not sure if I have problems

Hello,

I recently decided to revive this netbook I haven't used in a couple years. I stopped using it because Avast would not update. It seems to me, if I remember correctly, I was also having difficulty with Adobe updates as well. I was living in China at the time and had a work computer so I didn't really need it and the update issues had me concerned that it was infected. I don't recall a google redirect problem.

When I started to revive this, I ran the old version of Avast(6.????) and it cleaned up a couple adbots (I lost the log file reinstalling) that may have been bundled with some other software, but it still wouldn't update. I managed to uninstall Avast using their removal utility and install the latest version. I ran a boot time scan that found nothing. I was also able to get Windows XP (an incredibly long process due tot he length of time that had passed) to update and I updated Firefox and plugins/add ons (Adobe reader, Shockwave flash, Java) I completely uninstalled VLC player.

Then I ran across your forum and saw I was probably going about this all wrong.

Below are my attachments, although I must admit, I must not be good at following instructions. When I ran the Rogue Killer, I was watching the progress. I touched the trackpad to bring the screen back up and maybe the cursor was in a place where I stopped the scan or worse yet cleaned it. Perhaps it wasn't me and my 5 thumbs on the track pad, but something else that stopped it. I can't be sure, but it was no longer running and there was no log file. So I ran it again before I could stop myself... sorry. :-o I remember seeing a bunch of HKey Local Machine references before it stopped, but they didn't show up the second time in the logfile. It did create a quarantine folder with a .dat file that I could attach if you need it. I think that was after the first run.

Hitman starts a scan on startup now. My computer froze during the first restart. It went fine the second time and Hitman completed the scan this time, but disappeared from the system tray after. (not sure if that's normal)

That's about all I can think of right now.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

Hi,

I set it back to a normal startup with MSCONFIG. My main problem was that I couldn't get anything to up date. It looks like Avast is updating virus definitions regularly now that I removed the old version and installed the new version.

The machine has become painfully slow now through all parts of the startup. Each step seems much slower, from the Windpows XP splash screen to the login screen, to loading the desktop and finally everything loading in the system tray. Not more than 48 hours ago the entire startup was lighting quick, under a minute for all of these steps. Now it is almost ten minutes. It is also a little more sluggish in operation. For instance, sometimes I click the firefox shortcut and it is a good 45 seconds before a browser window opens.

Maybe just normal Windows/hardware slowness and not attributable to malware. It just seems unusual that it wasn't like this before.

Thanks Again!

 

Hi

I ran the MGclean.bat file. It cleaned about half the files out of the MGtools folder (including itself) and left the rest. It looks like it was deleting in somewhat alphabetical order. It left subfolders (temp, vista, W7, W8, XP) and all files after MIalt. (moving alphabeticallly towards "Z")

Is that normal?

Thanks!

John