A quick note referring to Zone Alarm…if you deny something it is very very har dot get it back and ive had this problem and it wouldn’t let me start up Mozilla Firefox and when I tried to uninstall it wouldn’t and would crash my computer…even when the program was shut down.
For Firewalls I’d go for PC-Cillin Internet Security 2005…You get a firewall, adware scanner, antivirus and spam protection all for the price of one…personally i got the free copy but the downside is it detects the serial is invalid…can’t find the correct keygen for it and it won’t allow updates without this little pop up that comes up once in a while saying there’s an invalid serial number. Otherwise it’s a great program.
I have a PC at home with 98 Plus! on it. The last couple of nights, I had my Internet session interrupted by a solid blue screen with a message about a “fatal error.” I pressed a key, as instructed, but never got the full screen back; I had to switch the computer off. :mad:
This happened Friday and Saturday night. Sunday I used the Ad-Aware software I’d downloaded, to purge the hard drive of any potential viruses and such. My Internet session was not interrupted this time.
I’ve also had those dreaded WHITE messages about a “fatal exception.”
Can I ascribe this to bugs that my computer takes in off the Internet? In any case, what’s the best thing to do about it?
Adaware won’t get rid of viruses. I hope you have an actual virus scanner for that? Adaware is for syware. Make sure you have the latest version and all your updates, before running.
As for the error messages, we’d better be able to help you if we knew the full and complete messages.
Well, I have the McAfee Virus Shield, which my brother had already installed on this computer before he had it shipped to me. The shield automatically appears whenever the computer boots up. The Ad-Aware as been helpful, in any case.
As for the error messages, it’ll say “A fatal exception [or, error] has occurred” and there will be a six- or seven-digit number; usually, when the blue screen appears it says “Push any key to continue,” but when I do so, either the blue screen persists or I get a partial screen/desktop background. The only thing I can do is shut the computer off. :mad:
Sometimes the white message will include two gray buttons to push. I click on one of them, usually without success. A few years ago Explorer displayed a white message and my computer was unusable for two weeks.
I never remember the exact message, because I’m so angry when it appears that I’m not in the mood to write anything down.
McAfee Virus Shield is a discontinued product, and is no longer being updated by McAfee. You are not protected from any new viruses that have come out since it was discontinued over two years ago. Uninstall it and install a current anti-virus program, such as AVG 7.0 Free Edition from Grisoft. Great protection, won’t slow down your computer, and you can’t beat the price (free).
Thanks. I downloaded it (had to try twice because I had 93% downloaded last night when the computer froze, so I had to start over.) It’s on my computer now, as indicated by the icon on my desktop. I assume, however, to implement it I’ll have to go to the popup Start menu and click on “Run” with the appropriate URL…
I did, Fear. And I had a heckuva time getting the computer to start normally again afterwards!
Incidentally, after I fully scanned the hard drive with it last night, it displayed the message, No virus found.
Even after I finished the scanning, there was a gray-and-black icon on the taskbar at the bottom right of the screen. When I positioned the cursor on it, I got a balloon reading that the virus database was “out of date.”
Is there a common and easily fixable cause when Spybot Search and Destroy takes all night to complete a scan? Because that’s what happened to me yesterday. Every suspect file it came up with, BTW, was related to Cool Web Search. And this was after I had run CW Shredder.
The status line at the bottom of the screen appeared to indicate that the software was searching for the presence of files from a list of some 30,000, and provided a running account of which one on the list was being looked for at any given time, along with the name of the file type. Sometimes it would search for over ten minutes for a single file before incrementing to the next. What’s up with that?
My first three attempts (aborted) were run in normal mode, and I ran it overnight in Safe mode. Then, of the 23 files that were in the datalog this morning, only three of them could be fixed.
Actually, I didn’t check. I loaded it several months ago. But I did check for updates before I proceeded. I’ll give it a look this evening and arrive with more useful information in the morning.
In the meantime, are the symptoms suggestive of anything? And was I accurately interpreting the status line?
Many thanks to you both. My version of spybot is 1.3, BTW, and I see your link is to 1.4. So there’s that. I only just loaded Adaware for the first time on Sunday, but I think I’m better advised to follow your instructions first and ask questions later. The most it could cost me is half an hour or so.
Is defragmentation one of those things I need to run from my command line? If so, how do I issue the order?
How long does it usually take Spybot to run a scan on, say, an eight-Gig HD?
Run defrag from windows. Go ->My Computer-> right click on your drive icon, select properties, do the disc cleanup thing, then select the Error Checking thingy - it won’t run untill you restart the computer, then defrag.
Spybot takes about four - six minutes on my eighty gig drive, will take longer first time.
Be sure to enable the resident ‘Tea Timer’ function.
I recently put my computer–Compaq Desktop 4000 with 98 Plus! on it–through defragmentation and Scandisk, as I have done several times before. Now, however, it takes a much longer time to start up, and my attempt to restore the full-color display on the desktop–(it showed only 16 colors as in Safe mode)–has failed: the Settings tab has buttons for OK and Apply, which I clicked, in proper order, to restore 16-bit full color (256 colors). But I got a dialog box advising me to restart the computer. I did but still have Safe mode colors in normal mode… Is there a way to correct this?
but the downside is it detects the serial is invalid…can’t find the correct keygen for it and it won’t allow updates without this little pop up that comes up once in a while saying there’s an invalid serial number. Otherwise it’s a great program.
I downloaded it (had to try twice because I had 93% downloaded last night when the computer froze, so I had to start over.) It’s on my computer now, as indicated by the icon on my desktop. I assume, however, to implement it I’ll have to go to the popup Start menu and click on “Run” with the appropriate URL…