > Gary S. Terhune > MS-MVP Shell/Userhttp://grystmill.com Mr. Terhune - Sir: First, thank you for risking a spammer attack by coming to the aid of Google Grouper. (I never did understand what that risk was all about.) Second, you are so right, as always. I stand (sit, actually) chastised. I erroneously put my trust in the wrong place. 50 lashes with an old MSDOS floppy for me Now, for the 'grasping-at-straws' questions: Is there any place I can find where Bit Defender might have stored the contents of that report on this computer? I see in IE Tools that the controls are still installed, i.e. Tools - Uninstall BitDefender Online Scanner v8. If I ran the online scan again, is it possible the report produced by this new scan would be an addendum to the report from that old scan? As to the registry, that backup option is long gone. Ran into some pesky HDD issues that required multiple restarts, and therefore, well, you know. May not mean anything, but I tried to re-register unicows.dll, and got the message that the DLL Register Server entry point was not found. Was told to use PView to detect and remove a possibly corrupted DLL RS. PView?? BTW, the app is VLC media player 0.8.5 Fortunately, this is not a mission-critical machine, kind of like the old cars I restore are not trip-critical. More of a continuing- education learning-experience, and for me, the best learning- experiences are generally the result of my doing something wrong. Since I like to keep old things running, I have had a lot of those learning-experiences in the past 70 years. Thanks for helping.
Guest Teflon Posted August 6, 2008 Posted August 6, 2008 Re: Bit Defender ate something?? On Aug 5, 11:31 pm, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote: > PS -- Vague sentences like "I launched an app that has been running for > years..." aren't particularly helpful. The NAME of the app (and version, > etc.), is what's helpful in researching and diagnosing any issues. > > And I know I originally said I wouldn't comment on how you got into the > predicament, I just can't help it. For the sake of others who read this > thread, I have to point out all the places you should have made different > choices. Just to rub it in a little more, BitDefender does offer the > opportunity to save a report when it's finished. First, it asks you to send > the report to BitDefender for analysis. In that dialogue, there's a link > that says, "Click here to view the report", and it provides a nice, > plain-text HTML file suitable for saving as TXT. > > -- > Gary S. Terhune > MS-MVP Shell/Userhttp://grystmill.com (My Columbo bit) One other comment and question. I noticed in one of the forums that there was a discussion about BitDefender's propensity for false detection and auto-eliminating healty code. I did not see unicows.dll in the discussion. My question, are there known pieces of healthy legitimate code that BitDefender falsly identifies as a rat? Thanks
Guest glee Posted August 6, 2008 Posted August 6, 2008 Re: Bit Defender ate something?? Is this the Unicode installer you used? Microsoft Layer for Unicode on Windows 95, 98, and Me Systems, 1.1.3790.0 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=73BA7BD7-ED06-4F0D-80A4-2A7EEAEE17E2&displaylang=en If not, remove your previous attempts at installing Unicode support, then use the installer from the link above. You stated you reinstalled VLC media player with no change. Did you first uninstall it via Add/Remove Programs, then install it clean? -- Glen Ventura, MS MVP Windows, A+ http://dts-l.net/ http://dts-l.net/goodpost.htm "Teflon" <spambaitmeister@gmail.com> wrote in message news:8feba8d5-68f8-410b-8722-3c6ebd1d2246@w39g2000prb.googlegroups.com... On Aug 5, 11:31 pm, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote: > PS -- Vague sentences like "I launched an app that has been running for > years..." aren't particularly helpful. The NAME of the app (and version, > etc.), is what's helpful in researching and diagnosing any issues. > > And I know I originally said I wouldn't comment on how you got into the > predicament, I just can't help it. For the sake of others who read this > thread, I have to point out all the places you should have made different > choices. Just to rub it in a little more, BitDefender does offer the > opportunity to save a report when it's finished. First, it asks you to send > the report to BitDefender for analysis. In that dialogue, there's a link > that says, "Click here to view the report", and it provides a nice, > plain-text HTML file suitable for saving as TXT. > Mr. Terhune - Sir: First, thank you for risking a spammer attack by coming to the aid of Google Grouper. (I never did understand what that risk was all about.) Second, you are so right, as always. I stand (sit, actually) chastised. I erroneously put my trust in the wrong place. 50 lashes with an old MSDOS floppy for me Now, for the 'grasping-at-straws' questions: Is there any place I can find where Bit Defender might have stored the contents of that report on this computer? I see in IE Tools that the controls are still installed, i.e. Tools - Uninstall BitDefender Online Scanner v8. If I ran the online scan again, is it possible the report produced by this new scan would be an addendum to the report from that old scan? As to the registry, that backup option is long gone. Ran into some pesky HDD issues that required multiple restarts, and therefore, well, you know. May not mean anything, but I tried to re-register unicows.dll, and got the message that the DLL Register Server entry point was not found. Was told to use PView to detect and remove a possibly corrupted DLL RS. PView?? BTW, the app is VLC media player 0.8.5 Fortunately, this is not a mission-critical machine, kind of like the old cars I restore are not trip-critical. More of a continuing- education learning-experience, and for me, the best learning- experiences are generally the result of my doing something wrong. Since I like to keep old things running, I have had a lot of those learning-experiences in the past 70 years. Thanks for helping.
