My wife brought over her friends desktop because she was having issues with it. Said it had adware/spyware on it. I turn it on, which takes forever, and start removing known useless programs, and install 2 programs which I use on my own computer. Got rid of all the adware/spyware except for one thing that keeps popping up from Microsofts security center. I try to install a free trial version of Norton Anti-Virus 2009, and it needs to restart to complete the install. Now the damn thing wont start. It keeps freezing at the "Welcome" screen. It doesn't give me an option to boot in safe mode, so hopw do I get around that? There's gotta be a way, right? The computer is a Dell Dimension E310.
Need computer help bad!!
- Thread starter 2K3 MSP
- Start date
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- 96 Miata M-Edition, 2015 Mazda 3 Hatch
You are also going to need to buy a good antivirus program. I've had excellent luck with BitDefender.
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- 02 1500 4x4, mp3
boot in safe mode and uninstall trial antivirus.
Yep I had same problem with my comp. It would load windows then automatically restart on its own. F8 let me reboot.
I have norton on my comp and it detects like 10 viruses and a couple trojans yet it always fails to repair them. My comp runs fine and when its gets sloppy I just reformat to a couple months ago. Has been working for me for 5 years
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I have norton on my comp and it detects like 10 viruses and a couple trojans yet it always fails to repair them. My comp runs fine and when its gets sloppy I just reformat to a couple months ago. Has been working for me for 5 years
.SuperStretch18
Member
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- '07 CX-7 Sport, Black on Black; '04 Mazda3s
FYI, there are quite a few trojans that make themselves look like Microsoft security center. If you are getting constant pop-ups from something like this, update and run Spybot. It will find the problem, but won't be able to remove it because it will be running in the background. Spybot will ask if you want to run another scan on the next start-up. That will actually remove the problem. I've done this a bunch of times, unfortunately...
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- 02 1500 4x4, mp3
tiagotiago
Member
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- 2008.5 Mazdaspeed 3
Yep, on computers I don't own, I just see the boot POST screen(which in your case would be when the big blue DELL letters pop up and it does a memory test) and start hitting f8 until it shows the windows boot menu options. Try running the AV you've already installed while in safe mode, or save an antivirus installer and a spyware remover on a USB memory and pop it in, since you won't have networking turned on while in safe mode.
If the AV/spyware tools fail to pick up anything, or if it still won't go past the Welcome screen, in Safe mode try to see if it will let you select a "restore point". Go to start/all programs/accessories/system tools and select a restore point from a date while the computer was still sort of working. Keep in mind you'll need to run the antivirus again, but hopefully you'll know which programs did the trick the first time, or how to install them without making your computer go south.
If you're trying to run an antivirus/spyware program in "normal" windows (out of safe mode) and it wont start or keeps crashing, the virus is probably the one causing this. You'll need to open the task manager (ctrl+alt+del and task manager or right click on the task bar and select task manager) and kill any suspicious programs that your user has started; for example I recently killed some spyware that in the taskmanager tried to hide itself as iexplore.exe(internet explorer, while I had no browser windows open), after killing it I was able to run my AV tools.
As regarding to programs AVG Free is a good free antivirus, and spybot search and destroy, cccleaner and adaware are all free and combined should take care of any spyware/malware. If you're really tech savvy, also donwload Hijack this! and you can manually delete offensive programs from the start up lists. Beware that you can make a serious mistake that will cripple your computer with Hijack this if you don't know what to look for.
Hope this helps
Thanks for the info guys. I myself, only use Spybot and Adaware and a pop up blocker and never run into issues with my computer. All free programs, and they do the job. This comp. had an expired version of Norton on it, so i tried the free trial. It's gotta be something with that, so I'll start there. Oh, I couldn't get disk defragmenter to open either. She's got like 65% free memory, so I know it's not too full. Wierd...
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