XP is Extremely Buggy,... I Think

I'm dealing with an XP Home that has DSL. SBC Yahoo is
the ISP. I'm not able to run msconfig to check the
startup programs (but I can run cmd and also mmc) and I
can't install winpatrol, I click it and just gives me the
hour glass next to the pointer for a split second and
that's it. There are a lot of sites that I can't get the
SBC Yahoo browser to bring up, but, IE will. There are
also, sites that IE can not bring up, such as Microsoft
Newsgroups. I had to install Opera browser off of my cd
to get around the internet with no restrictions.

I believe that there's some type of malware and/or virus
that's on this thing. The owner of the pc has Norton
installed but it isn't updated and it is not possible to
open Norton. I click on it from the start menu as well as
shortcuts and all it does is show the hour glass next to
the pointer like before.

I was able to run Adaware with no problem, and it found
nothing major. I tried to run Spybot also, but all I got
was the hourglass again.

There are 6 svchost.exe running in Task Manager and one
of them is running 104 threads. ---IS THAT NORMAL???
IE pops up out of nowhere about every 5 minutes and
comes up with this site as the home page.....

http://www.casinopalazzo.com/index.php?sourceid=100336

and sometimes it's accompanied by an Xrated web page.

I just ran HijackThis and got a ton of things that it has
found. I'm about to go thru them now to see what can be
deleted. If someone out there has an idea of what might
be going on with it and/or has any advice for me to
troubleshoot this machine any further, please send me a
post.

THANX N ADVANCE. The Rookie/Wayne B.

Wayne;

You have at least one virus. And scumware.
AV software that isn't updated is like a gun with no ammo, worthless.
Get rid of the virus or virii first, then dump the scumware.

[[When you open System Configuration Utility [MSCONFIG], Registry Editor or
Task Manager, they flash for a second and quit. This symptom is caused by
Viruses.]]

Task Manager, MSCONFIG, or REGEDIT disappear while opening
http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/ToolsQuit.htm

Free online virus scans

Trend Micro - Free online virus Scan
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/hous...start_corp.asp

Panda ActiveScan - Free online scanner
http://www.pandasoftware.com/actives..._principal.htm

BitDefender Free Online Virus Scan
http://www.bitdefender.com/scan/licence.php


Whatever you use for Anti Virus, keep it updated.

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.
Wes

In ,
Wayne B. hunted and pecked:
I'm dealing with an XP Home that has DSL. SBC Yahoo is
the ISP. I'm not able to run msconfig to check the
startup programs (but I can run cmd and also mmc) and I
can't install winpatrol, I click it and just gives me the
hour glass next to the pointer for a split second and
that's it. There are a lot of sites that I can't get the
SBC Yahoo browser to bring up, but, IE will. There are
also, sites that IE can not bring up, such as Microsoft
Newsgroups. I had to install Opera browser off of my cd
to get around the internet with no restrictions.

I believe that there's some type of malware and/or virus
that's on this thing. The owner of the pc has Norton
installed but it isn't updated and it is not possible to
open Norton. I click on it from the start menu as well as
shortcuts and all it does is show the hour glass next to
the pointer like before.

I was able to run Adaware with no problem, and it found
nothing major. I tried to run Spybot also, but all I got
was the hourglass again.

There are 6 svchost.exe running in Task Manager and one
of them is running 104 threads. ---IS THAT NORMAL???
IE pops up out of nowhere about every 5 minutes and
comes up with this site as the home page.....

http://www.casinopalazzo.com/index.php?sourceid=100336

and sometimes it's accompanied by an Xrated web page.

I just ran HijackThis and got a ton of things that it has
found. I'm about to go thru them now to see what can be
deleted. If someone out there has an idea of what might
be going on with it and/or has any advice for me to
troubleshoot this machine any further, please send me a
post.

THANX N ADVANCE. The Rookie/Wayne B.