Well, i’ve plumbed my limited depths of knowledge and come up empty, so i have to appeal for help. Before coming here, i ran every spyware and virus check that i have, tried uninstalling and reinstalling Acrobat, and even tried a system restore, all to no avail. Anyway, here’s the story.
I’ve been using Acrobat quite a bit the last few days to open journal articles from academic databases. For the most part, it’s worked fine, although for a while i had to use IE (instead of my usual Firefox) because Firefox sometimes has trouble handling the Acrobat plugin, and the website was set up in such a way that i couldn’t right-click and download the file.
Anyway, when i shut down my computer last night, it hung up for a little while and then i got a message saying that something called (i think) avtool was trying to close. I stopped the program and then, because i hadn’t heard of it, did a Google search, but it’s still not clear to me exactly what it was.
Anyway, today i try to use Acrobat to “print” (i.e., make a pdf) from a webpage. It starts the process and then hangs and nothing happens. CPU usage goes up to 40% (with nothing else running), so after a while i close down the program. No pdf is created.
I decide that reinstalling Acrobat might be an option, so i try it. But now it won’t open at all; i just get the splash screen, and again CPU usage climbs to about 50%. I figure at this point that maybe something’s happened in the registry, and i’m not comfortable fooling around with it myself so i try a system restore; again, no luck. I try uininstalling and reinstalling Acrobat again, without success.
It’s then that i make an interesting discovery. Acrobat works fine in my main Admin account (with full admin privileges), but it doesn’t work in my everyday account, which only has user privileges. My computer also has a third account for my wife, which is also a regular user account, and Acrobat works fine there too. So, it seems that the only place it won’t work is in my account.
So, now i have a couple of questions:
-
Does anyone have any idea what the hell is going on here?
-
Is this most likely a registry problem, or some sort of user access/privilege problem?
Also, i tried creating another account, just to see what would happen. Acrobat seems to work fine there too. So, my last question is:
- I was thinking that maybe i could just transfer all my working files and my email account over to the new user account, and delete my previous user account. Providing i transfer all the files properly, is there any danger in doing this? And is deleting the old user account likely to rid me of my problem for good?
Any assistance or advice would be much appreciated.
By the way, if it’s of any use, here’s my hijackthis log:
Running processes:
C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE
C:\PROGRA~1\NORTON~1
avapw32.exe
C:\Program Files\MusicMatch\MusicMatch Jukebox\mmtask.exe
C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunesHelper.exe
C:\Program Files\D-Tools\daemon.exe
C:\Program Files\Microsoft AntiSpyware\gcasServ.exe
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Distillr\acrotray.exe
C:\Program Files\Creative\SBLive\Diagnostics\diagent.exe
C:\Program Files\Microsoft AntiSpyware\gcasDtServ.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2\Office\OUTLOOK.EXE
C:\PROGRA~1\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE
C:\Documents and Settings\Michael Henderson\Desktop\HijackThis.exe
R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://www.jhu.edu/
R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings,AutoConfigURL = http://proxy.hcf.jhu.edu/proxy.pac
O2 - BHO: (no name) - {06849E9F-C8D7-4D59-B87D-784B7D6BE0B3} - C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEHelper.dll
O2 - BHO: (no name) - {53707962-6F74-2D53-2644-206D7942484F} - C:\PROGRA~1\SPYBOT~1\SDHelper.dll
O2 - BHO: (no name) - {AA58ED58-01DD-4d91-8333-CF10577473F7} - (no file)
O2 - BHO: (no name) - {AE7CD045-E861-484f-8273-0445EE161910} - C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Acrobat\AcroIEFavClient.dll
O2 - BHO: (no name) - {BDF3E430-B101-42AD-A544-FADC6B084872} - C:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\NavShExt.dll
O3 - Toolbar: Norton AntiVirus - {42CDD1BF-3FFB-4238-8AD1-7859DF00B1D6} - C:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\NavShExt.dll
O3 - Toolbar: (no name) - {2318C2B1-4965-11d4-9B18-009027A5CD4F} - (no file)
O3 - Toolbar: &Radio - {8E718888-423F-11D2-876E-00A0C9082467} - C:\WINDOWS\System32\msdxm.ocx
O3 - Toolbar: Adobe PDF - {47833539-D0C5-4125-9FA8-0819E2EAAC93} - C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Acrobat\AcroIEFavClient.dll
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NvCplDaemon] RUNDLL32.EXE C:\WINDOWS\System32\NvCpl.dll,NvStartup
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [diagent] "C:\Program Files\Creative\SBLive\Diagnostics\diagent.exe" startup
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [UpdReg] C:\WINDOWS\UpdReg.EXE
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NAV Agent] C:\PROGRA~1\NORTON~1
avapw32.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [mmtask] c:\Program Files\MusicMatch\MusicMatch Jukebox\mmtask.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SunJavaUpdateSched] C:\Program Files\Java\j2re1.4.2_04\bin\jusched.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [iTunesHelper] C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunesHelper.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [WinVNC] "C:\Program Files\UltraVNC\WinVNC.exe" -servicehelper
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [DAEMON Tools-1033] "C:\Program Files\D-Tools\daemon.exe" -lang 1033
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SmcService] C:\PROGRA~1\Sygate\SPF\smc.exe -startgui
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Symantec NetDriver Monitor] C:\PROGRA~1\SYMNET~1\SNDMon.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SSC_UserPrompt] C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\Security Center\UsrPrmpt.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [gcasServ] "C:\Program Files\Microsoft AntiSpyware\gcasServ.exe"
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [Symantec NetDriver Monitor] C:\PROGRA~1\Symantec\LIVEUP~1\SNDMon.EXE
O4 - Global Startup: Acrobat Assistant.lnk = C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Distillr\acrotray.exe
O4 - Global Startup: Adobe Gamma Loader.lnk = C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Calibration\Adobe Gamma Loader.exe
O4 - Global Startup: Microsoft Office.lnk = C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\OSA9.EXE
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Sun Java Console (HKLM)
O9 - Extra button: Run WinHTTrack (HKLM)
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Launch WinHTTrack (HKLM)
O9 - Extra button: Related (HKLM)
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Show &Related Links (HKLM)
O16 - DPF: {0E5F0222-96B9-11D3-8997-00104BD12D94} (PCPitstop Utility) - http://www.pcpitstop.com/pcpitstop/PCPitStop.CAB
O16 - DPF: {17492023-C23A-453E-A040-C7C580BBF700} (Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool) - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=34738&clcid=0x409
O16 - DPF: {33564D57-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71} - http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/6/E/F6E491A6-77E1-4E20-9F5F-94901338C922/wmv9VCM.CAB
O16 - DPF: {D27CDB6E-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540000} (Shockwave Flash Object) - http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab
O17 - HKLM\System\CCS\Services\Tcpip\..\{DA706EC6-6F52-4FD0-974F-87C3609FCB73}: NameServer = 151.196.0.39,151.196.0.38