Sudden freezes, and bits missing

In ,
Tim had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

OK.

One thing, though. Out of curiosity today at work, I tried the RUN
sfc / scannow and got exactly the same response as I get at home. A
quick flash of a black DOS style window.

So, either there is some mistake in the command, or alternatively
there are some administrator priviliges set up on the work machine
which stop the command working, or the commands have somehow been
removed as part of the set-up. Is it possible that my administrator
settings have somehow got screwed up here at home to give a similar
effect?

FYI, I removed and reinstalled SP2 yesterday and follwed Microsoft's
advice to check for spyware, using their suggested software. It
found over one hundred!! And in the process McAfee found another
virus too. None of this has cleared up the problems, though.

I'm still fairly sure the freezing is in some way connected with
internet activity, or inactivity.

Cheers

When you run SFC /SCANNOW it should open a command prompt window for a
moment and then it will go ahead and open another smaller window which is it
checking the files. It takes a while to run, it's a good time to get a cup
of coffee. Seeing as it's not opening at all other than to open the command
prompt window it would seem to me that there's something even more
drastically wrong.

If a client brought this PC with these problems in to me for repair I'd have
gone through the malware scanning process and when I found that it didn't
result in the system having all of it's functions I'd have cloned the drive,
and re-installed the OS from scratch. I'd have done the updates and then,
using the cloned drive, I'd have put back their applications that still had
installers on the system, documents, and the like after scanning all of them
for malware.

Seeing as this is not something that you probably have the desire to do I'd
really consider giving the system a repair installation and loading SP2
immediately after having done so. Did you get the SP2 CD version? If so then
I'd burn that to disk... Keep in mind that a repair installation won't kill
the viruses or the like that are already on the system. I'd only do that as
an option if I was pretty sure that the system was finally clean. Did you do
your malware scans and removal in safe mode WITHOUT networking?

This is not a simple process. It's going to take some time. If you're really
in a hurry you can go ahead and do the complete re-installation after making
backups of all the information that you want to keep. You can also use the
files and settings transfer wizard so that you're able to bring your
settings to the next installation. It's a bit drastic but it's an option
that it's about time for you to give serious consideration.

As for your freezing, I'm still not sure what the reason is for that. I
think that you may be right or it may actually be something to do with the
actual malware problems that you'd been having.

Galen
--

"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the
very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be
made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby."

Sherlock Holmes

Hi Again

Thanks for all your efforts -we may nbot have solved the original problem
but have sorted out a few issues on the way. It's probably about time to end
this thread, but first;

Since I looked up sfc /scannow in the Microsoft knowlege base, and found
that there isn't a space between the / and scannow it works perfectly. Still
no effect on the problem though. I am now going to do this and everything
else again in safe mode.

A few final questions;

Yes I have SP2 on cd. As I said before I do not have the original XP on
disk as it is hidden somewhere in a partition and I can't get at it. Can I
still reload using the sp2 cd?

Is there a site anywhere that lists all those useful utilities like sfc?

Cheers

"Galen" wrote:

In ,
Tim had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

OK.

One thing, though. Out of curiosity today at work, I tried the RUN
sfc / scannow and got exactly the same response as I get at home. A
quick flash of a black DOS style window.

So, either there is some mistake in the command, or alternatively
there are some administrator priviliges set up on the work machine
which stop the command working, or the commands have somehow been
removed as part of the set-up. Is it possible that my administrator
settings have somehow got screwed up here at home to give a similar
effect?

FYI, I removed and reinstalled SP2 yesterday and follwed Microsoft's
advice to check for spyware, using their suggested software. It
found over one hundred!! And in the process McAfee found another
virus too. None of this has cleared up the problems, though.

I'm still fairly sure the freezing is in some way connected with
internet activity, or inactivity.

Cheers

When you run SFC /SCANNOW it should open a command prompt window for a
moment and then it will go ahead and open another smaller window which is it
checking the files. It takes a while to run, it's a good time to get a cup
of coffee. Seeing as it's not opening at all other than to open the command
prompt window it would seem to me that there's something even more
drastically wrong.

If a client brought this PC with these problems in to me for repair I'd have
gone through the malware scanning process and when I found that it didn't
result in the system having all of it's functions I'd have cloned the drive,
and re-installed the OS from scratch. I'd have done the updates and then,
using the cloned drive, I'd have put back their applications that still had
installers on the system, documents, and the like after scanning all of them
for malware.

