I.E. 5.5 and Outlook Express Problems

Been helping a friend with her computer problems. By accident she had blocked her daughter's address in O.E. When she tried to remove the blocking the daughter's name was removed from the list but not the blocking. Helped her by editing a registry key I had found info for online. I scrolling through blocked addresses I found mine. She had not blocked it and she was still receiving mail from me. We tried several tests on this issue and my mail always came through. Then we decided if it didn't block then we would not worry about it. Closed out the Block Sender option. A short while later when we looked again at the list, the list was gone! Nothing there! We HAD NOT deleted the list. She had a huge number of blocked addresses because she gets a tremendous number of "junk" mails, an average of 158 a day!Then I noticed if you tried to minimize a window it would close the window not minimize. This same holds true for I.E. 5.5. She began having this trouble when she downloaded some sort of game about 6 weeks ago. We got that all removed, or so we thought. In with the game was Gator! Took forever but got it removed too, or so we thought. She uses Ad-aware on a regular basis and Gator always shows up there after a scan at least twice. Her computer is dialing itself up to the internet. This happens even when she has nothing running on the computer except the desktop. All dial up preferences are correctly set, we have double and triple checked. She also has Norton's 2002 installed and suddenly the Automatic Update is corrupted and will have to be re-installed. It worked fine before. She had up to date virus definitions because she is updating manually. We ran a full system scan, nothing shows. She ran two on-line scans, all clear. We could use some help. Would a reformat and reload help with these problems?

 

Before you reformat. Try repairing IE. OE is integrated with it. Go to control panel, add/remove programs, highlight IE5.5, click add/remove. Then select repair.

Lets see what else is running on startup. Click start, run, type msconfig. Go to the startup tab, copy and paste the info here. Post back good or bad...

BTW, does your friend have GoZilla? A download manager? Very similiar to Gator..

 

Have already tried the Internet Explorer repair. As far as we could see nothing was repaired. She reported to me tonight that now she is losing "buttons" on her Outlook Express, so far Reply and Forward have disappeared. Will have to wait until tomorrow to run a msconfig as we live about 10 miles apart. I am just stumped. Can find nothing on researching, microsoft site only tells you how to set something up and those instructions don't work here, we have tried.

 

As far as losing buttons, go to view, layout, customize toolbar. She can add buttons back. You may consider uninstalling/reinstalling OE. With no virus detected, this is puzzling. Post back good or bad.

BTW have you done a trojan scan? Download and scan with an such as The Cleaner or Tauscan and see what it turns up.

Cleaner Tauscan

 

Ouch, this sounds like a real problem, many problems actually. But not to worry, there are ways to fix them.

One problem you speak of is junkmail. Let me guess, is your friend using hotmail? Or maybe she has left the address on many different web forms, or posted it all over the net. Either way, the best way to aviod junk mail is to get an email account that isn't so susceptible to it. One suggestion I have is www.myrealbox.com its pretty reliable, and very customizable, and free. Since switching to it 4 months ago, I have not gotten one junk mail . There are several other smaller free email providers, but whatever you use, its good not to give out the address to someone you don't know, or post it all over the web.

One big problem is that she is using Outlook Express (more appropriately called Lookout Express). Using Outlook Express is just like going to a hacker forum and asking them all to hack you r computer and to put viruses and trinoo and stuff like that on it, and giving them the admin password. Not a good idea. Who needs Outlook anyways, its nothing but trouble.

Doing the above stated might fix your problems, but its not likely, and its not a long term solution. I suggest you go ahead with the reformat. That will wipe the slate clean and you can start fresh. You say:
"Her computer is dialing itself up to the internet. This happens even when she has nothing running on the computer except the desktop. "
Newer windows OSes are notorious for this. It may not be a virus at all.

Though IE repair might be an option, but lets keep in mind that IE is not the only browser on the market. A couple of free alternatives that IMO surpass it exist (check my sig). There is no and dosn't need to be anything like a Mozilla Repair. It dosn't break. Worth looking into.

BDBD

 

She is just using our local ISP mail on her Outlook Express. I am fairly certain she is one to subscribe to various sites so I imagine that is how her name got on so many junk lists. I plan to meet with her tomorrow and we will download a Trojan scan as suggested.
Now a couple more questions: if we find a Trojan and delete it does it take other things with it? Can a Trojan destroy enough that a reformat is required? How about a removal of I.E and then reinstall of I.E. and Outlook Express? I am just really trying to avoid the reformat and reinstall but will of course do it if that has to be done. Will that remove all traces of a Trojan if we don't do a scan?
I will try to convince her to use another browser but have a feeling my suggestion will not work and she will want to stick with the I.E.

 

I guess that depends on the trojan. I remember Nimda day. One person on our network got Nimda, and it spread like a wildfire. If you erase it, it just comes right back. You need a special nimda_fix program to remove it too. So if she has some kind of worm like that, a simple trojan remover may not be enough. Anti virus software is updated frequently to accomodate newer viruses that come out. So I'd use the newest thing you can find. I like McAfee better than Norton as Norton is a resource hog. And yes, a trojan can destroy enough so that a reformat is needed. A trojan can do whatever the jerk that wrote it wants it to do. It could even mess up you boot sector or BIOS or somthing really nasty like that. If you can manage to get all the trojans or whatever is on your system off (and you may never know weather you actually have or not), then a reformat isn't necessary. Re installing IE would only help against a trojan that somehow embedded itself into IE's innards.

Good Luck with the trojan scan.

BDBD