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posted by [identity profile] silenttex.livejournal.com at 01:48pm on 24/10/2008
From what I can see on t'web, this seems like it should be relatively easy to remove. Follow the manual instructions on this site: http://www.411-spyware.com/remove-antispywarexp2009
and check everything is gone. I'd also check your hosts file. For XP it's at: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC. Right click on it and choose Open With Notepad. Check for anything you don't recognise. You can *usually* safely delete every entry in here. (Make a backup copy first in case I'm wrong!)
You could try replacing the hosts file with one from here: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
Delete your Temporary internet files and cookies, and then open a command prompt and type "ipconfig /flushdns" (without the quotes).
You could also try googling for HijackThis, which is a tool that tells you what's running in the background. You can export the results and post them on the site forum and ask for help.
If none of that works, I suspect a complete reinstall is probably going to be the quickest and easiest recovery method.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] mitchy.livejournal.com at 03:41pm on 24/10/2008
Had to go the reinstall route in the end. It just got worse and worse. Oh well, I didn't have that much to lose, except my email and most of the important stuff I saved over at hotmail too :)

Thanks for the help though, it's a shame the PC refused to co-operate.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] silenttex.livejournal.com at 04:15pm on 24/10/2008
Sounds like there may have been more going on than just the XP2009 thing.
Right, what I'd suggest is this. Get yourself an external drive that's bigger than the capacity of your hard drive. Google for some software to take an image of your PC. (I'll also have a look when I get home. I may already have something which will work)
Get your PC setup the way you want it, install all your programs, configure email, do any little tweaks, etc.
Then use the software to take an image of it onto the external drive. Take a new image every time you do a major update, or set up a backup schedule. If you want to be extra safe, keep a current image and the previous image. Practice restoring an image at least once. Make sure you change the PC by deleting or renaming a bunch of stuff to be sure the image replaces what's there.
This way if something happens, restoring the PC is easy, data loss is minimised, and it saves the hassle of reinstalling everything from scratch. You just re-image, reboot, and start working again. The other advantage is that I doubt there are any viruses out there that will target imaging software, so whatever else the virus breaks, you should still be able to re-image.
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posted by [identity profile] mitchy.livejournal.com at 04:21pm on 24/10/2008
Yeh, I'm fairly sure there's something fundamentally wrong with this install, it's been flakey from the get go and I get the same bugs, even after two reformats. I am hoping to get a new PC :) But yes, an external drive and decent back up procedures are long overdue. Next pay day, there will be investigating of options! Thanks :)
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] silenttex.livejournal.com at 10:22pm on 24/10/2008
http://selfimage.excelcia.org/
http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/backupandimage.shtml

I've not used any of these, but they all claim to do what you need.
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