HELP!!!!!! IT Advice needed

[giraffe]

Thanks, I've been getting all sorts of messages saying there is an error in this that and the other, at one point the computer turned itself off while I was in the middle of something. It just suddenly came up with the Windows is logging off screen.

The anti virus is AVG which the little man put on for me, and the trouble started just after it said it had done it's daily check!

I'll go and see if I can follow your instructions.

[giraffe]

Right, I did that. When it came back on it told me that AVG was turned off. (It was on earlier) So I've put that back on, and it seems to have changed all sorts of things. The typeface looks short and fat for a start. I had about 6 toolbars at the top, which I have got rid of, but the one that had favourites and things on it is missing. I know I can find them by clicking the star, but it has put them all in a different order and I prefered doing it the other way. I can't remember what else was on the toolbar, but I'm sure it was things I used.

Does anyone know how to get it back?

[Bunnylump]

Sorry, no idea how to sort that out, but just to say when I got all that carp coming up one of my friends put an anti spyware programme on my pc and it detected lots of little "hooks" on my computer, which it got rid of. I don't get them any more. Now we have Norton anti virus and it hasn't happened again. We have to remember to always get the updates and run a full scan once a week.(And no, I have no idea what I'm talking about. hope you get it sorted out).

[gill216]

Bunny you can set Norton to do all of those things automatically. Open the programme and find tasks and schedule.

[Bunnylump]

Yes, we have that set now. It's a lot easier than faffing about.

[brian]

I've had to do this 'go back to go' touch on my PC. It is fairly easy to do - I managed it so it must be simple - if you don't go very far back, a few days at most, there should be nothing changed, but whatever was causing the problem - usually something picked up from some exotic website - will have gone. Incidentally I had Norton Anto Virus for years until my Pc crashed and the guy in the shop said that it was slow in getting to new viruses so I changed to MacAfee and so far (touchwood) so good.
I hope I'm not tempting providence with that!

[Bunnylump]

some exotic website

Hmmm. I can just imagine, especially in your case...

[SparkOut]

I've had to do this 'go back to go' touch on my PC. It is fairly easy to do - I managed it so it must be simple - if you don't go very far back, a few days at most, there should be nothing changed, but whatever was causing the problem - usually something picked up from some exotic website - will have gone. Incidentally I had Norton Anto Virus for years until my Pc crashed and the guy in the shop said that it was slow in getting to new viruses so I changed to MacAfee and so far (touchwood) so good.
I hope I'm not tempting providence with that!

It's a subjective thing naturally, but I did splutter at the idea that McAfee was held to be better/faster in detection of new viruses than Norton. On the network I ran, McAfee would have allowed infection on perhaps more than 100 occasions in 3 years, if I had relied on only that protection. Detection of new viruses and update of definition files were often 5 or 6 days behind the responses of Symantec, Norman and Kaspersky (as well as failure to catch viruses that should have been prevented according to the current definition files).
It's only my opinion, but I would say that Norton is still the general "yardstick" in terms of AV protection, without going to extreme levels and enterprise costs. It has detractors for being rather resource-hungry, but the response time to release new protection definitions is as good as the next, and IMHO far better than McAfee. My personal preference for a low-cost commercial AV program is Kaspersky, and either AVG or Avast! are pretty good free alternatives.
Being cynical I might suggest that McAfee had made a promotion to encourage the retailer to sell their product, but more likely it's a case of the retailer just having his own subjective and perhaps partisan opinion which differs from mine, so I wouldn't suggest you rush out and complain - or feel that you have inferior protection, Brian.

And giraffe, seems like you've already taken some steps, and to be honest it's really very tricky to give remote advice without seeing what you've got on the machine and what's happened to it. If you want to PM me and give me as much detail as you can about your computer operating system, and anything you can think of that's happened, I'll see if I can email you some useful things to try.
Q1) Have you done all the Windows Updates you need to recently?

[giraffe]

Q1) Have you done all the Windows Updates you need to recently?

No idea! It's still looking strange. It seems to have downloaded a new version of AVG (AVG with toolbars) and a new version of windows explorer (not sure if that's what it's called).

