That seems like it would help, Samapico, and I'm pretty sure it does, but right now it isn't working. I unchecked the box and applied, but the shadows are still there. On top of that, when I go to change my desktop background with properties (I'm using XP on this comp), I can't change anything. The color, yeah, but I can't change the background - it's all frozen.

I googled it and it seemed to be a hijacking problem?

I don't have a problem (at the moment ) just a friendly guide I wrote for converting .vob files to .mpeg2 files. Took me ages to find out how to do it, so maybe someone else can make use of it!

*Will share when he finds where he saved it*

....anyone know how to fix this?

For some reason the writing on my address bar is on the right side instead of the left, any help will be appreciated


Edit: Nevermind I fixed it

I think that my virus problem solved itself with the latest updates from the THREE scanners I use. However, my internet connection is a bit unstable, which makes me think that it's unrelated to the virus problem. I try to "repair" the connection and the computer tells me that I need an enabled TCP/IP. I'm not sure what this is, or how to enable it. Here's the symptoms. Slow internet loading some times, other times normal. I'll load a page, and it loads fine, then I click another link within a page, and it does nothing. I reclick, and then it loads. Some times I just close the browser (Firefox) and start over. That seems to help. The biggest problem is that video streaming and longer downloads stop from interruptions. Some can be resumed, others cannot. Also, sometimes an ad the the corner will read "connection interrupted." This leads me to believe that it's a signal problem. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Btw, I plan on calling my IP if this isn't resolved.

1)Download DVD Shrink: http://www.dvdshrink.org/
A guide can be found here: http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/mpg/dv ... 1-main.htm
2)The current settings will rip the DVD in 1GB chunks, which is a real pain for conversion. To get round this:

# Edit
# Preferences
# Output Files
# Untick "Split .vob files into 1GB chunks
# This will rip the movie as one file, not several which have to be converted then stuck back together.

3)Once the DVD has ripped, you want to convert the .vob files to mpg. There is a very simple way to do this,
without the need for ANY software just Windows.

In the folder you've saved your files:

# Tools
# Folder Options
# View
# Untick "Hide file extensions for known types"


The extension.vob should now appear after VTS 01 (or whatever the vob file is named).
The IFO/BUP files can be deleted.

Now:

# Single click on the file, press F2 to rename.
# Delete the .vob and replace it with .mpg
# Accept the changes.
# You now have your mpg ready for converting with whatever suitable software




Notes:


# The file conversion trick of simply renaming extensions ONLY works for vob > mpg.
.mpgs and .vobs are exactly the same, but coded slightly differently for PC's and DVD players to read.
# Be careful not to accidentally delete an extension from a file. It can be put back, but it's safer to hide extensions
when unneccessary (Hiding is just the opposite process of showing)

You could try changing DNS server (Domain Name System). Basically it's what points you to a specific server when you type an URL. That service is usually provided by your ISP... In some cases, they simply suck. Sometimes they even suck on purpose for certain sites to control traffic. There's a free DNS called 'OpenDNS', very easy to setup and is VERY reliable. I used it for several months now.

https://www.opendns.com/smb/start/computer/

Maybe it won't fix your problem, but it might help anyway.
Oh, and if you have AVG 8 (The antivirus), you might want to disable the 'Link Scanner' thing, it slows down web surfing a lot.





Normally the option should be ticked... the shadow refers to the text shadow instead of the solid background thingy you have... But yeah, if that doesn't work, I have no idea what it is. If it's a hijacking problem, try running SpyBot

Bleh, got a damn virus that keeps bugging me that everything I do on the web is insecure. It also crashes my web browsers.

Anyone attempt dual monitors on Ubuntu and succeed? For whatever reason, it has yet to work for me (my laptop is not particularly friendly towards linux) no matter what online tutorial I follow and I don't want have my nice monitor lying here for nothing!

This window keeps popping up too and it says the 'suspicious software' is Win32.Zafi.B

For the virus people, try the following. Download malwalbytes and superantispyware.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/
http://www.superantispyware.com/

Both have free versions which work to remove infections just the same as the registered versions.

Goto control panel, system folder. Turn of System Restore. Run full scans with both, restart computer in safe mode (click F8 during startup, before Windows loads). Run more scans. Rinse and repeat. This could take a long while if the infections are really bad. I had mine for a couple of months.

LVB speaks the truth. Those two are the best for free. Spybot is useless nowadays, as is Adware.

I'm currently having some problems with Spyware Guard 2008. Somehow made its way onto my computer yesterday and have been trying to get rid of it ever since.

At first it was blocking all anti-virus/malware sites but finally managed to download Malwarebytes elsewhere. I renamed it and set it up, then entered safe mode and tried to run it but it won't run even in safe mode.

