Boot hangs at 'Welcome'

Dear PeteC

Thank you for your comments. You mention that I was attentive, clear and methodical. Well, that's the very least I could do - to put a little effort in when I was asking for and receiving help.

I wish I could, quite literally, shake you by the hand and express my gratitude - or, at least, try to.

I have read your comments over machine security very closely and I have extracted them and filed them in my 'action' file. I shall further check through everything with great care, and not a little respect.

Also, I have followed through the link you provided. As you say, it is most certainly relevant and I have taken everything you have said on board.

Incidentally, I see that Carol (Quetzal) has posted to express her appreciation. I knew she would. I have chatted with her since her machine was returned to its normal state of glowing health, and the first thing she said to me was that she had been along to the Board and posted her thanks. That's how she is, through and through. She spends a lot of time on the 'Net supporting others (not over techie issues) and it came as no surprise at all to learn that, as soon as she could, she posted to the Board as she did.

Helping someone like Carol is, I assure you, a good thing to have done. It is wonderful to hear the pleasure, relief and delight in her voice. She is absolutely stunned at the level of support that her problem generated on this Board. What's more, she is now back on the 'Net helping others in her (unpaid) field of activity.

Thank you, PeteC, for everything.

Adrian

 

Dear DiggerP (Pete),

I am so glad to read what you posted. That said, it was very spontaneous and natural to feel as I did with your help and then to post accordingly.

And Carol feels so much of the same. I spoke to her this afternoon and she sounds virtually a different person altogether. She was dreadfully worried, yesterday, when she got to a friend's machine to dash off a mail to me saying that her Dell wouldn't boot.

Now, to say that she is 'made up' is really putting it mildly!

Pete, I have noted, with great care, what you have said over running more than one anti-malware, anti-virus or firewall. I assure you, this has been well and truly noted and will most definitely be acted upon - by both Carol and me.

What's more, we are both going to produce diagnostic and rescue discs for ourselves. That is absolutely for certain.

I wish I could truly convey what I feel about the help that I received here for Carol. I wish I could truly convey just how she feels. All I have is the medium of the typed word, and that can be more clumsy in my hands than I would wish at a time like this.

You and PeteC are remarkable men. You make the world a better place, and that's saying something.

Thank you.

Adrian

 

Hi, all.

I have been following this thread with great interest. Carol, I'm glad you got your problem resolved! Adrian, I am also very impressed with the problem description detail you provided and your logical, methodical approach you followed and so generously described in detail. It seems certain someone with the same or similar problem as Carol's will benefit if they run across this thread. Dennis, Pete, and Pete, your logical suggested "courses of action" details were very interesting as well. I learned a lot. Thanks!

Adrian (and Carol), I suspect the clash was between Spy Sweeper and ZoneAlarm's Anti-Spyware component (as you suspect).

I think SpySweeper would cooperate with ZoneAlarm if either ZoneAlarm's Anti-Spyware component is turned off or all of Spy Sweeper's memory-resident "Shields" are disabled.

I do not know exactly what ZoneAlarm's Anti-Spyware component protects while it is resident in memory so one might best have all of Spy Sweeper's "Shields" disabled (at least until one can determine which Spy Sweeper "Shields" would interfere with ZoneAlarm's Anti-Spyware component).


If one chooses to have all of Spy Sweeper's memory-resident "Shields" disabled (which, in Carol's case, I think is better than leaving Spy Sweeper uninstalled), then one can still periodically use Spy Sweeper as an on-demand spyware scanner (to detect spyware that ZoneAlarm's Anti-Spyware component might miss or to help investigate whether a detection by ZoneAlarm's Anti-Spyware component might be a "false positive" or not).

Alternatively*, I think one can have all or most of Spy Sweeper's "Shields" active (depending on what other security measures one may already have in place**) and leave ZoneAlarm's Anti-Spyware component turned off. However, if this configuration is chosen, then I do not know if one can use ZoneAlarm Anti-Spyware's "Scan Now" button without turning the entire Anti-Spyware component on. The "Scan Now" button is grayed out in ZoneAlarm Pro on my computer. In this scenario, if one wants to use ZoneAlarm's Anti-Spyware component as an on-demand scanner, then I think one would need to remember to do the following steps.

1. Shut down Spy Sweeper before enabling ZoneAlarm's Anti-Spyware component.
2. Turn ZoneAarm's Anti-Spyware component on.
3. Update ZoneAlarm's Anti-Spyware definitions.
4. Manually scan the computer with the "Scan Now" button.
5. Then turn ZoneAlarm's Anti-Spyware component off.
6. Finally, start SpySweeper to reestablish it's memory-resident protection.

(See the * and ** notes at the end of this message.)


