Two antivirus/ spyware programs almost always not good

This happened in my own computer. I had been so perfect, but once I suspected that it had a spyware since it often hangs when I tried to open a file in network. Since I just experienced a good work of malwarebytes so I install it in my computer and did full scan. Nothing found.

According to the advertisement/ website, malwarebytes has no problem to go along with other antivirus program. I did it with AVGPro 7.5 without problem. So, I left it in my computer which has Kaspersky AV2009 installed. Seems, with Kaspersky it doesn’t like to work together.

This is the symptoms:

1. Slow shut down
2. Slow boot, in “preparing network connection” and very loooongggg in “applying computer setting”; then after login, a clean desktop stays loonggggggg – until the icons come out and a command prompt windows is still open with cmd.exe – trying to set the client server, which I have to close it manually.

Solution: Uninstall the Malwarebytes.

Notes : After uninstalling a program, clean registry with ccleaner is strongly advised.

Pop up Advertisement frequently

My friend complain about so frequent pop up come out in his computer. Spontaneously I said, “It’s spyware”. The computer is equipped with Norton Internet Security. So, I uninstalled it completely before start cleaning.

First I clean with Spyware Doctor, it caught “Trojan.Popuper” beside some other adwares. I thought it’s cleaned enought. I let him to reinstall the Norton and run full scan. But the pop up didn’t stop. So I had to move on. I cleaned up with Spybot Search and Destroy, it caught “Netcom3Cleaner”, “RightMedia”, “Zango.ShoppingReport” and “AntiSpyCheck”. Seemed it’s cleaned. But I felt suspicious with an entry in “Startup” list, I had seen an entry “iaqyo.exe” – and I hadn’t see that it was cleaned up by the two antispyware I have used. I run Hijackthis, but I couldn’t see it there also. I tried to instal AVG Antivirus, but it couldn’t.

Finally, I run Malwarebytes, and I caught Trojan.Zlob, Rogue.Intelinet and Adware.Navipromo.H; This time it caught that iaqyo.exe, it was in the User’s Application Folder. Then I can successfully install AVG.

Now, seems the pop up doesn’t come out again.

Windows Movie Maker missing effects and transition files

When I run WMM, the error reminder came out and said like that, and even I could open the program, it doesn’t have any effect and transition. What can we do without them?

This is the solution worked for me:

1. Go to C:\Program Files\Movie Maker and move all .dll files to another new folder, named it old_dll
2. Windows automatically responds it with “Windows File Protection”, asking Windows XP CD to replace the files. I put the CD and immediately Windows recreate new .dll files I have removed.
3. Try again to run WMM. If it repaired then it’s solved. Mine was not yet solved so I go on.
4. Put Windows XP CD in the CD drive, then Start -> Run -> SFC /Scannow
5. Windows will do scanning and replace the files that is not original or add the files that is missing. It need quite long time.
6. Try again to run WMM. Now it worked for me and WMM works normal again.

“one of the files containing the system registry ….” – corrupted registry file.

This happened to an old computer that I have upgraded to Windows XP (from Win2K) and added the RAM to 1GB(from 256MB). After installing Windows XP, it seemed okay but I could not install Microsoft Office – always an error message told that one or more files are corrupted, although I had tried in many ways of installing (through CD, network and also eternal HD). I was sure that the installer was okay.
After a few days, suddenly every time start up, came the error message “One of the files containing the system registry data had to be recovered by use of a log or alternate copy. The recovery was successful” – Click OK.

After click OK, the windows continued well. But that message came faithfully every start up. Once I solved such error by changing the RAM. This time, I tried again but it didn’t help. After struggling so much time and energy, finally I solved the problem with doing Run -> chkdsk /f /r

The error message gone and I could install MS Office smoothly.

I realized that my HardDisk is old enough, it might be not less than 6 years old.

After being repaired, the computer was not used for several days; and this morning again shows the error message of “one of the files containing …………. ” everytime start up. Other programs run well after click OK. I did chkdsk /f /r again and … the message dissappeared

I think it is really my old hard disk is asking retirement.