I also tried removing Spyware Guard 2008 from add/remove in control panel but of course that didn't worked. Tried ending all of its processes, going into regedit and deleting it there, then finally tried to unregister it...except that I can't find the .dll path. In fact, there doesn't seem to be one? I tried unregistering pretty much everything I could find through using the dir command, and it all says that no such .dll file exists (none of them were under .dll anyway) that there is nothing that can be unregistered.

Anyone know how to deal with this seemingly new and improved Spyware Guard 2008? Thanks.

I'm having problems with my adobe flash player...

When i go into youtube and go to a video it say u need to update flash player or turn on javascript...

When i try to install flash player it says its installed i got back to youtube but still not working...

I have also found the thing about javascript and its says its on...

Can someone help coz i cant access anything good on the net (eg. download sites, myspace and stuff like that.

Cheers
The Beast of Harlot

Solved the problem. If anyone has the issue in the future: Perfect Uninstaller -> Norman Malware Cleaner -> Malwarebytes all in safe mode does the trick. And all for free. My computer has not been this squeaky clean in a long while.

I managed to get rid of it using a combination of Malwarebytes and Panda antivirus 2009. Malwarebytes was used to remove it, and Panda to block it from coming back on reboot (it kept blocking a file called C:\Windows\EXPLORER.EXE) which I think was the malware trying to put itself in the memory to come back after reboot.

I got it yesterday too. In fact, I'm convinced it was from the MA hackers attack.



Try deleting your browser cookies.

Somehow I managed to miss that bit of news until a few minutes ago. But now that I read that it does make sense since MA going down coincided pretty much exactly with spyware guard popping up on my comp.

You managed to get Malwarebytes to start up on its own? I had to use Malwarebytes last because it wouldn't start up at all until I'd used not only an uninstaller but Norman Malware Cleaner as well.

Well thats interesting. I just got the exact same infection (SpywareGuard2008) Monday on my computer I use to dick around here at work. Unfortunately I work at a computer repair store so my co-workers were giving me a lot of shit about being just as bad as our customers.

Malwarebytes wouldn't start up, so I reinstalled it and rebooted. When installing it I made sure spy guard 2008 was exited on the task manager, as it prevents Malewarebytes from being installed otherwise.
You're probably going to need 2 anti-virus (such as Norman Malware Cleaner) and possibly an anti-spyware to get rid off it though. Safe mode wasn't required for me.

Well, I managed to get rid of it yesterday as I detailed above, but was just surprised you managed to get malwarebytes going (also tried reinstalling and renaming) without the trouble I had to go through. I'd tried starting it up a number of times after ending its processes, deleting it in the registry etc. but it just wouldn't let it start. Hence my retreat into safe mode armed to the teeth, lol. I guess its different from comp to comp, which is weird since we both seem to have got it from the same place.

All it took for me was a fully upgraded version of MalwareBytes, full scan run in safe mode. About 80% of the computers we work on at the shop these days has some variant of this same infection. SpywareGuard2008, WinAntivirus2008-9, etc etc. Pretty routine stuff at this point. If Malwarebytes isn't doing the trick you may want to look into downloading the newest version of "RogueFix". Its a nice little batch file someone threw together. You can find it quite easily via google.

Thanks a lot dude I cant believe it was that simple lol

I had that same stupid Spyware Guard infection - damn hackers, someone should crush all their little typing fingers in a vice. If anyone is still dealing with it, I found that ComboFix seemed to crush it nicely. I also ran Super Anti-Spyware Free Edition, which deleted a bunch of trojan .dll's but didn't seem to cure the underlying problem.

Hey guys, I'm having a very interesting problem on my computer. Specs are as follows

AMD Athlon XP2500-M (OC'd to 2.2GHz - 11.5x193mhz)
EPoX 8RDA3+ v2
Geil PC3200 512MB DDR
Geforce 6800 128MB DDR AGP8x
Windows XP Professional/Corp with SP2
2xWD 320GB ATA133 8MB
1xWD 160GB ATA133 8MB
1xWD 250GB ATA133 8MB
Promise UltraTX2 100 PCI

The last week or so, I've been having random crashes on my computer. This is dating back to before the MA spyware hit so it couldn't possibly be that. The computer will freeze, while simultaneously the display goes black and the LED on my monitor starts blinking (ie. like there's no incoming display.) The only way to reboot is to turn the PSU switch off and then turn it back on.

I'm thinking it's a video card problem, as it happened again after I did a soft-reformat and reinstalled XP.

Cooling is adequate (CPU never reaches above 130F, case never reaches above 90F) with two 80mm top-back fans as well as one 120mm bottom-front fan.

There's no leaking caps on either the motherboard or the video card, and I also reapplied thermal paste to both the CPU and GPU.

