Dell surgery for a friend
need additional assistance
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I spent this weekend repairing a friends Dell. A family PC with 5 accounts. Quick background: someones brother came over and went to an adult site. The only security was Nortons Anti-Virus - and some kind of pop-up blocker (Defender?). And no, the guy didnt make recovery CDs either. Well, this wasnt how I was planning the repair, but...
Here's the story:
First thing I did was get rid of any malicious desktop shortcuts and their related program files. Secondly, I scanned the system. From there, I fine-tuned the settings in Internet Properties and in the Control Panel.
All was well, until I tried running a Disk Cleanup. The PC didnt like that idea. So, I went to My Computer and noticed that 24Gb out of 38 was available. It would start off fine and would get up to 3 progress bars and then not seem to do anything else. Each time I ran it, the Windows Task Manager would verify it was running, and the CPU load would vary between 81 and 99%. (So much for starting with a clean slate...
)
From being in the Add/Remove Programs screen, I noticed that there were only a handful of updates on the PC. I tried running Windows Updates to see what I wanted to install - but they didnt want to install. (Moving along... )
Spybot was onboard, so I updated and ran it, only to find around 900 discrepancies. I suggested using Mozilla Firefox over IE6, so that was installed. After that, I downloaded Lavasoft Ad-Aware, Active@Eraser, CWShredder, and a firewall.
Before anything else, I kept noticing WSEM Update. Curious, I searched for this on Google, and it led me to a Symantec security response. Cool, off to the registry I go. One thing led to another and I fixed several items in there. (Of course, I ran their recommended tool as well.) After doing what I have done, and considering what layed ahead, I went into Disk Defrag. It analyzed the system and didnt recommend a defrag, but I did one. (I ran Spybot again since I had to go online.)
I installed, updated, and ran Lavasoft Ad-Aware to find over 1500 problems - but - it also found a virus (with the help of Norton). I cleaned the files up and clicked on the Bloodhound.Exploit.6 link on the Nortons pane. Supposedly it would go away if I could get the Windows Updates to work. From what I read, it 'wasnt that harmful'. By this time (8:30 pm on a Sunday), I decided to install the Zone Alarm firewall.
Eraser and CWShredder were installed. I ran the latter only to find that the PC was reported as okay (before running Lavasoft). All in all, it may not have been the ideal way, but you can sure tell a difference.
Problems/questions:
1) If someone could point me to a link, or explain my Windows Update difficulties...that would be great.
2) Anyone have a better clue than me why the Disk Cleanup wouldnt work, or how I can help it along? This really stumped me.
3) What else would be suggested to do, that I may have overlooked?
Thanks!
Here's the story:
First thing I did was get rid of any malicious desktop shortcuts and their related program files. Secondly, I scanned the system. From there, I fine-tuned the settings in Internet Properties and in the Control Panel.
All was well, until I tried running a Disk Cleanup. The PC didnt like that idea. So, I went to My Computer and noticed that 24Gb out of 38 was available. It would start off fine and would get up to 3 progress bars and then not seem to do anything else. Each time I ran it, the Windows Task Manager would verify it was running, and the CPU load would vary between 81 and 99%. (So much for starting with a clean slate...
)From being in the Add/Remove Programs screen, I noticed that there were only a handful of updates on the PC. I tried running Windows Updates to see what I wanted to install - but they didnt want to install. (Moving along...
)Spybot was onboard, so I updated and ran it, only to find around 900 discrepancies. I suggested using Mozilla Firefox over IE6, so that was installed. After that, I downloaded Lavasoft Ad-Aware, Active@Eraser, CWShredder, and a firewall.
Before anything else, I kept noticing WSEM Update. Curious, I searched for this on Google, and it led me to a Symantec security response. Cool, off to the registry I go. One thing led to another and I fixed several items in there. (Of course, I ran their recommended tool as well.) After doing what I have done, and considering what layed ahead, I went into Disk Defrag. It analyzed the system and didnt recommend a defrag, but I did one. (I ran Spybot again since I had to go online.)
I installed, updated, and ran Lavasoft Ad-Aware to find over 1500 problems - but - it also found a virus (with the help of Norton). I cleaned the files up and clicked on the Bloodhound.Exploit.6 link on the Nortons pane. Supposedly it would go away if I could get the Windows Updates to work. From what I read, it 'wasnt that harmful'. By this time (8:30 pm on a Sunday), I decided to install the Zone Alarm firewall.
Eraser and CWShredder were installed. I ran the latter only to find that the PC was reported as okay (before running Lavasoft). All in all, it may not have been the ideal way, but you can sure tell a difference.
Problems/questions:
1) If someone could point me to a link, or explain my Windows Update difficulties...that would be great.
2) Anyone have a better clue than me why the Disk Cleanup wouldnt work, or how I can help it along? This really stumped me.
3) What else would be suggested to do, that I may have overlooked?
Thanks!
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