Windows Vista Services Disabled?

I was using my computer just fine no problems at all, surfing the net using other programs etc. Then all of a sudden I couldn't get on the internet, did the usual stuff, rebooted, reinstalled my lan card, did a repair, reset my modem, called my provider, did system restore using several different restore points, and nothing worked.

For whatever reason I decided to check "services" in administrative tools. Every service in there had been disabled. I don't know how and I don't know why.

I am not yet familar with what services in Vista should be running and which ones are not required so I started them all and still could not get on the net.

After working with it for several hours I decided that reformating would be the easiest and shortest route to take. So I backed up all my files and proceeded to reinstall windows.

Now everything is working as it should once again, but my curiosity wants to know what caused all my services to be disabled? Not just one or two of them but every single one had been disabled.

Have you ever heard of this problem or have any idea what might have caused it?

 

I dont think there is any way that it could happen accidentaly (could be wrong) It's history now, I guess, but I think you were very unlucky whilst surfing and got hacked, or had a virus planted.

 

Thanks for that link Pete.

Well I sure didn't change any of the services running. And if it was a virus, McAfee didn't do it's job very well. And with all the other protection I am running how did it get past that? What else can I use protection wise to prevent this from ever happening again?

I am only using McAfee because my computer came with a 60 day trial, I figured that would give me time to find a good virus program and by then most should be Vista compatible. I will never go back to Norton's although I still have NIS 2007 2 users license left.

I guess winpatrol, adawatch and bitdefender only protect the registry. There was something that caused that and it wasn't me.

 

I seen many recommendations for NOD32, I will look into that.

I had no choice on my OS as my Sony Viao crashed for the FIFTH time in a year so Best Buy had to give me a new one and they only come with Vista now. I'm slowly getting used to it but I sure miss my XP

On 1 of my other posts someone gave me link for downloading a file that resets the permissions that Vista has blocked the user from opening, I didn't use it right away, but when I tried to upgrade a program it denied access to the original file and could not do the update without replacing the old file so I ran this "takeownership" program and it unlocked it all and installation completed flawlessly. It was the Windows folder and I could not change the security settings through properties but this program he directed me to changed all the security settings giving me ownership of them all, which to me should be, MS shouldn't own them, they're mine, bought and paid for

I know that some people should really not have access to system files but some of us either know what we are doing or are willing to suffer the consequences if we ***** up and have to reformat (ME) . But when the system denies you the ability to upgrade a program by dening access to the files it needs to replace that's going a little too far!!

 

Hi again. I did write such a file myself. Whilst I was not the one who suggested you use it (I think) , it has probably been replicated in many places, as it was not difficult to construct. I do feel that might have been the reason for you services being disabled!
By the way, for the record. I was also a Vista Beta tester and one thing which was emphasised by MS, as a result of queries throughout the testing period, was the fact that you did not buy (and therefore own) there OS, but merely leased the licence (CD-Key) to use it. A very controversial issue but it covers some of there high-handed practises!

 

Services were disabled before I ever tried that reg fix. After reg fix everything seemed fine until I rebooted. Several programs were not functional after that, such as MS Office, MS Works, Adobe Reader just to name a few.

And the MS Installer does not work. So I'm running RFA to see if it can fix the problem and if not well guess I will reformat yet again.

But as I said before, How can programs not have access to files in the Windows directory that they need to update? You can't apply updates when a program needs to delete a file from the Windows folder to replace it with a newer version. There was no way I could install the new version without applying this patch. And the uninstall patch did not uninstall.

Anyway, I guess I won't be using that patch again, I feel that it was the reason for disabling MSI and although MS Office was listed in the programs files there was no way to open them, so honestly don't know if that was the cause or something else.

This has been a learning experience for me and although it's been a rough ride, I have gained much knowledge along with the aggrevation.