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Help - with 2 problems...

Started by mcnyc , Nov 13 2005 08:16 AM

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#1
mcnyc
Posted 13 November 2005 - 08:16 AM

mcnyc

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Hi - My mom has a Dell Dimension L1000K (Pentium 3 processor, 127.0 MB RAM, running Windows Me).

She has had all sorts of problems with it so I ran Ad-Aware and Spybot and cleaned out about 250 critical objects (from Malware to Browser Hijacks). I cleaned out her temp internet files (she had over 21,000), defragged and did a scandisk. So I thought all was well after all this and after restarting, everything was fine. I just installed her new DSL service and she was online.

However, there are still 2 persistent problems that won't go away and have led me to this forum.

First problem....when opening Internet Explorer, the home page automatically goes to:

http://213.159.117.134/index.php

I tried to change it to Yahoo or MSN but even when hitting the Apply button, the changes don't stick. It's literally driving me nuts. *laugh*

Second problem....while surfing, we keep getting the following error and the PC crashes:

Mstask has caused an error in KERNEL32.DLL. Mstask will now close. If the problem persists, please try restarting your computer.

My mom was in the middle of making an online purchase and this error came up and the PC crashed.

Any help anyone can offer is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Marcy
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#2
Murray S.
Posted 13 November 2005 - 08:41 AM

Murray S.

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Howdy and welcome to G2G:

Sounds like a malware problem first off and I suggest you get that fixed up before attempting any other fixes..

Go to THIS LINK and follow the directions exactly.. It will clear 70% of your problems and may be all you need..

Once you have completed that, post a HiJackThis Log in the Malware Forum (link underlined in my signature) and let the guru's there have a look at it.. Patience is the key here as they are very busy..

Once you get a clean bill of health from them and you are still having problems, return to this thread and we will go from there!! :tazz:

Murray
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#3
mcnyc
Posted 13 November 2005 - 10:49 AM

mcnyc

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Murray,

Thanks so much for your speedy response. As you can see, it's been about 2 hours since you posted your reply and it has taken me about that long to get through all the scans and etc. :tazz:

I was surprised at what I found. I found that my mom's PC had a bloodhound virus on it (that doesn't sound good, huh?). She mentioned that my brother visits some "questionable" websites and my sister-in-law likes to download games and they both really are not knowledgeable of what is safe and what is not.

Anyway, I just wanted to post and say thanks and give you an update. I have posted a hijack log in the malware forum and hopefully all is well. The home page problem in IE has been fixed (as soon as I rebooted after doing the scans and downloading Windows updates, the homepage went to MSN.com). It's amazing to me that even Ad-aware and Spybot are not enough to detect all problems. I am now looking forward to getting home and performing the same scans on my PC. But that's a whole different set of issues. I'm glad I found this forum. :)

I'll keep you posted...

Thanks again,
Marcy :)
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#4
Murray S.
Posted 13 November 2005 - 10:58 AM

Murray S.

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Thank you for the update Marcy..

The people that write these malware programs are getting sneakier and, when it seemed that Spybot and Ad-Aware is all that was needed, now it seems some of them need specific removal programs..

I am sure the guru's in Malware will finish off the rest of the nasties (if there even are any) and the system will operate as it should!! :tazz:

Murray
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