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So, fixing my desktop has eaten up more of my time than I expected. It turns out that the ol' compy has... if you'll excuse the use of highly technical term... more Trojans than the Iliad. I had to use Spybot in safe mode to get it to where I could even boot it into regular mode without it crashing, and then connected it to the internet long enough to get an update and ran it again. There were a few entries that couldn't be fixed even with a restart, though, and following the restart a lot of the things that had been fixed popped right back. So I got the Malware Bytes program installed and ran it through that. It found problematic objects that Spybot missed, of course... and at the end of its cycle, there are once again still some things it can't fix. Also, worryingly, for some reason I can't connect to their update server at all.
(Other fun symptoms I've encountered along the way: any hotlink I click opens up a new tab, which passes the URL through some other address. System restore hangs indefinitely. At one point early on, my My Documents folder opened 53 copies of itself.)
It's no longer crashing but I still get spammed with error message (exception processing/no disk) about half the time when I try to open any program, and System Restore is inoperable. The antivirus that came with the system is long expired, so I've now downloaded AVG and it's a-runnin' right now. It's actually almost done. Not only has it identified a lot of trojans, it seem to be moving much faster than Spybot or Malware Bytes did. Though, in fairness, they got faster on subsequent runs, after decrudding much of the system.
If AVG does't clear it up, I suppose I'll have to spring for professional delousing. I hate to do it, but I've already spent so much time loading new programs on it, scanning, rebooting, etc.
Meanwhile I'm trying my best to get my actual work done on my lappy, but this is still the same lappy that gave me so much trouble after Christmas. It's been pretty well behaved... the current problems are mechanical. The charger only seems to make a circuit if it's hanging just right, and some popular letters (S, T, and especially N) are giving me problems. I aim to replace it with a more travel-friendly netbook that runs XP by and by. In the meantime, I look forward to having my desktop back as a option.
(Other fun symptoms I've encountered along the way: any hotlink I click opens up a new tab, which passes the URL through some other address. System restore hangs indefinitely. At one point early on, my My Documents folder opened 53 copies of itself.)
It's no longer crashing but I still get spammed with error message (exception processing/no disk) about half the time when I try to open any program, and System Restore is inoperable. The antivirus that came with the system is long expired, so I've now downloaded AVG and it's a-runnin' right now. It's actually almost done. Not only has it identified a lot of trojans, it seem to be moving much faster than Spybot or Malware Bytes did. Though, in fairness, they got faster on subsequent runs, after decrudding much of the system.
If AVG does't clear it up, I suppose I'll have to spring for professional delousing. I hate to do it, but I've already spent so much time loading new programs on it, scanning, rebooting, etc.
Meanwhile I'm trying my best to get my actual work done on my lappy, but this is still the same lappy that gave me so much trouble after Christmas. It's been pretty well behaved... the current problems are mechanical. The charger only seems to make a circuit if it's hanging just right, and some popular letters (S, T, and especially N) are giving me problems. I aim to replace it with a more travel-friendly netbook that runs XP by and by. In the meantime, I look forward to having my desktop back as a option.