Guest Gary S. Terhune Posted August 6, 2008 Posted August 6, 2008 Re: Bit Defender ate something?? "Teflon" <spambaitmeister@gmail.com> wrote in message news:8feba8d5-68f8-410b-8722-3c6ebd1d2246@w39g2000prb.googlegroups.com... On Aug 5, 11:31 pm, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote: > PS -- Vague sentences like "I launched an app that has been running for > years..." aren't particularly helpful. The NAME of the app (and version, > etc.), is what's helpful in researching and diagnosing any issues. > > And I know I originally said I wouldn't comment on how you got into the > predicament, I just can't help it. For the sake of others who read this > thread, I have to point out all the places you should have made different > choices. Just to rub it in a little more, BitDefender does offer the > opportunity to save a report when it's finished. First, it asks you to > send > the report to BitDefender for analysis. In that dialogue, there's a link > that says, "Click here to view the report", and it provides a nice, > plain-text HTML file suitable for saving as TXT. > > -- > Gary S. Terhune > MS-MVP Shell/Userhttp://grystmill.com Mr. Terhune - Sir: First, thank you for risking a spammer attack by coming to the aid of Google Grouper. (I never did understand what that risk was all about.) *** SPAM is undesired advertising material (or malware disguied as such.) I don't know of any connection between Google Groups and SPAM other than the fact that if YOU use your real email address in newsgroups, no matter how you get to the groups, you WILL end up on SPAMMER mailing lists. I use a fake address. No SPAM for me (other than the usual.) Since yuo, too, are using a fake address, three is no SPAM involved. *** Frankly, of all the online interfaces with MS newsgroups, Microsoft's own interface is the worst and Googles is possibly the best -- EXCEPT that when I reply to you, your message doesn't get "indented" with marks like > or |, etc., which makes replying to you "inline", as I'm doing now, tedious. Thta's why I put the *** in front of my paragraphs (though I suppose I should be putting them in front of your paragraphs, instead.) Anyway, I don't know who it is that complains about your using Google Groups, but they're just being rude. Second, you are so right, as always. I stand (sit, actually) chastised. I erroneously put my trust in the wrong place. 50 lashes with an old MSDOS floppy for me *** It happens to all of us, at one time or another. That's how I end up having to uninstall Google Toolbar every few months. Now, for the 'grasping-at-straws' questions: Is there any place I can find where Bit Defender might have stored the contents of that report on this computer? *** No, because it didn't. I see in IE Tools that the controls are still installed, i.e. Tools - Uninstall BitDefender Online Scanner v8. ***Irrelevant If I ran the online scan again, is it possible the report produced by this new scan would be an addendum to the report from that old scan? ***No. The report is generated on the fly by the app. It's just in memory until you save it. You didn't save it. As to the registry, that backup option is long gone. Ran into some pesky HDD issues that required multiple restarts, and therefore, well, you know. ***No, I don't. It doesn't matter how many times you restart, it matters haw many DAYS since the incident, presuming Scan Registry is in your startup queue and functioning. When that runs at startup, it checks the Registry's integrity and then IF (and ONLY IF) no backup exists for "Today", it makes a new one. If a backup dated "Today" already exists, then it skips making a new one. Look for your RB*.CAB files and see if you can find them. Also, run MSCONFIG, click on the Startup tab and uncheck Scan Registry until the issue is cleared. May not mean anything, but I tried to re-register unicows.dll, and got the message that the DLL Register Server entry point was not found. Was told to use PView to detect and remove a possibly corrupted DLL RS. PView?? **Process Viewer(?) http://tinyurl.com/6k2frw Or, possibly, Process Explorer: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx ***I don't know anything about it. Don't even know why you installed Unicows in the first place or how Unicows works.. BTW, the app is VLC media player 0.8.5 *** That app is so old, it isn't even version 1 yet. Besides, there's nothing it can play that other players can't. In fact, I'm surprised it can play much of anything modern at all. Fortunately, this is not a mission-critical machine, kind of like the old cars I restore are not trip-critical. More of a continuing- education learning-experience, and for me, the best learning- experiences are generally the result of my doing something wrong. Since I like to keep old things running, I have had a lot of those learning-experiences in the past 70 years. ***Me too. Best way to learn, even if it DOES drive everyone else batty. Look for those RB*** backup files and see if there's a date that will work. Thanks for helping. ***You're welcome, and good luck figuring this out. -- Gary S. Terhune MS-MVP Shell/User http://grystmill.com