Safe mode, in the standard 640x480/8-bit or whatever it is, works fine. Whenever I'm in regular Windows, with full display settings, it crashes. The time period could be 30 seconds after login, or 2 hours after login. It's always random, and it always seems to be when I'm doing something graphics intensive, but not gaming (ie browsing my hard drives while listening to winamp and surfing the web.)

Any help is appreciated.

Do you get a blue-screen or are there entries in the *system root*/minidump folder?

I figured it out a few hours after I posted that, ends up the video card is fucked. I switched it out with one from a different computer (Geforce FX5200) and it's worked since 2PM this afternoon without a hitch. I just ordered a new one a couple hours ago, should be here on Tuesday or Wednesday.

I have a Toshiba laptop. It refuses to shut down. It will go to a screen and it says "shutting down" and doesn't actually shut down without manually pressing the on/off button. If I allow it to stay on that screen it will just restart, and say there was an error shutting down.

Make sure Windows isn't installing updates. (Disable outmatic updates in the control panel)

Other than that, there may be a program that is refusing to close.

Also, Windows XP is known to get stuck in shutdown mode for a number of reasons.

My laptop clock doesn't work. It still shows it as July 11th 2008, the day when I last tried to set my clock. I have Vista, if that makes a difference. Any solutions?

I made sure there were no updates installing. It says wen updates are installing. I closed down a few programs and it did shut down. It is a Vista, if that changes anything.

Thanks.

I have a rather urgent question that needs answering.

My HDD is only a month old, yet it is already breaking down (or so I am led to believe). About a week ago, maybe, my machine started to glitch randomly after ripping CDs, and would error during playback etc etc. I performed a disc check, and Windows ended up replacing several bad file clusters on system files as well as some audio files.

This has escalated lately into Firefox, of which I had to delete due to it going to "Not responding" stage for a few seconds every couple of minutes. A disk check last night replaced bad file clusters in Firefox as well as other audio and system files.

Also, my machine is now taking a long long time to boot up. Internet Explorer seems to be working 'ok' at the moment so I am sticking to that to work out what is wrong.

I am only slightly concerned it is a virus, as I can't think of any that do that that I can remember, or have I been anywhere where I could have picked one up. My slightly more computer literate friends have told me it could be a read/write head failure (or the beginnings of it) on my HDD, meaning I will need to replace it. Is there any chance what-so-ever it could be a virus and it can be recovered? Or is this more likely a mechanical fault, and I need to purchase myself a new HDD?

now THAT is an entirely different issue than in your other original post.

-> find out which company manufactured your HDD
-> go their homepage and find tools to analyse the health of your HDD
--> otherwise search for software to do it
-> if you find errors, then replacing it would a good choice.

Windows has already found errors when doing a system health check. It said a few days ago I had Dirty Bit Set. I have no idea how this could come into being, and why it would have an adverse effect on my system in it slowly deteorating.

I'm not too bothered about buying a new HDD in all honesty, as this one is only 500GB and isn't actually big enough for storage. I have 99% of the drivers available on discs anyway, so a new HDD wouldn't take long to get set up.

Did you read this:
http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-112220.php

If it's only a month old you should be able to get a new on your warranty. First verify the errors though, as oneyoudontknow laid out. As for dirty bit.

The Dirty Bit shouldn't be causing me to gain bad file clusters... especially gaining more AFTER I performed a disk check. Secondly, it will not let me check the dirty bit status in command prompt as I do not seem to have Administrative privileges, yet I am using the admin account.

Oh, and so you know, I am running Vista Home Premium 64-Bit, so all of this dirty bit clearing for XP doesn't work on my system anyway.

Dirty bits don't cause bad file clusters, rather being an identification of HD corruption. A disk check might find more bad clusters than were found before.

Running the command prompt using the administrator account is apparently not enough in Vista. Instead, you need to start it by right clicking and selecting the 'Run As Administrator' option. "When running with an administrator account, you are actually running with standard user privileges. You must explicitly elevate a process to get administrator privileges."



That's strange. Usually when there are clock battery problems it shows the date and time of the last time you used the computer, not leaving it stuck far back. Does the clock even update during use?

Does the clock update in BIOS? Some applications (notably antivirus) have been known to slooooow down the Windows clock enormously, a second can take three minutes etc. Still some movement though, while the BIOS clock works flawlessly.

OK, well checking, apparently my Volume is no longer set to dirty. It shows as healthy in Computer Management also, although I KNOW this to be incorrect, else the boot up time would not be ten years, and I wouldn't be acquiring problems in firefox and audio files for seamingly no reason.

I'm guessing I have a HDD error in this regard, or are there virus' about at the moment that randomly corrupt file clusters in harmless applications, and cause boot up to be mega slow?

HD eating viruses are a) out of fashion and b) generally more destructive. HD errors, on the other hand, are quite common and may cause very diverse symptoms. Last year I experienced one that would freeze a [Windows] computer during write attempts.

Seems safe to assume I need a new one then?