Carol, I expect you're already aware Spy Sweeper has an excellent reputation regarding spyware detection. For example, Spy Sweeper (v4.5) ranked 2nd among 12 anti-spyware programs tested for Consumer Reports (CR) magazine's September 2006 issue (page 28). ZoneAlarm Anti-Spyware (v6.5) ranked 7th in the field.

It's been several months since those tests; versions have changed; definitions have been updated; and the test results may also be dependent on the sample of spyware CR used. People might also disagree with CR's views about what program characteristics are more important than others. Therefore, those reported results might be taken with a grain of salt.

While Spy Sweeper certainly has glitches, I think it is still a great product. However, I would certainly understand any reluctance you might have toward installing Spy Sweeper again. If you still have a significant amount of time left before your subscription to Spy Sweeper expires, then I think you would still benefit from continuing to use it per one of my suggested scenarios (described above and below) in this message.


In case you consider installing Spy Sweeper again and you wish to continue using ZoneAlarm, I think Spy Sweeper will cooperate with ZoneAlarm if you turn ZoneAlarm's Anti-Spyware component off before installing Spy Sweeper.

I have Spy Sweeper and ZoneAlarm Pro (with the ZoneAlarm's Anti-Spyware component always off) both running resident in memory and I have not discovered any conflicts between the two applications with this configuration. When I view ZoneAlarm Pro's "Anti-Spyware" tab information, I am warned, "Computer is vulnerable to spyware." Apparently, ZoneAlarm Pro does not recognize Spy Sweeper's memory-resident "Shields" protection is active. (Way back when, I seem to recall having trouble with ZoneAlarm's Anti-Spyware component interfering with Spy Sweeper. I think that's why I turned off ZoneAlarm Pro's Anti-Spyware component long ago.)

Since then, I seem to recall reading somewhere that running two or more memory-resident-protection anti-spyware applications concurrently is unwise. I expect running concurrently-memory-resident-protection anti-spyware is not recommended because the anti-spyware applications will "fight" each other for control much the same way as two memory-resident anti-virus applications reportedly would. I am certain I have read in several reputable places (including Microsoft's Knowledge Base? -can't find the page now) that running two or more anti-virus applications memory-resident is considered bad practice anyway.

As the line between "anti-spyware" and "anti-virus" seems to be getting less distinct (often lumped together as "anti-malware ", for example), I suspect somewhere along the line (if not already) it might be bad practice to run memory-resident "anti-spyware" alongside memory-resident "anti-virus ". I think that's something to keep in mind in case issues arise down the road.

Anyway, that's my 2-cents' worth.

Good luck!


NOTES (referenced from above):
========================

* As I always have ZoneAlarm Pro's Anti-Spyware component turned off (the alternative scenario I described to Adrian above), I have several other reputable anti-spyware products installed which I use as on-demand scanners instead of ZoneAlarm's Anti-Spyware component. The only memory-resident feature I have enabled in some of these products (with the exception of FaceTime's "X-Cleaner Deluxe " auto-scanning during start-up) is the automatic update feature (which might still conflict with each other if they happen to try automatically updating at the same time, although I don't think that will create a significant impact on overall protection).

** There is one long-running conflict (well over a year at least) between Spy Sweeper's "Hosts File Shield" and the MVPS HOSTS file.

From the MVPS HOSTS FAQ:

I also have Spy Sweeper's "Internet Communication Shield" disabled. If I recall correctly, it caused my Norton AntiVirus component of Norton SystemWorks to complain (or vice-versa). Those complaints may or may not also be related to the MVPS HOSTS file (which I also have installed).

 

Hi Adrian,

This is a somewhat belated post to thank you for your glowing report in post #22.
Belated because of time issues,lack of- and timezone as well as ISP server outage.
Nevertheless, I do appreciate your enthousiastic and abundance of praise.
To class me with PeteC is an honor,although his knowledge is far superior to mine.
On the other hand,we do seem to have certain things in common,apart from the name.
You will notice that in his profile it says: "Computer Experience:
Usually not enough" and I echo that.
One of my sayings is that "The more I learn,the less I know" (or at least I realize how little one knows in the whole scheme of things)

Another is to use a self built or custom built PC instead of factory built PCs with pre-installed OS.
This is often not possible for everybody but it does give you more control.
Also the general approach to solving the problem,rather than a quick one-line quip to "just reformat and reinstall ".

Thanks very much for the compliment,but I would say that you and Carol
don't do so badly yourselves in this regard and I would definitely class you both in that group of people who make the world a better place.

I wish you both well in whatever your endeavours may be.

Best Regards,
Pete.

 

Hello Mailman,

And ... Phew! Thank you for a truly superb post.

Within your post, you say: 'Anyway, that's my 2-cents' worth'.