Proofing tool 2003 for MS Office 2007

Somebody gave me what he called proofing tool for office 2007. I didn’t check it and just let him installed in the computer. When I opened a Word document in German language, the hyphenation didn’t work and a reminder box come out, said that I had to installed the feature from Office CD Installer. In fact, in the Office installer I couldn’t find that feature. I just realized that what was said as multilanguage Pack is only for Spanish, French and English. I tried to install the Proofing tool for Office2003 but it didn’t go through. I felt pity to buy another proofing tool, but no way if I had to since I need it. Then I google to look for the possibility to buy.

But I was struck with this webpage, about the trick to install proofing tool 2003 in Office 2007 and I tried it. Yes! It’s miraculous!

You can see that site but in short, this is the steps I did :

1. Uninstall Office 2007.
2. Reinstall Office 2003, but in Advance Customization. Choose “not available” for all features except the Proofing Tool. The installation would be very fast.
3. Install Proofing tool 2003
4. Install Office 2007, with all features you want.

That’s all, open your Office 2007, and the proofing tool is working there.

“Access is denied” – Reset the registry

This happened with my main computer, the one I work everyday, that full with different programs. I have noticed long before that something wrong with the registry. When I installed iSpring (a software to convert ppt to swf), it always failed to register the .dll with errors that meant “Access is denied”, like this :

With this error, the iSpring failed to come out in my Power Point 2007 – so I couldn’t use it.

After had good experience with my other computer, this morning I wanted to install the Windows Service Pack3 in this one. First time, it failed with “Service Pack 3 setup error. Access is denied”.

My first step to solve is uninstall the AntiVirus (Symantec End Point), restart, then run again the SP3 installation. Again it failed with the same error.

I did google and found this Microsoft support webpage. I followed the Advance Troubleshooting as below (I copied from that webpage):

1. Download and install Subinacl.exe file. Follow this Microsoft Website
2. Start Notepad
3. Copy and paste the following text into Notepad :
   cd /d “%ProgramFiles%\Windows Resource Kits\Tools”
   subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
   subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
   subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
   subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
   subinacl /subdirectories %windir%\*.* /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
   secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\repair\secsetup.inf /db secsetup.sdb /verbose
4. Save this Notepad file as Reset.cmd
5. Double-click the Reset.cmd to run the script.

After restart, the Microsoft ISA Client software didn’t work. I just uninstall it. Then I run XP SP3 installation, voila!! it went through smoothly.  Afterward, I reinstall the Microsoft ISA Client and also the Symantec End Point.

Finally, I reinstall the iSpring. This time it went through also smoothly and it came out in the Power Point 2007.

My conclusion is, there was really a problem with authorization in the Registry and it was solved by “Reset the registry and file permissions” using reset.cmd.

Clean up your Start Menu Folder

Few days ago I struggled to get rid from Trend Micro Internet Security. It has been completely uninstalled. But this morning I strucked saw it is still in my Start Menu. Means, if I clicked “Start” and put my mouse on “All Programs”, I saw the Trend Micro Internet Security there.

The solution is easy. I went to C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/StartMenu/, and I deleted the folder of Trend Micro there. Yes, this is the way to clean your Start Menu Folder – or add a shortcut if you lack of.  Some programs’ shortcut stay in “All Users” folder, but some others are in “Your username” folder, i.e. C:/Documents and Settings/YourName/Start Menu/

Windows XP Service Pack 3 no more problem

I have done updated windows xp to service pack 3 – almost always with the problem of can’t boot and the remote desktop connection. Last month I wonder why I didn’t face any problem while doing that update – but it was in Italian Windows. For Italian Windows, the service pack installation program is not the same with the English one – I had to download newly. I think Microsoft has update their SP3 installer.

This morning, finally I had time to update my own computer. I go to microsoft website first to check if there is a new updated of SP3 – I downloaded the most updated – dated June5, 2008 in this page. I put in my desktop and run it. It went through by itself – then I restarted and …. everything OK!! No more problem. I was worry since my computer is quite “dirty”, it has so many programs. Thanks God!

I think Microsoft really did improve their SP3. Anyhow, if you do it yourself, don’t forget to make backup before installing the SP3, and make sure you have the latest installer.

