Where to start?

Hi there boffs
Please could you advise me where to start fixing and protecting the computers in my household?
After picking up a virus/malware - (something bad) that was making my laptop continue to attemt to acquire ip address
and trying to clean it and get it working again -
I eventually just bought an old second hand laptop with windows XP.
I am also now running a desktop with XP which I will use online and attemt to keep the laptop offline.

I am finding both the laptop and desktop to be extremely slow.
Some of the information I picked up here while trying to solve the IP Address issue - is that there are MANY places where things can go wrong.

This is where my question starts:
Where should I begin on these new computers?
1. go through the MAlware removal guide first then
2. WINDOWX repair guide
3. Hardware and drivers guide?

What is the difference between malware and virus?
Can I run AVG with Advanced system care and IO malware and malwarebytes together?

This forum has been of immense value, and I find that it has raised my awareness, but also generated a whole range of new questions!

I trust someone here will be able to guide me on the right path....

please?

 

Welcome to MG, this is not a Lounge topic, but here goes.

You will want to clean the malware anyway, so that is a good start.

MG Malware Forum

You may also want to check the drive health as you could have a failing drive.

 

hi there.
Thank you so much for your quick reply.
I will run through the READ AND RUNME First Malware removal guide starting now.
Have already run advanced system care 7.4 with disk scan.

What would you suggest the next step should be?
or should i rather ask that question of the person that helped me with the malware removal?

Again thank you for your help

Mau

 

I decided to start with Belarc Advisor as I probably will need to supply details at some stage:
1. run Belarc Advisor to get all the info of system.
this is a Dell Inc. Latitude D510
running Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3 (build 2600)
with AVG free 2015 but Belarc says virus protection is unknown?
Found two security updates were needed.
managed to install APSB14-20 Critical Adobe Reader security update for Reader 11.0.8.4
but am not able to solve the following update.
EOL-Adobe End of Life Adobe Flash Player 10.0.32.18 ActiveX 32-bit is vulnerable and no security updates are provided by the vendor

How do I attach the full results from Belarc?
Attached copy in notepad.

under installed hotfixes I noticed there were two of the XP hotfixes that were not installed.
currently trying to work out how i am supposed to do this?

I will post this as is for now and update it as I get along.

If someone reads this and can see where I am going wrong - please let me know immediately?

Step2 will be to work my way through the READ & RUN ME FIRST malware removal guide
a: download all the tools.
b: run the tools
c: attach logs

 

Update:
before working through the malware guide - i will work through the steps for slow computers as described in the malware guide and post results here.

 

updated and ran CC cleaner

 

Thank you LauraR
Actually this post is not about malware removal, but rather a general request for information regarding the new (secondhand) computer I bought to replace the one with the malware issues.

I would like to protect this computer from the outset - so would like to get some advice on where to start? It is a second hand computer so I dont have an idea of its history........

Should I start in the HARDWARE FORUM and work through ensuring all drivers etc are up to date , then go to the SOFTWARE FORUM to ensure all the windows components are working then go through MALWARE REMOVAL before ending up in the VIRUS UPDATES FORUM?

In the meanwhile - I started with Belarc - and am trying to work through the updates that is picked up there..... just concerned that this may be the wrong procedure to follow?

Your help and advice is greatly appreciated

 

Good morning Kestrel.
I hope you have recovered fully by now

Thank you for your interest and all the help and advice already!

Yes - you helped me with the Dell Latitude D620 that does not find the IP address.

We worked through the READ ME FIRSt - and after adding Dhcp.reg to the registry and attaching new C:\MGlogs.zip from C:\MGtools\GetLogs.bat

You suggested:
" at this point I am going to have to refer you to the software forum. Alot is broken that is none malware. "

So started a new thread in the Software Forum where Mdonah has been helping me.

This post here relates to the new (second hand) computer (Dell D510) that I bought to help me out while I try to sort out the software on the original Dell D620.

As I dont know the history of this D510 - I would like to make sure all the holes are plugged/fixed before transferring all my stuff ......

I dont think this post should be in the malware forum?
I originally posted in the lounge - to get general comments and advice, but I think referring to the original Malware problems has confused the issue?

What I am trying to find out is -
With this new Dell D510 laptop
Where should I start to fix/clean/repair?


Should I start in the HARDWARE FORUM and work through ensuring all drivers etc are up to date , then go to the SOFTWARE FORUM to ensure all the windows components are working then go through MALWARE REMOVAL before ending up in the VIRUS UPDATES FORUM?

In the meanwhile - I started with Belarc - to get all the details about this computer as someone is bound to ask,,,,
I found some updates were needed and am working my way through installing them.
Unfortunately - I have run into a problem installing the updates.
It seems this laptop does not hve internet explorer loaded - and microsoft update website will only download updates via explorer?

Anyway - I am concerned that this may be the wrong place to start?

 

Oh yes - and to add some more.....
I am typing this on an old Compaq desktop that is slower than molasses!
Ran Belarc to see what this one is all about - and found there were some updates needed.

Where should I start?

 

Should I start a new thread relating to this Compaq desktop?

 

I have decided to keep this thread relating to a Dell Latitude D510 seperate from the Compaq Desktop.

While trying to install Microsoft updates I noticed that I could not use Internet explorer.
The icon is there and when I click on it - it looks like it wants to load, but then.... nothing.

So I went to '"Ádd and Remove' windows components.
Removed internet explorer and received an error message:

"ie4uinit.exe - Ordinal not found.
"the ordinal 654 could not be located in the dynamic link library ietutil.dll.

I clicked ok and tried to re-install Internet explorere from Add and Remove

This resulted in the same error message as above?

any suggestions?

 

While working through more of the forums here - I found that Flash player was not installed
I downloaded it and tried to install and received the same error message as above with the following message:

"Adobe Flash Player Installer: Install_flashplayer15x32_mssd_awb_aih.exe ordinal not found
"The ordinal 163 could not be located in the dynamic link library ietutil.dll"

Any suggestions?