Guest Gary S. Terhune Posted August 6, 2008 Posted August 6, 2008 Re: Bit Defender ate something?? I don't know anything more about BD than I learned last night when I was playing with it to find the info I provided to you. But I'm going to be recommending that people DON'T use it in the future. Those are not the right default options to have, and there's no way to save the preferences. Just canceling and restarting the scan reverts options to defaults. I missed that and lost a few viruses I'd been hanging onto for study (you know, someday when I get the time...) -- Gary S. Terhune MS-MVP Shell/User http://grystmill.com "Teflon" <spambaitmeister@gmail.com> wrote in message news:718ad485-0971-4ae8-923c-1e6b93ebc935@z11g2000prl.googlegroups.com... On Aug 5, 11:31 pm, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote: > PS -- Vague sentences like "I launched an app that has been running for > years..." aren't particularly helpful. The NAME of the app (and version, > etc.), is what's helpful in researching and diagnosing any issues. > > And I know I originally said I wouldn't comment on how you got into the > predicament, I just can't help it. For the sake of others who read this > thread, I have to point out all the places you should have made different > choices. Just to rub it in a little more, BitDefender does offer the > opportunity to save a report when it's finished. First, it asks you to > send > the report to BitDefender for analysis. In that dialogue, there's a link > that says, "Click here to view the report", and it provides a nice, > plain-text HTML file suitable for saving as TXT. > > -- > Gary S. Terhune > MS-MVP Shell/Userhttp://grystmill.com (My Columbo bit) One other comment and question. I noticed in one of the forums that there was a discussion about BitDefender's propensity for false detection and auto-eliminating healty code. I did not see unicows.dll in the discussion. My question, are there known pieces of healthy legitimate code that BitDefender falsly identifies as a rat? Thanks
Guest Franc Zabkar Posted August 6, 2008 Posted August 6, 2008 Re: Bit Defender ate something?? On Wed, 6 Aug 2008 12:14:23 -0700, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> put finger to keyboard and composed: >I missed that >and lost a few viruses I'd been hanging onto for study (you know, someday >when I get the time...) I can send you some of mine ... - Franc Zabkar -- Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
Guest Gary S. Terhune Posted August 6, 2008 Posted August 6, 2008 Re: Bit Defender ate something?? Let's see... I collected that particular one (Joke....sumthinorother ) approx. eight years ago and haven't glanced at it since. (No, I don't *think* it's the hoax version.) In fact, it was found buried in a few email's I'd extracted from a client's trashed machine using one or the other of Steve's DBX tools. Been a while since I messed with viruses anyway. About the time XP came out, with all the learning that that entailed, I also went to work (for my self, or rather for my wife) doing computer graphics. I simply let that playing with viruses hobby slip way down toward the bottom of the list. If I get desperate, I have others packed away here somewhere. Soon as I saw those lines in the report, I killed the scan. And those DBX files weren't supposed to be on that partition, anyway, but I've been jockeying stuff in order to make room to image an external drive that's failing before I can't recover anything else (I've got most of it already, but CHKDSK managed to get hold of it when I wasn't looking and scrambled the rest.) Couldn't quite swing that and ended up just getting a 500GB drive to add to the machine. My next project to get to when the stuff finally stop hitting the fan, which, the way it's looking, might not be for *months.* But thanks, anyway! -- Gary S. Terhune MS-MVP Shell/User http://grystmill.com "Franc Zabkar" <fzabkar@iinternode.on.net> wrote in message news:o53k941dgmorm7ea1p5njt293m59q1o3d3@4ax.com... > On Wed, 6 Aug 2008 12:14:23 -0700, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> put finger > to keyboard and composed: > >>I missed that >>and lost a few viruses I'd been hanging onto for study (you know, someday >>when I get the time...) > > I can send you some of mine ... > > - Franc Zabkar > -- > Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
Guest Teflon Posted August 8, 2008 Posted August 8, 2008 Re: Bit Defender ate something?? On Aug 6, 12:14 pm, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote: > I don't know anything more about BD than I learned last night when I was > playing with it to find the info I provided to you. But I'm going to be > recommending that people DON'T use it in the future. Those are not the right > default options to have, and there's no way to save the preferences. Just > canceling and restarting the scan reverts options to defaults. I missed that > and lost a few viruses I'd been hanging onto for study (you know, someday > when I get the time...) > > -- > Gary S. Terhune > MS-MVP Shell/Userhttp://grystmill.com Gary - while trying not to smile at your misfortune, I am truly pleased to know that even a pro, such