2 cents? Oh, my!

It was just terrific to read all your thoughts and input over the possible clash. Also, over what one could do to circumvent it whilst still benefiting from desirable aspects of both pieces of protective software.

You have, very elegantly and logically, described just how this could/should be achieved.

As you say, one can benefit from what Spy Sweeper and Zone Alarm have to offer, whilst ensuring that there would be no clashes between them. And, into the equation, it's certainly worth remembering that Spy Sweeper enjoys a good reputation in its field.

It is a very attractive proposition to achieve the best of things by continuing to employ both pieces of protective software, with either:
(a) having Zone Alarm's Anti-Spyware element disabled,
or
(b) turning off Spy Sweeper's memory-resident "Shields ".

In either case one would, of course, employ the usually-disabled protective element(s) on an on-demand basis. It was extremely interesting to read everything you said about having things set so as to have one or the other offering an on-demand facility.

When you mentioned (within the scenario of all of Spy Sweeper's memory-resident "Shields" being disabled):
"... periodically use Spy Sweeper as an on-demand spyware scanner (to detect spyware that Zone Alarm's Anti-Spyware component might miss, or to help investigate whether a detection by Zone Alarm's Anti-Spyware component might be a "false positive" or not.) ", well, there was an inherent attraction with that scenario.

As there was with:
"Alternatively, I think one can have all or most of Spy Sweeper's "Shields" active (depending on what other security measures one may already have in place) and leave Zone Alarm's Anti-Spyware component turned off.

The point you then make in querying whether one could then use Zone Alarm's Anti-Spyware "Scan Now" button without turning the entire Anti-Spyware component on is, of course, very valid indeed. You do mention that the "Scan Now" button is grayed out in Zone Alarm Pro on your machine, and you very wisely describe the steps to be followed with things configured as in this scenario and then opting for a "Scan Now" with Zone Alarm (with Zone Alarm's Anti-Spyware component being the on-demand scanner).

The steps you detailed certainly bear repeating, and here they are:

1. Shut down Spy Sweeper before enabling Zone Alarm's Anti-Spyware component.
2. Turn Zone Alarm's Anti-Spyware component on.
3. Update Zone Alarm's Anti-Spyware definitions.
4. Manually scan the computer with the "Scan Now" button.
5. Then turn Zone Alarm's Anti-Spyware component off.
6. Finally, start Spy Sweeper to re-establish its memory-resident protection.

Not surprisingly, it is really interesting (and directly relevant) to read that you successfully employ Zone Alarm and Spy Sweeper, having gone the route of disabling Zone Alarm's Anti-Spyware features and employing these as on-demand. It comes as no surprise that Zone Alarm will then inform you that (as far as it's concerned) your machine is vulnerable to spyware.

As to what you say about it being unwise to run two or more memory-resident anti-spyware protection applications at the same time, I agree with you. I recall, from some time back, this scenario being mentioned here and there as being very unwise in relation to anti-virus applications. It seems that the same may now be said of simultaneously running more than one memory-resident anti-spyware application.

Mailman, your entire post was not only beautifully crafted, it was a true pleasure to read and learn from such a piece of work.

You have succeeded in rendering the topic really clear, in the most helpful way possible.

This wonderful Board is, without a shadow of a doubt, fortunate to have you posting.

Thank you.

Adrian

 

Here's something I have discovered empirically about Acronis True image that may be of value for the next time since it was reported that the Acronis CD would not boot.

If it won't boot from the Acronis created CD, I find that if when the Acronis boot loader screen appears, I press the Pause key and the Enter key alternately and repeatedly for 20 or more, it actually loads Acronis. That's the only way my system will boot the Acronis CD. I can boot from the Acronis floppies just fine though and starting Acronis from within Windows works fine when it requests a reboot.

You might want to test that before you really need it.

 

Just wondering...........how on earth did you find that out??????

mickzer.

 

Out of sheer desperation!

Being of the inquisitive type, I reasoned that the process was hanging somewhere although there was no on-screen indication. Perhaps pressing enter or pause would let it proceed??? tried it and it worked, voila!

I have since repeated the process many times and found that sometimes it only requires pressing the Pause - Enter as few as 5 times and then waiting. Then again the 20 or 30 times method works most reliably.

Empirical engineering at its best. I guess I should inform Acronis about this but I have always thought it was only endemic to my box up until now.

All the best.

 

Hi Surferdude2,

Thanks so much for the info about booting from Acronis True Image CD.

With really helpful info like yours, I copy and paste and then save it on to my computer under a dedicated folder for computer info and tips. And, I also print it out for 'worst case scenario' of not being able to access the hard drive.

So, your post is now stored safely for future use.

Thanks for posting.

Take care,

Carol