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

[witchy]

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

 

[mickyfinn]

first you need to install a real virus killer! avg just does not cut the mustard,

next look at what is lagging the system, this can be done via windows task manager and select process`s this will show you all system process`s and the cpu usage for each of them.

sometimes it can be as simple as a poor script but it sounds more like a nasty to be fair.

check the data to the internet via netstat and run spybot.

If that does not work set the home page to pc world support and tell your friend you fancy his wife, that way he should not call you again, leaving you to post more stuff on this cool site!

 

[toeknee00]

I have a legit version of F-Secure if you would like I can make an .iso of the disk and pm you the licence key...

 

[witchy]

lol, some very interesting replies there - Thanks guys

I sorted it, the virus had copied itself to the system restore files so everytime I ran a scan all available copies of the virus were deleted except for the one hidden in the system restore archives, as soon as i restarted the pc the virus was free to reinfect - AVG was picking up the re-infection but didn't seem to do anything about it! I went into safemode, I turned off system restore, i edited the registry, I ran a virus scan and bingo - all good

 

[T4i]

Always turn system restore off when dealing with a Virus/Trojan etc.

Was just reading through the pages..........

 

[conorc]

One that got me when trying to fix slow app launching........delete all network place items....explorer times-out on each one when launching an app through a shortcut.

 

[Utopie]

I had a problem where closing an explorer window would open a about:blank IE window.

To fix this all I did was open IE, goto Tools > Internet Options > Advanced and hit Reset...

I have a feeling this would have worked for you also. Never mind.

£1 would have bought me a block of cheese out of Iceland.

 

[TheWakeUpCall]

How on earth do you fix a problem where it is showing no user accounts? I would have been stuck there!

 

[gasman]

Put everything back as it was and tell him you havent a clue or next time he screws the pc your doorbells gunna be ringing again lol