Seeing as this is not something that you probably have the desire to do I'd
really consider giving the system a repair installation and loading SP2
immediately after having done so. Did you get the SP2 CD version? If so then
I'd burn that to disk... Keep in mind that a repair installation won't kill
the viruses or the like that are already on the system. I'd only do that as
an option if I was pretty sure that the system was finally clean. Did you do
your malware scans and removal in safe mode WITHOUT networking?

This is not a simple process. It's going to take some time. If you're really
in a hurry you can go ahead and do the complete re-installation after making
backups of all the information that you want to keep. You can also use the
files and settings transfer wizard so that you're able to bring your
settings to the next installation. It's a bit drastic but it's an option
that it's about time for you to give serious consideration.

As for your freezing, I'm still not sure what the reason is for that. I
think that you may be right or it may actually be something to do with the
actual malware problems that you'd been having.

Galen
--

"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the
very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be
made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby."

Sherlock Holmes

In ,
Tim had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Hi Again

Thanks for all your efforts -we may nbot have solved the original
problem but have sorted out a few issues on the way. It's probably
about time to end this thread, but first;

Since I looked up sfc /scannow in the Microsoft knowlege base, and
found that there isn't a space between the / and scannow it works
perfectly. Still no effect on the problem though. I am now going to
do this and everything else again in safe mode.

A few final questions;

Yes I have SP2 on cd. As I said before I do not have the original XP
on disk as it is hidden somewhere in a partition and I can't get at
it. Can I still reload using the sp2 cd?

Is there a site anywhere that lists all those useful utilities like
sfc?

Cheers

I'd lost this post somewhere along the lines. Anyhow... Did scanning do the
trick? You *will* be prompted to insert the disk and seeing as you haven't
got one it's going to be problematic at best. However, not all is lost.

If you have the hidden partition MOST companies provide a way to make it
into a disk. If you have it on a hidden partition MOST companies provide a
"non-destructive recovery" option which will probably be where I'd start
your journey.

Galen
--

"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the
very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be
made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby."

Sherlock Holmes

I don't think Time provide such a route. I did buy a disk which is supposed
to let me refresh back to the originl configuration, but it doesn't seem to
work. Gives a message along the lines of 'Unable to establsh mem top'.
Contacted Time and they say this means a fault on the hard disk which I find
hard to believe as it seems to be working perfectly. They said I'd have to
return the machine for repair, which as it is out of guarantee, would be
acostly option.

sfc /scannow did not solve the problem, and I wasn't prompted to insert a
disc.

I have just tried soemthing new, which might have solved the problem (at
least it
hasn't happened for all of 10 minutes!), which is to turn my spam blocker in
McAfee off. It might have been having difficulty contacting the ISP as that
is a read only address using broadband.

Cheers

"Galen" wrote:

In ,
Tim had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Hi Again

Thanks for all your efforts -we may nbot have solved the original
problem but have sorted out a few issues on the way. It's probably
about time to end this thread, but first;

Since I looked up sfc /scannow in the Microsoft knowlege base, and
found that there isn't a space between the / and scannow it works
perfectly. Still no effect on the problem though. I am now going to
do this and everything else again in safe mode.

A few final questions;

Yes I have SP2 on cd. As I said before I do not have the original XP
on disk as it is hidden somewhere in a partition and I can't get at
it. Can I still reload using the sp2 cd?

Is there a site anywhere that lists all those useful utilities like
sfc?

Cheers

I'd lost this post somewhere along the lines. Anyhow... Did scanning do the
trick? You *will* be prompted to insert the disk and seeing as you haven't
got one it's going to be problematic at best. However, not all is lost.

If you have the hidden partition MOST companies provide a way to make it
into a disk. If you have it on a hidden partition MOST companies provide a
"non-destructive recovery" option which will probably be where I'd start
your journey.

Galen
--

"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the
very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be
made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby."

Sherlock Holmes

In ,
Tim had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

I don't think Time provide such a route. I did buy a disk which is
supposed to let me refresh back to the originl configuration, but it
doesn't seem to work. Gives a message along the lines of 'Unable to
establsh mem top'. Contacted Time and they say this means a fault on
the hard disk which I find hard to believe as it seems to be working
perfectly. They said I'd have to return the machine for repair,
which as it is out of guarantee, would be acostly option.

sfc /scannow did not solve the problem, and I wasn't prompted to
insert a disc.

I have just tried soemthing new, which might have solved the problem
(at least it
hasn't happened for all of 10 minutes!), which is to turn my spam
blocker in McAfee off. It might have been having difficulty
contacting the ISP as that is a read only address using broadband.