It won't let me have google as my homepage unless I want a version with a red monkey on it! I can get the proper google page, but only if I google google. I can get it to ask me if I want google as my home page, but when I click yes it tells me my home page is "sweetim" with the monkey!

Why can't it just be like it was before?

It has swapped over the " and @ keys too AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!
and # is supposed to be a pound sign, \ is a hash sign . Any ideas on how to get the keyboard back doing the right things?

[LAT]

have chatted to our IT guy at work and am sending you a PM

[Scurra]

The keyboard thing is because it's set to US instead of UK.

[giraffe]

Yes, but it won't let me change it back.

[SparkOut]

Sounds quite a serious thing you've had happen giraffe. If you were closer I'd have a look for you but for the keyboad settings, if you go to Control Panel and under the Regional and Language options, there will be setup options in there. Look in EVERY tab for EVERY section and check that UK settings are applied - there's quite a few areas.
http://www.maroonraccoon.com/glpics/reg ... ttings.swf may help show some of the important ones.
When you've done all the settings, the last tab "Advanced" will have (as well as another place to check for UK settings) a tickbox at the bottom to set the default profile to use the settings you have selected. Reboot afterwards and that will hopefully sort the keyboard out.
SweetIM is a source for smileys and things as well as chat, and could be a potential source of the problems you've incurred. It doesn't have a great reputation, although it's claimed to be spyware free. More likely it's connected with smiley sites in general, which have tried to hijack your setup and home pages etc.
There's some things you might try in the hosts file under C:\Windows(or system directory)\System32\drivers\etc but that's quite technical. Downloading Spybot Search and Destroy from www.safer-networking.org may help.
My gut feeling is that you should make backups of all the documents and pictures and files that you want to keep and be prepared for a complete reinstall. It might not be necessary, but it would never hurt to have a cleanly formatted installation, and I'd definitely look at backup of things you want to keep in case the drive does have to be wiped.

[giraffe]

Thanks. I just love knowing you all. You are so helpful.

LAT's tame IT person has sent me various links to try to get rid of it, but it won't download them. I have just spoken to my little man and he is coming out Monday to look. He has rebuilt me before when the PC refused to do anything (including turn on )

I can't think where I have picked it up from, I'm really careful about what I do and even when I'm playing with smileys I only use two sites that don't normally cause problems.

I'll go and try that thing with the language options but I don't think it will save the changes. Everything I have tried to change has jst gone back to how it was before.

[MBH]

Sounds' like you've had it bad... a definite wrong turn somewhere along the line.

I've got an ongoing 'suspicious' feeling about smilie sites (and others of their ilk), and try to make the best of available smilies on any forum I'm on. Lots of lovely and funny things you can add, but sometimes there's danger given for free.

Worthwhile trying to find out WHAT exactly happened and sharing a record of it with us. It might save someone else, and it will help you avoid it happening again.

Good Luck

[gill216]

Hope you get things sorted Giraffe.

Can anyone explain to me why it is I had 35.4 gb free before defragmenting my computer and now I've only got 33.2?Who or what stole my 2.2 gb?

Gill

[giraffe]

It wasn't me, honest. Mind you, hand Kingsley a doughnut and she'll show you some big bites.

[MBH]

Just received this, and thought it was appropriate:

Life Before Computers.

Memory was something you lost with age.
An application was for employment.
A programme was a show on TV.
A cursor was someone who swore a lot.
A keyboard was a piano.
A web was a spider's home.
A virus was the flu.
A hard drive was a long trip down the road.
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived.
And if you had a three inch floppy you just hoped that nobody found out!

[Bunnylump]

[brian]

Like it MBH

(but programme should have been on the wireless surely!)

Just to throw in again my praise for MacAfee - the guy recomended it and I bought it on line. It adds new 'things' every time I switch on and has a visual rating for each site I visit. (Incidentally it is not certain about this one yet giving it an intermediate rating)
I am as most of you know a 'silver surfer' way beyond retirement age and I haven't a clue what the experts are talking about most of the time, just keep on nodding sagely at the appropriate moment.

I agree with the smiley sites being a pain, I stopped using them when they kept redirecting me to various 'adult' sites (The ones that weren't my bag otherwise I might have appreciated it!)