I've been a beating myself up over a virus in this 'puter most of the day. Norton 2005 detects but cannot delete the virus, "Delete Failed". Directions at this site,
formatting link
to try again in safe mode. That didn't work either. Any suggestions? (I think delete is failing because the file is in use)
BTW, I wondered around the Norton site and couldn't find a way to email for support or get on-line support. Is any available? I also found a newsgroup for Norton antivirus, but I seen lots of queries and absolutely no answers. So, I'm trying the good folks at RCM
The virus has the name IPREG32.DLL No entry in task manager, how would I know which program its attached to? FWIW, a search of the entire computer also finds no entries for ipreg32.dll
On Tue, 03 May 2005 11:07:08 GMT, the inscrutable "Karl Townsend" spake:
I recently had the warning from Norton that "Ad Gator" had bit me. I downloaded the gator removal tool from Norton and it found nothing. I checked with Windows Explorer and it couldn't find the file so I forgot about it for another week, until NAV found it again. I then opened a DOS COMMAND window and went searching in the SYSTEM32 dir. It was hiding there under System file cover, so I got it and the support file with an ERASE command. I then rebooted and ran NAV again. It was clean. What a PITA for such a minor threat! HDPlugin1015.dll was this threat name.
Norton and McGafee are worse than a virus! My latest toolbox consists of: AVG, MS-spybot, Ad-aware, Spybot S&D, Easycleaner, Bartpe and hyjackthis. All are free and will take care of ANYTHING! Anybody have anything better?
"Karl Townsend" wrote in message news:MaBde.4228$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
Karl, if it is a .dll file, it exists only in certain places in your windows directory.
Boot a DOS command prompt, and search for it by name. It's probably in your Windows/system directory or your Windows/system32 directory. Once DOS has found it, use DELETE using DOS to eliminate it from your system.
Once that has been done, go online an purchase the combination of Symantek/Norton firewall/virus protection. I'ts well worth the expense.
I have tried most of the freeware that you cited, but nothing but Symantec/Norton has been effective in keeping my computer (which is on a high-speed cable connect) clean and free from problems for that past
1-1/2 years.
Be particularly careful of the McCafee (sp?) products, since once installed on a computer system they become pernicious things that it takes a real Windows expert to delete. It was installed by the vendor on my wife's computer, and even after the subsciption expired, it just resists deletion and actively resists the installation of Symantec/Norton. Rather than trying to hand edit the registry, I'm going to place a phone call to McCafee to find out how to eliminate their product from my wife's system.
Symantek/Norton provides virus update on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, at at cost of $39/year, which for me is a bargain. This particular package works very well, and I endorse it highly.
Just as a warning, be very carefuly about downloading freeware virus and spyware detectors. Adaware is particularly pernicous, since while claiming to detect and remove spyware from your system, it intalls its own set. You don't get something for nothing!
Absolutely agree on all counts, Tom. I'd do it in this order:
AdAware AVG Antivirus Spybot Search & Destroy ...and then the others in whichever order seems appropriate. AVG does a better job of removing viruses, is free, takes less disk space, and doesn't break systems like Norton does.
Hm. The one time I did it (2 months ago) from a client's machine, it uninstalled cleanly and without complaint.
And yet, it's not doing what you need, so ... ???
Sometimes you do. Some of the best software, and best operating systems out there, are free. The key is in knowing when someone is giving you good advice, vs. when someone sends you spam saying "install this to get less spam".
AVG antivirus is free for personal use, and will most likely remove what Norton is failing to remove for you. AdAware is free for personal use, and will most likely remove any lingering spyware for you. Norton will continue to cost, and fail to deliver. Your choice, of course.
I'm not easily impressed with software but I am with AVG! My previous was Sophos but it is a pain to maintain the latest IDE's. AVG is automatic and plays well with the other children.
I've run into a wall with a customer's PC. Running XP, malware detected,
*most* of it removed. However there are files that I simply cannot delete. Safe mode, administrator, under any of the six users, nothing. Killbox, and at least one other utility downloaded are likewise useless. There are also entries in the registry that refuse to be deleted with regedit.
Any ideas?
I miss the old days... except for negotiating the IRQ's & such. The PCI /USB stuff has made life easier.
I thought the registry was a bad idea originally - like OS/2's binary version of system.ini (whatever it was, it's been a while). I now think it's a collossal failure.
Have you tried AVG's antivirus? I've only had one or two that it couldn't handle in a couple years. When that failed me, google for the virus name and "removal", and then try to pick a link from someone who sounds like they know what they're doing (yeah, that sucks, but sometimes that's as good as it gets)
Ah yes, interrupt conflicts. And there was always that one card in a system that didn't play nice, so you had to work around it...
So your opionion has changed from "bad idea" to "collossal failure" - I'm inclined to agree.
Yes. It's on my top-5 list of non-annoying programs to use in the Windows world. I get annoyed easily, and so far AVG, if it sucks, is sucking in a very subtle and non-intrusive way. Auto-updates, auto-scan, good notifications, day-zero updates on new viruses, and just general non- suckiness all around. That and it's free for home use. If I ran Windows at home any more, I'd be using it. As it is, for systems I support for others, it's a must.
"Hm. The one time I did it (2 months ago) from a client's machine, it uninstalled cleanly and without complaint."
When I invoke the McCafee de-install, it starts but then informs me that some of its services are still active, I must remove them first without giving me a clue as to what these particular services are. They also don't show up on the Win XP Pro's system monitor.
My daughter, a systems analyst for a division of D&B had the same result, raised the question at her workplace, and researched the problem on a number of topical websites, all with the same result. McCafee is often very difficult to remove, involves a lot of hidden files, and boots via the registry and not the startup page. The advice that came back to me is to call McCafee directly, because they have an unpublished removal tool, or manually edit the registry to prevent its startup on booting the system.
Since I don't like taking the risk of manually editing XP's registry, I plan to call McCafee later in the week and see what help they offer.
By way of direct cotrast, I've had several different Norton products installed on various machines over the past 10 years, and they all were removable by simply invoking their de-installation utility. These included Norton System Works and a number of other Norton products.
In over 20 years working with and designing PCs, I've only run into one other product that was as pernicious as the McCafee product and that was "Real Audio." Damn thing took over practically every media option on the entire computer, and we finally had to resort to re-format the c: drive to get rid of the damn thing! Then too, some of the so called "disk managers" are just as bad or even worse, since most of them require a low-level disk format to totally rid the system of them! Not fun!
Lane, I would have been happy to have the McAfee product remain on my wife's computer, but when its paid up subscription expired, it turned off the virus protection and firewall abruptly with no previous warning.
By contrast, when your subscription to the Symantek/Norton package is about to expire it reminds you to resubscribe months in advance. If you don't resubscribe, the firewall and virus protection remain in place, but it just doesn't receive the customary bi-weekly or weekly virus and worm updates.
The firewall also informs you when an attack against your computer is taking place and the exact nature and origin of the attack. Generally this allows you to identify certain websites as being problems.
It also alarns you when some process in your computer is trying to access the Internet, and what the source is. You are then given to option to allow, block or make a special rule exception for the source of the request.
when I had a particularly annoying adware that wouldn't go away [win 98] it would reisntall it self constantly, I simply shut it down, deleted the file and named a blank file the same name. You get an error message but it doesn't try to reinstall. Doubtless some programs are smarter than that, but this one wasn't.
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