Possible proplem

[ríomhaire]

I have noticed an increasing number of bugs on this machine including very odd things like the connection symbol no longer apears in the toolbar at the bottom right. The option for it to appear is on. Virus scans and spyware scans show nothing. Now, what should I do besides the 2 obvious, backing up and formating if it gets too serious?

 

[Solaris]

Format every 6 months - a year is good practice.

 

[ríomhaire]

Family computer. I'm not going to be allowed format unless the computer it is very f*cked up. Maybe I should try defragmenting although I did that fairly recently.

 

[Laivasse]

Run msconfig>startup, and check everything that starts up when windows starts. Googling the filenames can be useful. If there's any obvious malicious programs turn them off. If there's any windows services you don't need, then turn them off through control panel> admin tools> services. If there are any dangerous ones that keep turning themselves back on you will need a prog called 'hijackthis' to delete the registry entry which points to them. After this, reboot (preferably to safe mode) and scan for viruses.

Doing your av scans in safe mode is better. A lot of trojans hide themselves under a normal windows startup. I had my entire windows/system32 folder hidden from me once.

It goes without saying that you need decent AV. Unfortunately I don't know of any.

 

[lister]

restart ur pc into safe mode, on startup press F8 then choose safe mode, then run ur anti virus & adware programs. Try using this adware/spyware/program...http://www.safer-networking.org/en/mirrors/index.html

Also before rebooting into safe mode, goto start, run, type cmd (press ok) & type netstat -a (press enter) see whats comes up, & then reply here with what u see.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Possible proplem

There it is...you can't spell problem.

Try a variety of online virus scanners to see if you have anything vaguely malicious. There are some free ones to download, and some trials you can take advantage of to remove any infection you might have. Try cleaning some stuff off your hard drive too, defragging and doing a disk clean up. Just tidy it all up, and make it faster.

 

[diluted]

Format every 6 months - a year is good practice.

It is, but it's such a pain in the ass.

 

[Fliko]

Family computer. I'm not going to be allowed format unless the computer it is very f*cked up. Maybe I should try defragmenting although I did that fairly recently.

Backup all your stuff, put a virus onto it then format it because it is messed up.