Spybot/Printers Gone?

I recently had a bunch of problems caused by a rogue website (popup or something) that force fed a download, wiped out add/remove programs and a bunch of other problems.

Thought I had everything fixed up...patched up and functioning smoothly after downloading Spybot and jumping through a few other hoops.

Today I went to print something and find that the two printers I use had been removed. Tried the add printer wizard and it does show the 2 printers as available on my network but when I try to add them, I get a message that the printers are offline and can't proceed.

The printers are functional and work fine from the local machine but I cannot seem to add them and print to them from my machine on the network. They are correctly shared and no changes were made. I'm trying to figure out how they disappeared in the firstplace and how I can get them to show as online across the network. This is the first time I've tried to print since adding Spybot. Is there a setting in there that may be causing this and how can I fix it?

Thanks,
Sheila

 

This sounds like a virus Sheila, maybe Opas.
Have you scanned with an up to date antivirus app ?
regards

 

I scanned for viruses/updated virus definitions/scanned again. Nothing found.

Is there anyway to extract the add printer wizard from .cab files?
That's the only problem I have currently...can't add any printers and those I had disappeared (I did not delete them. )

Thanks,
Sheila

 

Sheila,
I do not think it would cause you problems if you just ran the
Win98SE setup.exe again and it would very likely re-install
the "Install Printer Wizard "
regards

 

Unshare the printers on the hosting machine!

Disconnect or remove the mapped printers from the computers trying to share. Reboot these computers.

Reboot 1st computer then reshare the printers.

On the other computers reinstall the shared printers from the network!

EDIT: SpyBot may have cleaned a baddie that had bit into something but SpyBot itself did not do this!

mike

 

Something sure got hosed when I was force fed a download one day. I'm a firm believer of Spybot now. Whatever happened it's sure frustrating.

I tried unsharing, rebooting etc. and still no luck.

The add printer wizard is extremely slow
to open and does not work. I come to the point of "the
printer you want to add is offline" (not true) "add it
anyway blah blah blah ". Doesn't add it and the wizard
just closes.

I guess I may end up running W98 setup..something I've never done. I'm still using W98 original patched/updated and haven't switched to SE.

 

What about browsing the network in general drives etc. if this don't work then we have a basic problem.

If we do have general browsing problem is it the same from Server to 98 as 98 to server.

Try adding the printers as a local printer on the 98 machines even tho they are not attached.

Then go to printer control panel-properties-details and capture the printer to a port.

At work now will try to check back!

Mike