Strangest thing I've ever seen........XP home Problem.

witchy

witchy

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My darling wife volunteered my services to our neighbour, I now have a shitty Celeron 2.4Ghz running with only 256mb (minus 8mb for shared VRAM, lol) sitting infront of me, anyway..........

The problems were.....

1. Wouldn't boot. - fixed this
2. Multiple user accounts present but none showing - fixed this
3. 10,447 instances of viral/trojan infection (AVG FREE)
4. Browser never took him to the web page he wanted - fixed this
6. Mouse would lock up - fixed this
7. No USB devices would work - fixed this
8. Full screen video playback was too bright - fixed this

Now comes the one that has stumped me, whenever he tries to launch Internet Explorer the PC tried to install Microsoft Office 2003, it then launches 2 instances of IE, as long as IE is open the pc will repeatedly try to install MS Office 2003!

I've checked for bogus BHO's (found plenty and removed them) but none of them related to this problem, I've check file associations and all are present and complete with no errors, I done all the simple IE fixes like reseting defaults and stuff like that but it hasn't helped.

£1 to the guy that can fix this. ;)

(£1 paid via paypal)

lol

;)
 
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Just a quick suggestion

Delete IE :Kickassro Install Firefox:banana:

(If I win the pound just donate to charity of your choice)

:Hit:
 
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Sorry mate I'm stumped, that was the best I could come up with. Well done on fixing the rest.
 
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I it had all those probs and still had probs I would recommend saving what he wants saving and formating.
 
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Not beiong funny but is Roxio installed, one of their installations use to ask for the office cd, not sure which one, think it was roxio 7 or 8 but defo not 7.5.
 
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I'd give up. Backup the important stuff, format and re-install. If you found 10000+ infections, there's bound to be some that've been missed (may be causing the Office problem). And tell him to stop downloading porn and warez ;)
(just saw parkers response. Damn slow typing :) )
 
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witchy2k1 said:
My darling wife volunteered my services to our neighbour, I now have a shitty Celeron 2.4Ghz running with only 256mb (minus 8mb for shared VRAM, lol) sitting infront of me, anyway..........

The problems were.....

1. Wouldn't boot. - fixed this
2. Multiple user accounts present but none showing - fixed this
3. 10,447 instances of viral/trojan infection (AVG FREE)
4. Browser never took him to the web page he wanted - fixed this
6. Mouse would lock up - fixed this
7. No USB devices would work - fixed this
8. Full screen video playback was too bright - fixed this

Now comes the one that has stumped me, whenever he tries to launch Internet Explorer the PC tried to install Microsoft Office 2003, it then launches 2 instances of IE, as long as IE is open the pc will repeatedly try to install MS Office 2003!

I've checked for bogus BHO's (found plenty and removed them) but none of them related to this problem, I've check file associations and all are present and complete with no errors, I done all the simple IE fixes like reseting defaults and stuff like that but it hasn't helped.

£1 to the guy that can fix this. ;)

(£1 paid via paypal)

lol

;)
Click to expand...

If it happens when he launches IE then it must be one of the IE plugins or addins that's causing the problem.

I would suggest downloading Autoruns and disabling all the options under the Internet Explorer tab.

If that doesn't work then disable all the Addins in IE and see if that resolves the issue.

I'll let you know where you can send the pound :)
 
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simpliest fix

when it asks for the cd.. let it have it.. should install the missing parts..

normally language related...


however would suggest backup format restore... best way to get rid of everything and have a clean slate
 
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I've heard of similiar problems wiht the various setup.exe's being confused but to be honest sounds so fooked up I wouldn't be happy with anything short of a reinstall, even though you probably have spent a load of time fixing the other problems.

If the system was as infested as you describe I'd definately go for the reinstall.
 
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witchy2k1 said:
My darling wife volunteered my services to our neighbour, I now have a shitty Celeron 2.4Ghz running with only 256mb (minus 8mb for shared VRAM, lol) sitting infront of me, anyway..........

The problems were.....

1. Wouldn't boot. - fixed this
2. Multiple user accounts present but none showing - fixed this
3. 10,447 instances of viral/trojan infection (AVG FREE)
4. Browser never took him to the web page he wanted - fixed this
6. Mouse would lock up - fixed this
7. No USB devices would work - fixed this
8. Full screen video playback was too bright - fixed this

Now comes the one that has stumped me, whenever he tries to launch Internet Explorer the PC tried to install Microsoft Office 2003, it then launches 2 instances of IE, as long as IE is open the pc will repeatedly try to install MS Office 2003!

I've checked for bogus BHO's (found plenty and removed them) but none of them related to this problem, I've check file associations and all are present and complete with no errors, I done all the simple IE fixes like reseting defaults and stuff like that but it hasn't helped.

£1 to the guy that can fix this. ;)

(£1 paid via paypal)

lol

;)
Click to expand...

IMO easiest would be to reformat & reinstall xp, but if you want than you can setup vnc on the pc and i'll try to sought it out over the internet.
 
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hawkish said:
that sounds like the flux capacitor needs more plutonium.
Click to expand...

Good thinking, though I think the interossiter settings might need tweaking at the same time though.

(Nah, back up and wipe it. You're probably holding back because you've done so much already)
 
Last edited:
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I had this with lots of pc's make sure you have the right copy of the office *.msi file it is asking for.
Once this is done you should have no problems until the next time lol.
It is Roxio I beleive is the cause.

But from what been on the PC in the past Iwould say Format make sure you take a print screen of device#s attached always handy for finding the correct drivers.

FlapJack
 
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Ive had the problem with a website asking for the office cd 1 and I have no idea why . I dont have roxio , I do use IE7 . If you fix the problem let me know please .
 
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It was needing plutonium! :)

I removed IE7 and reverted back to IE6 - IE6 still tried to install Office, so I uninstalled Office and ran Hijackthis, I disabled everything that I didn't recognise and now it's no longer giving me the problem, however system speed is still attrocious. I've added 1Gb of ram to help me make things a little faster but it's still slow as shit, I ran a defrag on it - it took 6 hours to complete and it's only a 80Gb HD!

I agree that I'd be much better off just reformatting the thing, but I can't get a hold of him - he works with 'problem' kids and he is away climbing a mountain somewhere with them :)
 
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