Hmm... Now why didn't I think of that? g Actually I might have guessed as
there's been a lot of complaints about the spam blocking feature in McAfee's
software. Hope that finishes it up for you.

Galen
--

"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the
very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be
made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby."

Sherlock Holmes

Yes, it's fixed the freezing problem.

Now I have only got the problems with control panel and search sometimes
killing Windows explorer.

Also, I know the system is infected with Lop, but none of the products you
suggested will shift it and some don't even find it. Not even the removal
tool on lop.com's website will shift it!

"Galen" wrote:

In ,
Tim had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

I don't think Time provide such a route. I did buy a disk which is
supposed to let me refresh back to the originl configuration, but it
doesn't seem to work. Gives a message along the lines of 'Unable to
establsh mem top'. Contacted Time and they say this means a fault on
the hard disk which I find hard to believe as it seems to be working
perfectly. They said I'd have to return the machine for repair,
which as it is out of guarantee, would be acostly option.

sfc /scannow did not solve the problem, and I wasn't prompted to
insert a disc.

I have just tried soemthing new, which might have solved the problem
(at least it
hasn't happened for all of 10 minutes!), which is to turn my spam
blocker in McAfee off. It might have been having difficulty
contacting the ISP as that is a read only address using broadband.


Hmm... Now why didn't I think of that? g Actually I might have guessed as
there's been a lot of complaints about the spam blocking feature in McAfee's
software. Hope that finishes it up for you.

Galen
--

"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the
very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be
made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby."

Sherlock Holmes

In ,
Tim had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Yes, it's fixed the freezing problem.

Now I have only got the problems with control panel and search
sometimes killing Windows explorer.

Also, I know the system is infected with Lop, but none of the
products you suggested will shift it and some don't even find it.
Not even the removal tool on lop.com's website will shift it!

It's going onto the weekend and I've been taking weekends off lately. g
Anyhow...

http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/lop.html

Spybot, in the earlier links, should target it and remove if.

Symantec's site is normally pretty good too for manual removal instructions:

http://sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/adware.lop.html

Galen
--

"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the
very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be
made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby."

Sherlock Holmes

What does In news: followed by 39BA202A ---etc mean??
In my Event Viewer my computer writes: "Unable to add the interface
9D914781-0DA3-4538-B333-CC19220BCC7 with the Router Manager for IP Protocol.
Cannot complete this function." Error. This group of alphanumerics look like
the "In news:" grouping. If I need this interface how do I get it?
Bill
--
b.l.


"Galen" wrote:

In ,
Tim had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Yes, it's fixed the freezing problem.

Now I have only got the problems with control panel and search
sometimes killing Windows explorer.

Also, I know the system is infected with Lop, but none of the
products you suggested will shift it and some don't even find it.
Not even the removal tool on lop.com's website will shift it!

It's going onto the weekend and I've been taking weekends off lately. g
Anyhow...

http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/lop.html

Spybot, in the earlier links, should target it and remove if.

Symantec's site is normally pretty good too for manual removal instructions:

http://sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/adware.lop.html

Galen
--

"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the
very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be
made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby."

Sherlock Holmes

In ,
bill had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

What does In news: followed by 39BA202A ---etc mean??
In my Event Viewer my computer writes: "Unable to add the interface
9D914781-0DA3-4538-B333-CC19220BCC7 with the Router Manager for IP
Protocol. Cannot complete this function." Error. This group of
alphanumerics look like the "In news:" grouping. If I need this
interface how do I get it?
Bill

The news:******** is the reference address of the original post, OEQuote fix
is set to automatically display that. I doubt it has anything to do with
your router though. If your network connection is working fine you shouldn't
have to worry about the error you're seeing and probably don't need the
protocol installed if it's that problematic.

Galen
--

"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the
very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be
made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby."

Sherlock Holmes

--
b.l.


"bill" wrote:

What does In news: followed by 39BA202A ---etc mean??
In my Event Viewer my computer writes: "Unable to add the interface
9D914781-0DA3-4538-B333-CC19220BCC7 with the Router Manager for IP Protocol.
Cannot complete this function." Error. This group of alphanumerics look like
the "In news:" grouping. If I need this interface how do I get it?
Bill
--
b.l.


"Galen" wrote:

In ,
Tim had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Yes, it's fixed the freezing problem.

Now I have only got the problems with control panel and search
sometimes killing Windows explorer.

