Archive through October 25, 2002
TV ClubHouse: Archives: Computer Problem - I need advice/help (ARCHIVE):
Archive through October 25, 2002
Draheid | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 07:27 am     Sia: No, you are not over-reacting, IMO. I have a router installed on my system with something called Network Address Translation (NAT for short) active. The IP address of my internet connection is NOT the address of my computer. This helps keep outside connections from accessing my computer directly. Combined with ZoneAlarm, I have had no problems and therefore no need to actually block addresses from trying to access my computer. The primary use of ZoneAlarm for me is to keep my computer from accessing the internet with anything that I do not specifically grant access to. As to the cleaning of viruses already on your computer. If you know the name of the virus(es) on your computer, you can usually find tools online to remove and recover from these viruses while not corrupting your computer. If there are several, this means several 'cleanup' routines would need to be used, however, this is better than an arbitrary deletion of infected files. Also, as far as I know, a locally installed antivirus program would likely stand a better chance of cleaning files then one which is run via the internet. You might even need to go so far as to reboot into 'Safe' mode in order to clean some of the files. In that mode, you usually don't have internet access since it is intended as a maintenance mode. Thus a locally installed antivirus program would be the only way to clean the system in that mode. Again, I suggest you download at least the trialware version of Norton Antivirus and install it on your system. Then run a complete system scan to detect and remove any viruses it finds. Good luck. I hope this helps. BTW: Another intended use of trojans is to utilitze your computer, along with potentially thousands of other infected computers, to exact an attack such as the one that shutdown the 9 of the major internet backbone servers last Monday. Unsuspecting users had their computer & internet access commiting a federal crime totally unknowingly. IMO, this is NOT something you want to allow yourself to get involved in. |
Kat | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 07:52 am     Gadzooks, I have windows ME and the same thing happened to me last month. I did my scan through housecall because Norton didnt find it. Needless to say I had ten infected files all originated from the web and all were JS_Exception files. They were located in an area that somehow my disk clean did not get to C:\windows\temporary Internet files\content.IE Unfortunately, Norton, Ontrack or housecall could not automatically delete or clean the files. I had to manually remove the files and it turns out there were 100,000 pages sitting in those numerous folders. I removed all of the pages and then did a defrag. My computer sped up and I gained 3 gigs on my hard drive. So check out that location on your hard drive you may have a lot of temporary files you are unaware of which could be slowing things down. |
Draheid | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 08:36 am     Kat: The files you found are stored there by Internet Explorer. The folder(s) are usually marked as hidden and/or system folders. Most Antivirus programs I've used default to ignore hidden/system files. I suspect that's why Norton didn't find the problems. I usually enable full scan of all files and clear out everything in the 'ignore' section except the recycle bin. You can empty these folders through IE's tools - internet options menu by clicking on the 'Delete Files' button under Temporary Internet Files section. Hope this helps. |
Kat | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 08:41 am     Drah actually I did to go my internet options and deleted the files but they didnt delete those files. I have learned my lesson though. I have activated my firewall (something I never did before). It was amazing the things I found in those folders. I even found a naked pic of Roddy. Just proves that Roddy WAS a sneaky devil. |
Sia | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 09:04 am     Draheid, my ISP assigns a new address each time I sign on to the 'net, and I assume that other ISPs do the same thing, so I realize that when my firewall alerts me to an incoming attack that the ISP shown in the trace doesn't necessarily indicate the EXACT source of the offender. I do know (or I think) that it accurately defines the ISP-block of the offender, so when I knock out that block, it's because I figure whoever is trying to send me a Trojan horse or BDSub7 can only be up to no good, right? I even go so far as to block remote-connect attempts from little mom-and-pop ISPs that I've never heard of. My assumption is that nobody that I want to do business with is using such a server. Does this make any sense to you, or, again, am I just in "overkill" mode? Explained another way, if I get a remote-connect alert from an unrecognizable ISP with a tiny net-block allocation, I just block the whole thing because I know someone there is up to no good. I do have my system configured to alert me to both incoming and outgoing communications, and I don't allow a connect for anything I don't recognize. New question: I've selected "prompt me" for Active-X controls and java applets, etc., so when I know I want to load a page that controls those, I hit "allow," but why do I sometimes get asked the same thing six or eight times in a row? Are there than many Active-X controls built into one web-page? Thanks in advance. |
