Well, things are going well, but I seem to have gotten a virus. I guess it's like when Bob was in the hospital the first time and got an infection. It's going back for a check-up and maybe a new power supply on Monday, so if the virus isn't cleared up by then it'll get nuked at that time. Norton keeps finding bits of it.

Pat, I hope your computer gets well soon. Do let it rest, bu do NOT give it lots of liquids. <img src="http://www.arlo.net/ubb/smilies/wink.gif" width=15 height=15> Cliffite can sympathise. He's got a major computer uh-oh going on. He may resort to using one of my Macs in the morning just to get his mail.

Hope Norton can completely eradicate it. Has the virus been identified? It's not W32.Bugbear or W32.Klez is it? <img src="http://www.arlo.net/ubb/smilies/terrified.gif" width=15 height=15>
How has it affected your computer?

It's an IRC Trojan, Levi. I don't use IRC so I'm not sure how I got it, except that a friend sent me a file that he might have gotten from Kazaa, so that might be it. It almost matches a lot of the descriptions for these and doesn't quite match any. Norton got some files, I got some others and found one registry key that was described on the removal instructions pages. If it manages to affect the machine, it does so by opening a back door to it and lets someone mess with it, or possibly use it for denial of services attacks. I don't have a firewall and I'm guessing I better get one.

Good luck with the puter! Some strange idiots have sent me a few viruses before in e-mail but I never downloaded or opened them up. I have anti-virus too & have been lukc that none have infected my puter so far...

Give it plenty of antioxidents, Pat.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by pat:
If it manages to affect the machine, it does so by opening a back door to it and lets someone mess with it, or possibly use it for denial of services attacks. I don't have a firewall and I'm guessing I better get one.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think one of my machines (the biggest/fastest) may be infected with something I haven't found yet. A few months ago I thought I had a virus so I ran my anti-viral and it "got rid of it." All of a sudden, last week, the computer began slowing down.

I've run scandisk, defrag, spyware ad-removal programs and a regedit to get rid of more stuff. The anti-virals find nothing on the machine. I'm stumped! And, since we are networked here, I do have a firewall.

Please send technovibes this way too.

Terrie

You've got 'em Buffalo Gal..and Judy's suggestion about anti oxidents might not be a bad idea as well. I found a little freeware program called SwatIt that just looks for malicious bots, and it did find some files that Norton didn't find. But there's also something that pops up javascript alert type messages about once a day. They contain some kind of advertising, but I'm pretty sure they're coming from the computer and not from a site that I'm on at the moment. Ad aware hasn't found it, Spybot has found something and cleaned it up..twice..so something is still creating it. I'm pretty sure I got that from being on the wrong site with IE running and Active X enabled. My bad. I changed to Mozilla for my default browser and e-mail now, but I can't sell everyone in the family on using it.

Terry, if no one can find what's wrong on yours, maybe reformatting is the only way to go. I know that's a pain..just did it for other reasons. I'd lost my sound and no one could figure out why. It wasn't as painful as I thought. Kind of nice starting over, even with this aggravation.

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 1 times, lastly by pat on Nov 03, 2002 ---</FONT></center>

Good luck with ya'lls puters. I feel so lucky to have never had a virus on my puter so far. My main puter problems have been the COMPAQ Win 98 puter crashing & I could use more ram memory. It is so aggravating when you have a bunch of stuff open in a multi browser window & then your puter crashes & you can't recover it. Do beware of a spyware thingy called Lop.com. When you go to some sites it installs it on your puter & then it wants to bring up a thingy that has popup ads all the time. The you have to go to uninstall that crap. It's a good idea to block them in your cookies.. I've had a problem with some spyware being on my puter & I had to uninstall it. Yikes! Good lukc with ya'lls puters... <img src="http://www.arlo.net/ubb/smilies/peace.gif" width=16 height=16>

It would help our feelings, if not our computers, if Bill Gates and Stephen Jobs would replace messages like "ILLEGAL OPERATION" with a little haiku:

The Web site you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.
--------------------------------------------
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
--------------------------------------------
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
--------------------------------------------
Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
-------------------------------------------
Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
--------------------------------------------
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
--------------------------------------------
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
--------------------------------------------
Program Aborting.
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
--------------------------------------------
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
--------------------------------------------

I love computer haiku. Win2K is a little more polite than 95/98 even if it's not poetic. It tells you that it's encountered a problem and will have to shut down now and is sorry for the inconvenience. I don't really think it's all that sorry, though. The haiku is more honest about it.

SwatIt, Ad-Aware, McAffee, Trojan Remover, ScanDisk, Defrag, Regedit.... nothing helped. It's amazing, but I feel as if I'm driving a "mac truck" although it's windows.

I have Win2K Pro with 400+ RAM and 2 40-gig hard-drives.. 750 processor, and it's moving at a snail's pace. This just began about a week ago, before that it was lightening!

Any more ideas out there?

When all else fails, try one or more of the following:

1)prayers to your God.
2)Threats.
3)A flamethrower.
4)Dynomite.
5) A REALLY big friggin' hammer.
6)Prayers to Bill Gates.
7) Any 13 year old.

Looking at the processes that are running is about the only way that I know to figure out. Have you checked that, and do you know what all of them are? I mean..I wouldn't know by looking. If you, or someone who knows what should and shouldn't be running has done that and no joy..I'd say back up your data and reformat.

Wow 400 mgs ram & 20 40 gig hard drives! That sounds like a fast & good machine. If it's slowing to a crawl soemthing must be wrong. I wish I knew what was wrong with it so I could be of some help. I've found out when my puter goofs on me it helps to ask on a puter message board sometimes as folks there can be a help sometimes. My big Win 98 puter has only 52 mgs ram & a 4 gig hard drive. Those things fill up fast... Good luck with ya'lls puter problems...