Also, I know the system is infected with Lop, but none of the
products you suggested will shift it and some don't even find it.
Not even the removal tool on lop.com's website will shift it!

It's going onto the weekend and I've been taking weekends off lately. g
Anyhow...

http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/lop.html

Spybot, in the earlier links, should target it and remove if.

Symantec's site is normally pretty good too for manual removal instructions:

http://sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/adware.lop.html

Galen
--

"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the
very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be
made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby."

Sherlock Holmes


To Galen:
Thank you for the reply concerning "In news:" information. I need to get
back to that discussion thread which I at one time accessed because I went to
some links suggested by a newsgroup solution provider's website that I
probably should not have. I forget where. As a result as I try to load an
anti-virus software, at one point it hangs and I get the "Unable to
interface..." message. The anti-virus software is by F-Secure offered as part
of the my monthly cable cost with cogeco.com so I would want to install it.
It doesn't cost extra. I feel that if I go back to that thread I may find
the solution to my problem. I not even sure if there is a connection. I
could be on the wrong mind path.

I entered the "code" in the "Search For" box "Windows XP General" but I get
nothing. Where would I type in " " to recover it. I tried
sending it as e-mail because it looks like an e-mail address but it wasn't
delivered.

My internet connection is fine. It is OK but the software keeps trying to
finish loading very often so the "Error" notice comes up frequently. At
least I don't get interrupted while typing as I did before, which is a plus.

Thanks again
Bill

Galen: Forgot to add that the Error message says: "Unable to launch
restart.exe" . I erased it because it kept interrupting my use of the IE and
my keyboard. That's part of my earlier comment:"At least I don't get
interrupted while typing as I did before, which is a plus."
--
b.l.


"bill" wrote:


--
b.l.


"bill" wrote:

What does In news: followed by 39BA202A ---etc mean??
In my Event Viewer my computer writes: "Unable to add the interface
9D914781-0DA3-4538-B333-CC19220BCC7 with the Router Manager for IP Protocol.
Cannot complete this function." Error. This group of alphanumerics look like
the "In news:" grouping. If I need this interface how do I get it?
Bill
--
b.l.


"Galen" wrote:

In ,
Tim had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Yes, it's fixed the freezing problem.

Now I have only got the problems with control panel and search
sometimes killing Windows explorer.

Also, I know the system is infected with Lop, but none of the
products you suggested will shift it and some don't even find it.
Not even the removal tool on lop.com's website will shift it!

It's going onto the weekend and I've been taking weekends off lately. g
Anyhow...

http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/lop.html

Spybot, in the earlier links, should target it and remove if.

Symantec's site is normally pretty good too for manual removal instructions:

http://sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/adware.lop.html

Galen
--

"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the
very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be
made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby."

Sherlock Holmes


To Galen:
Thank you for the reply concerning "In news:" information. I need to get
back to that discussion thread which I at one time accessed because I went to
some links suggested by a newsgroup solution provider's website that I
probably should not have. I forget where. As a result as I try to load an
anti-virus software, at one point it hangs and I get the "Unable to
interface..." message. The anti-virus software is by F-Secure offered as part
of the my monthly cable cost with cogeco.com so I would want to install it.
It doesn't cost extra. I feel that if I go back to that thread I may find
the solution to my problem. I not even sure if there is a connection. I
could be on the wrong mind path.

I entered the "code" in the "Search For" box "Windows XP General" but I get
nothing. Where would I type in " " to recover it. I tried
sending it as e-mail because it looks like an e-mail address but it wasn't
delivered.

My internet connection is fine. It is OK but the software keeps trying to
finish loading very often so the "Error" notice comes up frequently. At
least I don't get interrupted while typing as I did before, which is a plus.

Thanks again
Bill

In ,
bill had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Galen: Forgot to add that the Error message says: "Unable to launch
restart.exe" . I erased it because it kept interrupting my use of the
IE and my keyboard. That's part of my earlier comment:"At least I
don't get interrupted while typing as I did before, which is a plus."

A Google tells me that restart.exe is likely infested with something.

One further idea:

|MG| Free Download - HijackThis 1.99.1:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html

Get your log from there.

AumHa Forums:
http://forum.aumha.org/viewforum.php?f=30

Post your log there.

When you wake up someone will have figured out your problems remaining more
than likely.

Please don't think I'm complaining, in fact I think it's kind of funny, but
do you realize that this thread's been going on for 17 days now?

Galen
--

"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the
very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be
made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby."

Sherlock Holmes