Draheid | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 09:32 am     Sia: Almost all users are assigned a 'Dynamic IP' address each time they connect to the internet, dialup or broadband. Unless you pay for a dedicated IP, that's how it works. The IP you have right now, may be assigned to your neighbor once you disconnect. IMO, it might be a little overkill, but that's up to you whether or not you choose to block them. Another thought to consider is, by blocking the address, you are changing your appearance to the network. Instead of just being denied access, the blocking might become an 'active' state which could infer that there is something there to persue. (Does that make sense?). I think the best thing to do is simply let the firewall ignore the request instead of blocking it entirely. As a test, you might try going to grc.com and run their ShieldsUp! program. Then 'block' the address and run it again. See what the differences are between the two. This might give you an idea of what I'm trying to describe. Then again, if you block it, you might not be able to get there! lol. On the matter of Active-X controls & java applets, yes a page can have more than one, and even many on one page. It is simply an HTML statement that calls these procedures so it's not extraordinary for there to be more than one. It depends on the content of the page. They may use one for the menus, one for mouse-over events, one for animations, etc. There's no easy way to know what they might have on the page. Hope I don't confuse everyone too much. Please let me know if I have. |
Juju2bigdog | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 10:04 am     <spins head backwards>
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Cjr | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 10:46 am     Thanks for all the great information Sia and Draheid. I am going to be doing alot of this maintenance and protection on my computer this weekend. Gosh, It is like having a pet! I didn't know it would be so hard to take care of. I'm with you Juju, my head is spinning round and round. |
Sia | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 10:48 am     Thank you so much, Draheid, for your explanation. Your second paragraph (surprisingly, LOL!) DOES make total sense to me. I guess I should de-cloak before I set off their disruptors, huh? I interpret what you said as meaning that by trying to cover myself completely, it draws attention to my presence on the net. Hmm, that does make total sense. Thanks again! Are you a systems analyst or something? You must work with computers all the time. ROTFL, Juju!! Someone call in an exorcist!! |
Wargod | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 11:46 am     OK, all you techy people..question for ya. We set the compuer up so that it automatically defrags once a week. As long as I remember to leave the computer on that night, it defrags, and is usually done quickly. Is this neccessary? Or am I doing it too often? Like someone up there said it took forever the first time. We had never done it on our old computer..and there was some problem. My BIL suggested we run the defrag, and it took over 8 hours to do it. When we got the new computer, we set it up to do it automatically. The truth is...I'm not even sure why its needed in the first place..just someone who knows way more about computers than I do, suggested to do it, so I do, LOL. |
Draheid | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 12:20 pm     Wargod: Picture a bookshelf with a complete set of encyclopedias on it. A thru Z. Now, picture that volume M has been updated and needs to be replaced. The new volume won't fit so you have to put part of it in the old space and the rest at the end of the set. Imagine doing that thousands of times. Next time you want to look up something in M, you have to get part here, part there, etc. Well, the same thing happens on your hard drive, only magnified 1000 times. Defragmenting shuffles everything around to put all the pieces of a file together in one place. If you don't do this occasionally, when you need to open a file, the computer has to hunt down all the pieces which slows things down over time. Because I have over 140GB of drive space on my computer, I try to defrag every day in order to keep things in order. However, consider the fact that I probably use my computer a lot more than most people. For most, once a week, should be sufficient to keep things in order and to keep your system running at it's best. I would also suggest to everyone running anything prior to Win/XP to consider the procedure I described before about setting a fixed virtual memory size. Allowing windows to manage your swap file further fragments your drive because what is being used today may not be enough tomorrow. When the swap file becomes fragmented, then your whole system can slow down. More technobabble thoughts for everyone. Sorry if I get into this too much.  |
