Re: re-formatting....arrrggghhh

I haven't gone through your whole message yet but I WAS using a Yahoo
computer tech help group and they recommended a site called Trend Micro
and to use their Housecall (virus/spyware scan) program that supposedly
finds all these bad files that you may have. Well, I ran the scan and
it told me that I had a few different worms and a whole bunch of Adware
issues, so I clicked the button to get rid of these bad files and it
couldn't get rid of the adware/spyware/grayware/malware....etc. So, you
could be right that it's spyware! What is a good spyware program? I
have Avast Anti-virus now, I just dl'd it today!! It had found a virus
when I booted up, but I deleted that one. That seemed to work great.

Another tech person that I talked to said that it sounds like something
is taking over my computer because I can't even copy and paste certain
things now. What do you think about that and what should I look for?

Another issue is that I have a bunch of different spyware/clean-up
programs on my computer. I'm going to name all of them and I'd
appreciate it if you could tell me which ones to get rid of and which
ones to keep....or at least give me a number of how many I should keep.
I'd appreciate that a lot:

Ccleaner
Clean Up
Xoftspy
Avast
Tune-Up Utilities
Amust Registry Cleaner


I will finish reading your other email and see what I can do to make
this better. Hopefully I can make it better before a virus takes
over.....aaaarrrrggghhh!

Thanks so much again. You're a wonderful help!

jamie

Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
LilMustang wrote:

Well, I would certainly rather NOT have to reformat if I don't have
to. So I guess I'll post a couple of my problems and go from there.

First, my computer is WAY SLOW! I did have a bunch of viruses and
worms/adware/spyware/blah blah blah....I have DSL through my local
phone company and they are saying that it's just as fast as it was a
year ago, but a couple different computer tests and just obviousely
the SLOW page loading, has brought me to the conclusion that
something's not right. I also did a scan through a site called Trend
Micro and it said that my computer was extremely slow and I should
take caution.....


Two points here:

1. Take a look at what programs you have starting automatically, and see
what you may not need.. On each program you don't want to start
automatically, check its Options to see if it has the choice not to start
(make sure you actually choose the option not to run it, not just a "don't
show icon" option). Many can easily and best be stopped that way. If that
doesn't work, run MSCONFIG from the Start | Run line, and on the Startup
tab, uncheck the programs you don't want to start automatically.

However, if I were you, I wouldn't do this just for the purpose of running
the minimum number of programs. Despite what many people tell you, you
should be concerned, not with how *many* of these programs you run, but
*which*. Some of them can hurt performance severely, but others have no
effect on performance.

Don't just stop programs from running willy-nilly. What you should do is
determine what each program is, what its value is to you, and what the cost
in performance is of its running all the time. You can get more information
about these at http://castlecops.com/StartupList.html. If you can't find it
there, try google searches and ask about specifics here.

Once you have that information, you can make an intelligent informed
decision about what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of.

2. You say "I did have a bunch of viruses and worms/adware/spyware/blah blah
blah...." What did you have and how did you get rid of it? What software
tools did you run. A slow computer is often a syptom of spyware, and you may
still have some of it left.


Another problem is that I have deleted programs through the Add/Remove
Programs and they're still there and won't delete completely. It comes
up with an error saying something like it can't remove this file
because it's already been removed...duh...lol


The best solution to that problem is often to reinstall the program and then
remove it from Add/Remove programs again.


Also, I'm a big-time graphics user and I have the program Paint Shop
Pro, well, I used to be able to use it just fine. I've uninstalled it
and re-installed it and I get the same error....

" Entry Point Not Found: The Procedure Entry Point
?SetDropDialog@CResourceDropButton@@QAEPAVCResourceSelectDlg@@@Z could
not be located in the dynamic library JascControls.dll


I use Paint Shop Pro myself, but my use is light, and I'm far from an expert
in this. If nobody here can help you with this, I recommend that you ask
about it in the newsgroup corel.paintshoppro8 (or whatever version number
you use) on the news server cnews.corel.com.


I hope you guys can help. I truly believe what you're saying about
these other techs not knowing anything....I'm sure you realize it's a
running joke in this country. You sound like an intelligent, genuine
person (at least for an online person I just met...lol) so I will take
your word on this subject. Thank you very much for being honest and I
sure hope I can keep my computer going the way it is.

Thanks so much,


You're welcome, Jamie, and thanks for the kind words.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup


Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
LilMustang wrote:

Hi there! I'm a newbie to the group and I'm in the middle of
re-formatting so you might hear a lot from me in the next couple of
days. I hope you're okay with that. I'll just state my problems and
questions and you let me know if I've totally confused you....lol

First of all, I have a Gateway 505GR with XP. I recently had a bunch
of viruses and malware/grayware/all the wares. I've been advised to
reformat my XP


Advised by whom? Although it's sometimes the best course of action,
it rarely is. People like techs at Gateway often tell you do this.
Their solution to almost any problem they don't quickly know the
answer to is "reformat and reinstall." That's the perfect solution
for them. It gets you off the phone quickly, it almost always works,
and it doesn't require them to do any real troubleshooting (a skill
that most of them obviously don't possess in any great degree).

But it leaves you with all the work and all the problems. You have to
restore all your data backups, you have to reinstall all your
programs, you have to reinstall all the Windows and application
updates,you have to locate and install all the needed drivers for
your system, you have to recustomize Windows and all your apps to
work the way you're comfortable with.

Besides all those things being time-consuming and troublesome, you
may have trouble with some of them: can you find all your
application CDs? Can you find all the needed installation codes? Do
you have data backups to restore? Do you even remember all the
customizations and tweaks you may have installed to make everything
work the way you like? Occasionally there are problems that are so
difficult to solve that Windows should be reinstalled cleanly. But
they are few and far between; reinstallation should not be a
substitute for troubleshooting; it should be a last resort, to be
done only after all other attempts at troubleshooting by a qualified
person have failed.

If you have problems, post them here; it's likely that someone can
help you and a reinstallation won't be required.


and I need a little help with some things. btw, I'm
saving files to USB flash drive (512MB).

My first question is: Will I lose all of my emails and email program
settings when I reformat? And will I lose all of the folders inside
my email program?


Yes and yes. You will lose *everything*. By definition, refomatting
wipes the disk clean of *everything* on it. It's a draconian
measure that should be used only when there are no other choices.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

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