XP shuts down unexpectedly

While on yahoo.com games page a window pops up and says that my IE had been upgraded to Web Search. It ask me did I want to run this new program, of which I did not download and/or install. When I said no it gives me another window asking me didn't I want to try it and had 2 options. 1 - yes try the program or 2 - uninstall. I chose to uninstall and that's when the problem hit my computer. The computer froze I could not do anything, programs did not work and could not shut down. When I restarted my computer, I ran Norton virus, and some of the files were missing and I had to reinstall Norton. Now my computer shuts down by itself. I can be right in the middle of something and it just restarts. I have heard of this problem but do not remember what the fix was. Any HELP???????

 

Hello whompuscat,

A number of things to do:

Download the following anti-malware programs:

Spybot Search&destroy here: http://tomcoyote.org/SPYBOT/

Ad-Aware here: http://www.lavasoft.de/

Your Browser has been hijacked. If the above programs don't altogether solve the problem, download HijackThis from here http://www.tomcoyote.org/hjt/ and post the results either on http://www.spywareinfo.com/yabbse/ under Spyware and Hijacking removal support or on this board http://www.net-integration.net/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.cgi under Browser Hijacking.

Regards - Charles

 

Okay did that and have gotten a response from them. I still had some of the web search entries in my registry, and have deleted them. Still am unable to run Norton Virus scan since this happened. Any suggestions on that? I went to the Norton site and ran scan from there and no virus, but Norton still hangs/freezes when I try to run a scan.

 

Hi Joyce

Charles gave you all you needed to eradicate this culprit.

But you now have a damaged Norton installation. Norton will need to be completely uninstalled and you will need to use the Norton cleanup utility before reinstalling.

So here are the steps.

"Download and install only" but "DO NOT" run the following programs. You will run them in SAFE MODE!

You may want to print this so you will have the steps in safe mode.

__________________________________________________
Norton removal from Symantec (they even know they have this problem) Smile!

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/2001092114452606
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nsw.nsf/docid/2001101612274407

__________________________________________________
Registry Cleanup (these 2 will help with leftovers from the original problem and finish removing Norton).

RegScrubXP

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2048

NOTE: W2K and XP only!

Select RegScrub finds problems and remove all it finds

RegSeeker

http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm

Run it and select clean the registry.
Then chose "Find in registry" and look first for Norton and delete all it finds. Then search again for Symantec and delete all it finds.

Only after downloading and installing the above boot to safe mode and run the programs in the same order (and there is a logic to the sequence) as above.

Once you have ran all the above reboot to full mode and reinstall Norton.

In addition to allowing you to reinstall Norton to function again these cleanup proceedures should also increase the overall preformance and stability of your computer.
__________________________________________________

SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT REGSEEKER TO ALL OTHERS READING THIS. I don't know how I missed RegSeeker but a few weeks ago ran accross this jewel and am totally impressed.

GET THIS, once every 6-8 weeks I totally vacume my OS of temps old bakups etc then run multiple Registry cleaners in prep for a Drive Image. I want the image to be clean and tight if I need to restore. So this this time as usual I ran EasyClean, RegCleaner, System Mechanic, MS RegClean, Fixit utilities Regcleaner and RegScrub. I ran them all repeatedly untill they all come up clean. Then I ran RegSeeker and it found more.

But that is not all, it solves one problem for an inexperienced user. As it has a great registy search function that brings all items it finds up on a page like the windows search function and allows to "select all" or individually tag and delete. And it is fast!

This makes registry searching so easy that although I am totally comfortable with manual registry searches I will not do another manual search if I have RegSeeker available. By being a professional Systems Analyst I have had the opportunity to run it on at least 10 other computers a mixture of 98 ME 2k and XP. All with great sucess.

This one is a GET if you don't have it, and Keeper when you do get it.

Mike

 

Joyce,

Was going to tell you the bad news, Mike beat me to it.

Although, I would run NAV in safe mode first (F8 key on bootup) before going the uninstall/re-install route first. There is a possiblity that NAV may reset itself since the problem it tried to deal with is no longer there.

Get rid of anything in the quarentined folder first before the scan.


Mike,

An empahtic second on RegSeeker.


Regards - Charles