Re: avp.exe

Windows Firewall is (and was) enabled.

Re Malware:
I downloaded & installed MalwareBytes' AntiMalware. I did a full scan on my
C: HDD (took 1.5 hours). It came up with 26 problems, now fixed.
Before I continue with other AV - I have some questions:
If AntiMalware came up with 26 items that apparently The Shield missed, were
they minor items that The Shield ignored, or is AntiMalware a superior
program?
Why do I need to work with 3 programs - 1 from AVG or Avast or Avira
AntiVir, & AntiMalware & SUPERAntiSpyware?

Re the 5 items under 'sluggishness':
1. Malware - done as described above - with AntiMalware
2. No problem. I dumped Norton very shortly after buying my HP Laptop. Too
many conflicts. But I still use an old Norton Ghost 9 for system backups.
That has never given me any problems.
3. "Too many of 'certain types' of programs running in the background". I
looked at it & it does not seem to be a problem. Anyway, too complicated for
me to take any further.
4. 'Not enough RAM'. I checked as directed & I have plenty of RAM.
5. Re HDD access mode. The Primary IDE Channel is fine - using 'Ultra DMA
MODE 5'. The Secondary IDE Channel says 'Transfer Mode - DMA if available', &
the Current Transfer Mode is 'PIO Mode'. Is that of any importance?

The primary questions right now seem to go back to what to do about the AV
programs.

Thanks for your continuing help.

Bob V

"Daave" wrote:

Also make sure your Windows Firewall is enabled before you reconnect to
the Internet:

Start | Control Panel | (classic view) | Windows Firewall | On | OK

Daave wrote:
Excellent information, Bob. That will help a lot.

I looked up your specs. Here is a spec *** for your model:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&cc=us&docname=c00628099&dlc=en

It says:

Hard Drive 160GB (5400RPM) Dual Hard Drive (80GB x 2)

That seems to match what you wrote. The way these things are marketed,
an 80GB drive winds up *really* being 75GB, which is what your D:
drive is. Since C: is only 66GB, I am guessing that there is a 9GB
hidden recovery partition on there.

The manuals can be found here:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/manualCategory?product=1845530&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&product=1845530

The maintenance and service guide:

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00701888.pdf

Pages B11 and B12 contain instructions to return your PC to its
original fresh-from-the-factory condition (which I am sure would
include a number of "free" trial programs that many of us are not
fans of - e.g., Norton - also known as crapware!). There is indeed a
hidden recovery
partition. But it appears you do not have an XP installation CD; that
is, this laptop would have shipped with recovery discs instead (or
perhaps these were discs you were instructed to create). But that is
not the same thing as an XP installation CD. Recovery discs
essentially do the same thing the recovery partition does.

Then again, it's possible you have an XP installation CD from another
PC. If so, that proably won't work with your HP laptop. In fact, the
only one that would work (for Repair or Clean Installs) is a generic
OEM XP Home installation CD, preferably at the SP3 level. In order to
access XP's Recoery Console, you *might* be able to use a different
flavor of XP installation CD.

AV = antivirus

Malware is in two broad categories: viruses (and related malware like
worms and trojans) and spyware. I had recommended the following
programs for AV:

NOD32
AVG
Avast
Avira AntiVir

(the last three have free versions)

And I recommended these two programs for anti-spyware:

MalwareBytes' AntiMalware
SUPERAntiSpyware

(both have free versions)

I would not uninstall The Shield until you have all your installation
files. Then I would physically disconnect from the Internet, uninstall
The Shield, reboot, and install the AV program of your choice and the
two antimalware programs. Physically reconnect to download the latest
updates. Scan with all three. Depending on your situation (that is,
there might be malware still on your PC), you may need to scan in Safe
Mode. In more drastic situations, you might even need to boot off a
Rescue Disc in order to scan (but I currently wouldn't be worried
about that).

What follows is my usual "boilerplate" for the typical causes of
sluggishness. Number 5 addresses the hard drive access mode and how to
check it and fix it:

Here are the typical causes of sluggishness:

1. Malicious software (malware). You need to rule this out first! This
page has excellent information:

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Viruses_Malware

2. Certain programs that are designed to combat malware (e.g., Norton
and McAfee). Ironically, they can slow things down because they simply
use way too many resources. Sometime they cause conflicts with other
programs. And their default mode is to scan your entire hard drive
each time you boot up. Fortunately, there are other antimalware
programs available that use far fewer resources (e.g., NOD32, Avast,
and Avira).
3. Too many of *certain types* of programs always running in the
background -- with or without your knowledge. (Then again, many
programs that run in the background have trivial consequences.)

To determine every program and process you are currently running, use
the Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Processes tab. You
should be able to sort by CPU usage or Memory usage to get a good
ideas which ones are the resource/memory hogs. You should write down
the names of all the processes for future detective work (or take a
snapshot and print it out).

Use these sites to determine what these programs are and to learn how
to configure them not to always run at startup:

http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.php#THE_PROGRAMS
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm

Sometimes it is recommended to use msconfig to configure the programs
to not run at startup. A better, more thorough program is Autoruns:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

But before you do this, you should use the preference settings of the
program in question. Otherwise, for some programs, they will return to
the startup list anyway!

If you do wish to use msconfig, it may be accessed this way:

Start | Run | type "msconfig" (without the quotation marks) | Enter
(or OK)

4. Not enough RAM, which causes the PC to overly rely on the
pagefile. A quick way to determine if this is happening is to open
Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Performance tab. Then note
the three values under Commit Charge (K): in the lower left-hand
corner: Total, Limit, and Peak.

The Total figure represents the amount of memory you are using at that
very moment. The Peak figure represents the highest amount of memory
you used since last bootup. If both these figures are below the value
of Physical Memory (K) Total, then you probably have plenty of RAM.
In case you want to explore this further, you may run Page File
Monitor for Windows XP:

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm

5. You might also want to check that your hard drive's access mode
didn't change from DMA to PIO:

http://www.technize.com/2007/08/02/is-your-hard-disk-cddvd-drives-too-slow-while-copying/

and

http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udma_fix/



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