as yourself, can innocently fall victim to the stupidity of the BitDefender folks. That 'automatically delete' default setting for an online scan is at best stupid and could even be libelous. What are they thinking? I did contact the BD Support Team and was told I would probably have to reinstall 98SE, but no apologies. I replied with a clean but strong indication of my contempt for their inconsiderate stupidity. There should be a place where a warning to all who would venture to that site, to be forewarned of the default booby-trap. I did find a Windows folder, Bdoscan8, that had some BD files, including a blank history of the 6/4/08 scan, so it did not tell me what I needed to know about what had been deleted. Interestingly, I went back to the website to initiate another scan, in the hopes that it would somehow append the results to the old report, and when I went to change the scan settings, I found the default was already set to RECORD ONLY. Now I don't know if the BD folks changed their default settings, OR, it those settings were recalled from the BD history stored on my machine, which if the latter is the case, then this old man was more cautious then he can remember, which is odd. I ran the scan, got a clean bill of health, no pop-ups and a report (but no append), which confirmed the clean bill of health. Wish that had happened the first time. Anyway, after I try your registry recovery recommendations, a new learning experience for me, which I have my doubts of its success, I will probably have to do a reinstall of 98SE. Darn, just when I got all the stuff working, like the Display Adapter, which gave me fits. Had 98FE previously. Could hardly read that fuzzy screen. I appreciate your explanations and clarifications of stuff. I had always thought 98 created a registry backup on every restart, and then kept only the most recent five, tho I've never had a need to check that out. Ah well, back to the trenches. Thanks again, and to the others who responded. Will let you all know what did, or didn't, work for me.
Guest Gary S. Terhune Posted August 8, 2008 Posted August 8, 2008 Re: Bit Defender ate something?? Good luck, wherever your journey takes you. -- Gary S. Terhune MS-MVP Shell/User http://grystmill.com "Teflon" <spambaitmeister@gmail.com> wrote in message news:eb1d826d-de08-486d-b1b7-6ec63b88ba65@j7g2000prm.googlegroups.com... On Aug 6, 12:14 pm, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote: > I don't know anything more about BD than I learned last night when I was > playing with it to find the info I provided to you. But I'm going to be > recommending that people DON'T use it in the future. Those are not the > right > default options to have, and there's no way to save the preferences. Just > canceling and restarting the scan reverts options to defaults. I missed > that > and lost a few viruses I'd been hanging onto for study (you know, someday > when I get the time...) > > -- > Gary S. Terhune > MS-MVP Shell/Userhttp://grystmill.com Gary - while trying not to smile at your misfortune, I am truly pleased to know that even a pro, such as yourself, can innocently fall victim to the stupidity of the BitDefender folks. That 'automatically delete' default setting for an online scan is at best stupid and could even be libelous. What are they thinking? I did contact the BD Support Team and was told I would probably have to reinstall 98SE, but no apologies. I replied with a clean but strong indication of my contempt for their inconsiderate stupidity. There should be a place where a warning to all who would venture to that site, to be forewarned of the default booby-trap. I did find a Windows folder, Bdoscan8, that had some BD files, including a blank history of the 6/4/08 scan, so it did not tell me what I needed to know about what had been deleted. Interestingly, I went back to the website to initiate another scan, in the hopes that it would somehow append the results to the old report, and when I went to change the scan settings, I found the default was already set to RECORD ONLY. Now I don't know if the BD folks changed their default settings, OR, it those settings were recalled from the BD history stored on my machine, which if the latter is the case, then this old man was more cautious then he can remember, which is odd. I ran the scan, got a clean bill of health, no pop-ups and a report (but no append), which confirmed the clean bill of health. Wish that had happened the first time. Anyway, after I try your registry recovery recommendations, a new learning experience for me, which I have my doubts of its success, I will probably have to do a reinstall of 98SE. Darn, just when I got all the stuff working, like the Display Adapter, which gave me fits. Had 98FE previously. Could hardly read that fuzzy screen. I appreciate your explanations and clarifications of stuff. I had always thought 98 created a registry backup on every restart, and then kept only the most recent five, tho I've never had a need to check that out. Ah well, back to the trenches. Thanks again, and to the others who responded. Will let you all know what did, or didn't, work for me.
Recommended Posts