A fun one...

[ozonecomputer]

Hey everyone, I've got 2 computers here in my shop that have completely stumped me in all ways. What is happening is that when in Windows (XP), neither of them will run Internet Explorer, My Computer, or Control Panel. When I click on them, the screen blinks to the background as if it was starting Windows, then all the icons and stuff comes back, but nothing starts. I can run ordinary programs from the start menu or using Run.

What I have tried: Spybot, Hijack This, Norton AV completely updated. I have found viruses on both of them, but not the same ones it seems, none have looked like they would do something like this. One computer is completely clean right now as far as I can tell.

Both computers can do anything I want in Safe Mode, though I cannot get internet connections to tell me anything, even with networking enabled.

Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[Matthias99]

Ad-Aware? Spybot doesn't get updated often enough, IMHO. Did you also try Norton Utilities, to scan the registry for bad/invalid keys?

 

[ozonecomputer]

Well Ad-Aware certainly worked for one anyway, it's now doing everything properly. I don't understand how spyware would prevent things from running without being considered a virus, but I guess... What it found though didn't seem to be a big deal, it was stuff I hadn't seen before but...well anyway...yeah. Thanks for the tips. Maybe I should buy Norton Utilities sometime, only thing is, I had the impression that you can't fix stuff unless it's fully installed?

 

[PCPETE]

missing .dll. Can't think of the name though, but I will take a look.

 

[pyrojunkie]

A good virus boot cd should be in every shop owners collection.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: ozonecomputer
Well Ad-Aware certainly worked for one anyway, it's now doing everything properly. I don't understand how spyware would prevent things from running without being considered a virus, but I guess... What it found though didn't seem to be a big deal, it was stuff I hadn't seen before but...well anyway...yeah. Thanks for the tips. Maybe I should buy Norton Utilities sometime, only thing is, I had the impression that you can't fix stuff unless it's fully installed?

Norton maintains a fairly narrow database of viruses -- they don't want to muck with spyware stuff because some programs won't run without it there, and it's also possible to make things even worse by removing it improperly. Spyware is also *generally* not damaging to systems (other than degrading performance, but there is the occasional exception), and it doesn't spread to other hosts -- two characteristics of dangerous viruses. Also, the NAV engine is mostly geared towards finding infected files and quarantining them -- most spyware looks like a regularly installed program, which is not really what it's built to work with. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if Norton starts to include a spyware/adware scanner in Norton Utilities at some point in the near future.

Thinking about it more, I believe Norton Utilities does need to be installed to do its checkup stuff, so it might not help on a totally borked system. Probably not a real helpful suggestion, then.