Last night DD was on myspace and suddenly a bunch of windows started popping up. She closed them and then the internet went down and her audio device was not working. Today her audio device is working but we cannot get on the internet. I thought we had Norton on her laptop but we do not. Right now I'm running Spy Sweeper to see if it comes up with anything. What do I do??? I can't live in this house with a 16 year old that can't get on the internet. As soon as we get this fixed I am buying Norton so this won't happen again.
I do not own a laptop but if the computer came with a boot disk, you could try to reboot the hard drive or run scandisk to fix and check all files and folders. Hope this helps!!!!! :idea:
How do I run scandisk? We have spy sweeper and it's running right now. It usually takes it a few hours to run.
I know on my desktop computer if you go to the Control Panel and left click to open My Computer and right click on the c: drive icon it will display a drop down menu. Go to properties icon and left click, there will be a menu tab, left click on the tools tab and there will be a tab for error checking the hard disk drive, right click the check now box and check both disk options to fix all sectors and repair all errors then click start. It will run the scandisk and may take some time but it should help. My daughter messed up my desktop and I did this and it solved the problem.
didn't work. I have tried everything i know to do. The problem seems to be that her computer is not connected to the internet even though nothing has changed, everything is still plugged in the exact same way.
try doing a system restore. wish i could tell you exactly how to do it, but it's different from comp to comp, but you can do something along the lines of "restore to last known properly working settings"...
Also don't buy norton as it is a memory and resource hog. There are other programs out there that are free such as AVG that just work just as well. Not to mention Ashampoo products. Craig
Are you connecting wirelessly? I f so, it could be as easy as the wireless "switch" being turned off.
Spent 2 hours on phone with tech support and we finally ended up restoring all the way back to when the computer was first bought. Luckily it's only 3 weeks old. She ended up losing a lot of info but we had to do what we had to do. Tech support said she had a corrupted file somewhere. Anyway, went to Best Buy tonight and bought a virus protection program (not Norton cause it was too expensive). We'll install it and go from there. Wish I had read about the free software before I spent the $50 tonight! Thanks for all the help!
Email the software company and tell them your not happy with the program. Most of the time they'll give your money back if you just bought it. ********************************************************** If you are using Internet Explorer you need to do a windows update immediately!! After that restore from the disks, you do not have the new fix for that backdoor they just found two weeks ago. If the PC is new and you had updates 'off' then that was probably your original problem. ********************************************************** New viruses are pratically non-existant these days. Hackers can't make money on a virus. Spyware is the cash cow. So your main objective to protection is a good firewall. Secondly, no stupid 'free' software downloads. You know, screen savers, backgrounds, games (especially!!!), music P2P's (except Limewire and get the free version from the manf's site only!!). If you get email's with attached files like movies or you don't know what it is ... don't open it. Here's what I run and they are all free. Using MajorGeeks download: 1. Click on the link below. 2. Center page top is "Downloads", choose any of the "MajorGeek" ones. 3. Wait for the file download pop up window. Be patient and don't click the "Recommended downlaod", the download window will come up soon. If download is protected by Internet Explorer your will get a bar under your tool bars at the top. Right click it and choose 'download' Create a directory called 'Software' and give each one of these their own directory. Burn that directory to a CD for your files in case you have a crash in the future. Spybot On the initial load screen unceck all the items except the 'FP's" at the bottom. After you load this program, and every time you use it, click the "Check For Updates" Otherwise it's useless. Zone Alarm Free Don't zoom thru the install. Read every window. Uncheck any yahoo or google toolbar options. And remember your choice for clicking is always the word "FREE" version or 'No-Thanks". Regseeker To load this one just unzip it. It will auto pick 'Program Files' directory. After you unzip go to that directory and create a shortcut for the file 'RegSeeker.exe' and drag the new shortcut to your desktop. CCleaner Self loading
After clicking the link on my past post you see this page. click on any of the American flags. Your clicking on this after I warned you not to click on this:lol::lol: DO NOT CLICK ON THIS !!!! Wait !!!! A file download window will come up!! Click on save. If this doesn't come up go down to my NOTE The next window will look something like this. NOTE: If the 'File Download' window does not come up than you have download security set on your browser. (SFI feature) A long horizontal bar with writting in it, will show up in the area under your toolbars. (the black area in this picture) Right click the bar and choose download. See how simple my toolbar is in the last Pic? If yours has umpteen million google, & yahoo toolbars and icons .... that's half of most problems encountered by the unknowing user. Toolbars from search engines are garbage collectors waiting to foul. You want a fast PC ? ... K.I.S.S.:lol: If you still have problems PM me and we'll try phone support.
woohooo...damn you're good. it went just as you posted....HA. I do not have all that yahoo and aol garboge....hate that crap. Now, do I need to do anything else? there are lots of options in the window that came up. It's a list of stuff...do I need any of that stuff or did I just get what I need? do I need to monitor this on my own, or will it update automatically? I know, you're thinking....dang is she blonde? hehehe....and no, I'm not. :lol: thanks for all your guidance.
My wife is Blonde, I'm use to it. Her saying is "This is my Geek. There are many like him but this one is mine." NOTE #1: All programs have a 'HELP' button never be afraid to open and read.:lol::lol: You should run Spybot at least once a week. When you open the program click "check for updates" first. The next window pick a USA location, the next window put a check in all the items, click 'download, after its done click exit. It may restart the program, depends on the extent of the update. Then click 'check for problems'. Try not to run any other programs while it's running. When it's done click "fix problems'. Current file check count is 367,194 (lower left screen) it may take a while to run. If your feeling Geeky afterwards you can click the 'mode' (up top) and choose 'advanced'. It will give you various tools on the left screen for start up programs, tweaks, etc. RegSeeker. Just click the desktop icon you made and open it. On the left choose 'Clean the Registry' then click 'Autoclean'. Make sure the "Back up before deletion" is checked in the lower left corner before clicking Autoclean. Zone Alarm. If your going to a site, or starting a program that you know is good and you get a pop up from ZA, check the 'Remember this setting" and then "allow" and it won't bother you again. If you get a pop up and you don't know what it is you can read the file name that's wanting access and google that file name. It will wait while you do that, That file stays locked with no access till you click allow or deny. Your search on the file name should resolve the question of allow or deny. My favorite feature of ZA is the "Engage Internet Lock". You know those times when you go to a site and all of a sudden it starts loading something and locks you out? Right click on the Z in the system tray (bottom right desktop) and check "Engage Internet Lock". It shuts down the connection immediately. Then you can then close the web and run Spybot to see if it loaded anything. Blonde Note:You can't do a spybot update because the internet is locked. Just run what you have. Do not reboot before you do this. A reboot allows those programs to load sometimes before Spybot can get to it. When your done uncheck the ZA lock. CCleaner. It's kind of self explanatory. Read the help file, Run it, play with it.
I say the same thing about my wife. I feel sorry for her, even when on vacation almost every friend or relative feels like they scored when she walks in the door.
The previous poster is correct in that spyware/malware is your biggest threat these days. I have been using a newer program that I have had excellent results with. It is called "Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware" available at malwarebytes.org. The free version just lets you scan on demand, and doesn't stay active in the background. I would use this instead of spybot. It is highly effective dealing with some pretty bad stuff.
If you keep spyware from getting loaded/installed in the first place, you won't have to scan and remove/clean after the fact. I use SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard. Haven't had a single spyware problem since I've been using them.
