Someone help mom's computer!!

[KodiaX987]

OK, so since mom's IE kept freezing, I installed Firefox on her computer. Since it requires its own plugins, I had to reinstall the newest Java with it as well. Mom didn't like Firefox, so she told me to uninstall it.

Done.

And then trouble began:

-IE assumes all web pages are encoded in Japanese and won't change no matter what.
-The computer "chokes" all the time; it keeps freezing for half a second. Really annoying when you play a game or listen to music.
-Sounds in Java games don't occur half of the time.

What the hell is going on?!

[space_butler]

ie died. give up and start again

[Tomeeboy]

Did you run anti-spyware and anti-virus software on the computer?

Also, what operating system?

If there are a lot of programs running when the computer boots up, you may try going into a selective startup mode. This will probably fix your freeze-up problem temporarily. To do this, go to RUN and type in "msconfig". Under "General", pick Selective Starup. You can uncheck everything underneath it except for the BOOT.INI. After doing this, reboot the computer.

Next, go to http://www.download.com and search for Spybot. Download the latest version of Spybot Search & Destroy and run it on the computer. It will detect a lot of junk that may have been accidentally installed and remove it (may require rebooting and running it again if some things are in memory and can't be removed).

You may also want to run some anti-virus software. I would recommend using a free web-based service like HouseCall:
http://housecall.trendmicro.com

After all of that, things should be cleaned up fairly well. One last thing you can do is run HiJackThis (http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html) to see if there are any settings left that may have been changed by 3rd party programs. Some settings returned by this program are perfectly legit, so it's a good idea to leave things alone if you don't know what they are. If you want, generate a log and PM it to me and I'll tell you what to remove.

Hope this helps http://pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif

-Tomeeboy



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Tomeeboy on 2005-01-11 11:42 ]</font>

[SpikeOtacon]

On 2005-01-11 11:41, Tomeeboy wrote:
Did you run anti-spyware and anti-virus software on the computer?

Also, what operating system?

If there are a lot of programs running when the computer boots up, you may try going into a selective startup mode. This will probably fix your freeze-up problem temporarily. To do this, go to RUN and type in "msconfig". Under "General", pick Selective Starup. You can uncheck everything underneath it except for the BOOT.INI. After doing this, reboot the computer.

Next, go to http://www.download.com and search for Spybot. Download the latest version of Spybot Search & Destroy and run it on the computer. It will detect a lot of junk that may have been accidentally installed and remove it (may require rebooting and running it again if some things are in memory and can't be removed).

You may also want to run some anti-virus software. I would recommend using a free web-based service like HouseCall:
http://housecall.trendmicro.com

After all of that, things should be cleaned up fairly well. One last thing you can do is run HiJackThis (http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html) to see if there are any settings left that may have been changed by 3rd party programs. Some settings returned by this program are perfectly legit, so it's a good idea to leave things alone if you don't know what they are. If you want, generate a log and PM it to me and I'll tell you what to remove.

Hope this helps http://pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif

-Tomeeboy



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Tomeeboy on 2005-01-11 11:42 ]</font>


And the lord spoke, and the people said "AMEN."

[anwserman]

I'd just backup everything that she might need, and reformat the PC. Then install all of the Service Packs and updates, and then install all of the firewall/antivirus/antispyware tools listed.

=3

[Tomeeboy]

On 2005-01-11 13:41, anwserman wrote:
I'd just backup everything that she might need, and reformat the PC. Then install all of the Service Packs and updates, and then install all of the firewall/antivirus/antispyware tools listed.

=3



Reformatting should be used as a last resort in most cases. We don't know how old the computer in question is, and it could fairly new. If the problem could be fixed in 30 minutes by running a few programs, then that would be a lot better than spending hours backing things up, reformatting, and then reinstalling everything again http://pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif Not to mention, if there is some type of virus, you could possibly be backing it up and then re-infecting your newly formatted computer with it if anti-virus wasn't run prior to formatting http://pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

[Madzozs]

If it has XP, use the restore point tool.

I <3 restore points

[rbf2000]

I'm surprised that she doesn't like firefox. I love it.

Most people that use the internet on my computer use firefox because I have it set as the default browser and most people can't tell that it's any different than IE. Of course they don't take advantage of it's many benifits, but they shouldn't be on my computer long enough to learn anyways...

I could never go back to a browser that doesn't have tabbed browsing again...

[KodiaX987]

On 2005-01-11 20:09, rbf2000 wrote:
I'm surprised that she doesn't like firefox. I love it.



Well, my mom is an odd bird. -_-

-She says Firefox slowed her computer down.
-She doesn't like the concept of tabbed browsing.
-She doesn't like it that she has to install plugins for Firefox.
-Hell, she doesn't understand the reason of Firefox's existence altogether.
-She says IE works fine... Even though it freezes whenever I try to use it.

[Dek]

Well here's a good one to tell her...

"But Firefox has more privacy options unlike IE"

[KodiaX987]

Oh boy, I told my mom once about spyware and then she went on this privacy trip and going "OMFG IS MY BANK SAFE??!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!"