Goddessatlaw | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 12:35 pm     I have a different but similar kind of problem maybe you can help me with, Dra. My computer will automatically kick in to disc scan any time I boot up (showing that there's been an improper shut down, which generally there has not been). However, the disc scan will get stuck flipping through thousands of files (eg. 2,800 of 19,800 checked, etc) and will never complete its scan. Whatever the problem file or whatever it is in there that's preventing the scan, I think it also interferes with my ability to defrag - I tried it several times yesterday and it just sat there on 0% defragged. On the scan disc I tried yesterday (independent of the boot up - I ran it myself) it did the usual, but also sent a message every 15 minutes or so that the scan disc had restarted 10 times, and advised to shut down other programs running (I didn't have other programs running). Any clues or suggestions? PS I have no clue what I'm talking about, but I take directions very well - got the Temporary Files cleaned out and all that yesterday - per the above discussions. But it didn't clear much room on my hard drive, and clearly something that shouldn't be is taking up a big chunk out of my megs. ???? Thanks for any help you can give me!! |
Draheid | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 12:49 pm     Goddessatlaw: What you probably don't realize is that you DO have other programs running. To see what I'm talking about, try pressing <Ctrl>-<Alt>-<Del> (only once!) and look at the list of programs that are running. Click here to see how to use the Microsoft Configuration utility to get into maintenance mode so you can run scandisk without anything else running. This page also has some good information on ways to 'tweak' your system by turning OFF some of the programs which start automatically that you might not need. Hope this helps. |
Draheid | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 12:52 pm     Goddessatlaw: I forgot to address your situation specifically. Go to the link above to see how to turn OFF everything that automatically runs. After you reboot, run the scandisk again. It should be able to complete now. Once it's completed, run the MSCONFIG program again to re-enable everything and reboot. Visit that page again to see what you might be able to disable permanently to help your computer perform better. |
Wargod | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 02:46 pm     Heh, thanks Dra. So even if I didn't know why I was doing it, I was doing something right. If you could take all your techy knowledge and apply it to books, then I'd be understanding everything! |
Goddessatlaw | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 07:23 pm     Hey, Dra - thanks so much for your help!! I am officially de-fwaggified. Got a happy computer, thanks to you. MUCHAS GRACIAS!! |
Hypermom | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 10:46 pm     I downloaded Ad-Aware and did the quick scan. It came up with 80 identified registry keys. How do I know which ones to get rid of? |
Sia | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 11:41 pm     Draheid, when are you going to start charging for the great advice you've been dispensing? (I hope NEVER, LOL, 'cause you explain things really well!!) My question: Draheid, can I turn off the music that plays when I open certain e-mails in my Yahoo! Inbox WITHOUT stopping or muting my WinMedia music? The two play simultaneously, which drives me nuts, so I put off reading my Yahoo! letters until I have a bunch of 'em. Thanks. |
Jo_5329 | Friday, October 25, 2002 - 05:55 am     Hypermom -- I have that program. You can delete those files safely, they are not needed. Let the program delete them ... Jo |
Draheid | Friday, October 25, 2002 - 07:55 am     Sia: Did the solution OVER HERE not work for you? I know it will disable all sounds from all web pages, however, I believe that will be your only option on your end. I checked Yahoo and they don't appear to have any way to delete attachments before they play. You might consider setting Yahoo to redirect those particular e-mails to a seperate folder and only open them when you've taken the precaution of muting your speakers. I'm sorry, there is no eloquent way to disable just the one source of music. Good luck. |
Hypermom | Friday, October 25, 2002 - 10:55 am     Jo, thanks! I'm going to go try it now and then install it on our other computer. |
Abbynormal | Friday, October 25, 2002 - 12:56 pm     Everytime I try to read a PDF file I get an error message. "The plugin did not initialize properly." Then, "the plugin was found, but an error in the plugin has occurred." I don't get it. What have I done? Everything was fine until a couple weeks ago. |
Draheid | Friday, October 25, 2002 - 01:02 pm     Abbynormal: It's possible a file got corrupted. I would suggest you download and install the latest version. Here's a direct link to download version 5 |
Abbynormal | Friday, October 25, 2002 - 02:40 pm     Draheid, that is the version I have. So when this started happening I deleted it and reloaded it and still the same problem. What do you think? Thanks. |
Draheid | Friday, October 25, 2002 - 04:19 pm     Abbynormal: It's possible that you have and older version of some of the files, which are not compatible with the new version, still on the system and the new install isn't able to delete or replace them. This could be because the files are marked read-only or possibly even 'hidden'. Is there any clue as to what plugin it is talking about when it 'fails'? That might be a clue where to look for the bad file. Let me know if you discover anything that you aren't familiar with. You might also take the specific text of the message to the Adobe website's support section, Acrobat Reader Support Main Page, and put the text into the search field there. They might already have an article about it and a solution. |
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