Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: thecow who wrote (37079)	9/28/2003 4:10:44 PM
From: Martin E. Frankel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110655

TC, Thanks for the response. "Last good configuration" didn't work, but all is now back to "normal" The last thing I installed was the new updated version of Trojan Hunter (Ver 3.7). I followed the install directions to the letter as it was to uninstall Ver 3.6 before doing the new install of ver. 3.7, but I thank Mr. Mark for earlier suggesting RegCleaner. The uninstall from add/delete programs said Trojan Hunter V3.6 was completely uninstalled and removed... not true!! Just to give something back to the thread... do total backups and do them frequently! I personally do a DAT 4 tape backup (90+ meg/minute) every night so it doesn't take much time. The first one of the week is a total and the following days a differential backup of only changed files and folders, etc. is appended to the same tape. I use "Backup My PC" by Stomp... the old Veritas... (backs up to CD's as well as tapes) and it has saved my rearend many times. The DAT 4 tape backup is a SCSI device, but is very fast and holds up to 40 gigs of data. I've just made it a habit to start my backup the last thing at the end of the day... I don't like schedulers... and it's all done. Whatever backup you do, I strongly suggest you take the tapes or CDs off the premises at the end of each week. I often take the small DAT tape with me daily. Having a backup that burns in a fire, etc. won't help you much. To solve my problem, I first restored the last total backup made at the beginning of the week specifying to replace all files. It took about 30 minutes. After rebooting all worked well, except I had the old and new versions of Trojan Hunter both still installed. My next step was to go to the differential backup made just before the restore and restored my identities and documents... which updated my Internet Explorer, Outlook Express and Word data. The did a scandisc and defrag of the SCSI hard disk array (Raid 5) using WIN 2000 Pro with NTFS file format. My next step was to delete Trojan Hunter v.3.6. I manually used My Computer (under C -> Program files) and deleted its folder. Everything disappeared except one DLL which was in use. Trojan Hunter v.3.7 was still there, so I opened another window and checked for the same DLL and there it was. The properties of the DLL on both versions were the same... date, time and size... so I dropped the version 3.6 folder dll into the ver. 3.7 right over the dll and it disappeared from the ver 3.6 folder which I then deleted... or so I thought. I decided to use RegCleaner as recommended by Mr. Mark and did a search for any remnants still remaining under software and under registry entries and found 9 entries which I deleted. Since RegCleaner automatically makes a backup, the deleted entries could be quickly restored. All is now running well... for now. I thought computers were supposed to save us time!!! One other topic and that is spam. I don't mean to go on a political tirade, but advertisers use other forms of media to advertise and have to pay for it... but not on the internet. What disturbs me more than anything else is the virus laden e-mails which are being downloaded into my inbox. I tried Mailwasher Pro (which was also updated at the end of this week and may have been part of my original problem). IMO, it's a waste of time, takes longer than just deleting... and may just have been what caused my problem to begin with. The bounce feature sounded good, but now that the spammers are spoofing other peoples' e-mail addresses, I'm adding to the problem by sending total strangers the virus infected e-mail when I bounce it. To make matter worse, most of the addresses are fake and the bounced e-mail comes back to me as undeliverable... virus and all. As of the past week I have been receiving about 20+ e-mails a day with the Swen virus... which fortunately NAV blocks and deletes... but, what a pain. I even keep a link on my desktop to the downloaded search and fix programs from Symantec for Blaster, Welch and Swen... just in case something sneaks by and shows up on my daily total virus scan. I don't want to reboot if something shows up on the scan as that will usually activate the virus. And yes, my OS is updated with all the critical updates. Perhaps someone has a realistic solution to the spam and virus e-mail problems. IMO, again, I think the ISPs should be scanning their servers for the viruses and deleting them from their servers before we even see them. Sorry for the long-winded post, but wanted to vent a little and hopefully add something to the thread. Best always, Marty