Bad experience with TrendMicro – how to uninstall stubborn programs.

I feel my computer going slow down – particularly in the Windows Explorer. Since the AVG is very heavy – I want to remove it and replace with other antivirus. Frankly speaking, AVG have done their job well in protecting me from viruses. But it’s really burden my computer, it eats the memory and burden the processor itself. While scanning, practically I can’t work anything with my computer.

So, since I often use the online scanning of trendmicro – and I got a free subscription for 1 year, then this is my first choice to try.

I uninstall the AVG, then install trendmicro. It asked me to uninstall Adware2008. I did it. Then the installation seems okay. I didn’t enable the firewall since I am under ISA proxy. But the update process took soooooo loongggg – then stuck. I couldn’t terminate the process.

Then I tried to uninstall. Error message came out. I couldn’t be uninstalled. I used Cleanse Uninstaller, and do “Forced uninstall” – but the Cleanse Uninstaller could not finish its job. It’s hanged and “unresponse” error came out.

I had to do uninstalling manually. I cleaned up all the file remained in the C:/Program files & C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Aplication Data/ ; also run CCleaner to clean the registry. The services still went on, I delete it by deleting the registry through command prompt (Start->Run) regedit. Delete all the entries from Trendmicro:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Services

Feeling everything okay, I start installing Kaspersky Antivirus2009. But the Installation didn’t want to go on, it said that there is still TrendMicro. The uninstaller from Kaspersky couldn’t do uninstallation.

I went back to “Regedit” and delete all registry entry of TrendMicro from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE, back to Kaspersky installation; but it still refused – asking to uninstall TrendMicro.

Almost frustrated, I started google and found

Windows Installer CleanUp Utility

in Microsoft Help and Support site.

I downloaded it and installed it – then run. It showed up a list of the programs in my computer. I saw TrendMicro was there. I select it and do clean it. Marvelous! Now, the Kaspersky installation goes through.

Explorer doesn’t run in start up (2)

Two days ago I wrote a post with this same title. Yes, today I write about the same computer and the same problem – the Explorer hadn’t worked well yet. It didn’t run only the first start up in the early morning. With “reset” it would run in the next start up. I could also do start -> run -> explorer.exe, and after explorer.exe started in the first time, it would have no problem to start in the next if we did “shutdown -> restart”. So, I had difficulty to reproduce the problem. In the “event viewer” I could not find any error. System restore didn’t work.

This is what I did yesterday and this morning the symptom didn’t come again (hopefully cured):

First, “unable the system restore” (My Computer -> properties -> System Restore – check the box)

I went back to my favourite Spyware Doctor. After uninstall the symantec EP, I run Spyware Doctor. Ow, plenty of infections. The high risk ones are : Trojan-Spy.Zbot and AdwareTargetSavers, also Trojan-Downloader.Small.CML. After do cleaning with Spyware Doctor, I run Hijackthis from Hijackthis.de and still found “C:\Windows\system32\oembios.exe -> I fixed it with hijackthis.

Run again Syware Doctor for full scan still caught Adware-TargetSavers in windows\system32\sysproc64. I. I clean up and run again Hijackthis – seems it is clean enough.

The third full scan with Spyware Doctor give clean result. I install Kaspersky AV2009 and run fullscan. It still caught threats from folder C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Aplication Data\Symantec\. This is a leftover folder of Symantec EP. So, I deleted it manually.

Since the Kaspersky showed vulnerability regarding Adobe (http://viruslist.com/en/advisories/30832), I uninstall the old Adobe Acrobat 5 which is used to write PDF. Instead, I install CutePDF Writer. I also uninstall Adobe Reader 7.0 and install the newest Adobe Reader 9.0. I don’t like this Adobe Reader become heavier and heavier. I think I have to find another lighter PDF Reader.

Finally, I really have to give up Symantec End Point in this computer. Actually I like Spyware Doctor since I helped me many times, but unfortunately it doesn’t like to go along with other AntiVirus and the smart update would not work. I always install Spyware Doctor to clean a computer then uninstall it again.