Avast has disappeared

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

If you clever people don’t mind I have 2 questions, 1 avast and 1 not, tell me to go elsewhere if you like but please don’t shout at me or I’ll cry :'(.

My laptop has been a nightmare since I had a new hardrive fitted 3 weeks ago. I won’t bore you with the details but now I have at last sorted it ( hopefully) by doing a system restore. Trouble is that avast has now vanished, along with chrome and firefox!! I know they are hiding here somewhere but don’t have time to play hide and seek, so if you could tell me how to flush them out I would be grateful ;D.

Second question… While said laptop was being a pain in the rear I bought a ‘refurbished’ desktop which is intended for photo editing and word processing etc. It had 2 accounts on it, not named and I deleted one of them. Now the thing has decided it wants a password, never asked before and I haven’t set one so I’m well and truly locked out ???. How do I get through the windows? (hehe) Or is security so tight all windows are locked securely and I’ve no chance ?

Please help a well fed up mamma-P :-[

PS, just realised I shouldn’t have asked the second question, passwords are there for a reason and I am literally asking how to hack into a computer, even if it os my own you couldn’t possibly tell me on a public forum! Sorry, please ignore that question, I’ll go to the person I bought it from. :-X

2

On the desktop, you may be able to access the Administrator account by booting into Windows Safe Mode. To boot into Safe Mode see http://www.computerhope.com/issues/chsafe.htm.

3

By using system restore, it basically reverts the computer to a point in time (whatever day that you choose).

If avast was installed after the date that you restored to, avast won’t really be there. Which is sort of the point, if you install an application that prevents the computer from working correctly, system restore will get it back to when it wasn’t installed, thus fixing the problem.

In order to restore avast, just re-install it. As well as chrome and firefox. It shouldn’t take much time to get those back up and running.

As for the password for your desktop computer, it would be easiest to ask the person that you purchased from to give you the passwords for it.

Gopher John is correct that you can try the administrator account, but you don’t need to boot into safe mode to do it. When you get to the login screen with the usernames on it, just hit ctrl-alt-del twice.
You’ll get a simple login screen where you can type a username and a password (if required).

However, most administrator accounts are disabled by system manufacturers, so I don’t know if it will help.

I have several different password reset tools in my toolbox, this is one of them: http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/

It’s a little difficult to use for novices, but it you take your time, and read what it’s asking, it’s pretty straight-forward. Use the program to reset a user, reboot, and login.

If you need more help, let us know. Welcome to the forum

4

Hi,
You should be able to make a new account via safe mode and log on as administrator default no password and re create a new admin account and log in with this and you should be able to get into xp normally! unless some one has altered this? then you will need an XP CD ROM Disk to reinstall.

5

As I said, most hardware manufacturers disable the administrator account on their OEM Windows images, so that probably won’t work. And again, safe mode isn’t required, just a simple ctrl-alt-del twice will get to a login screen that allows you to type a username, just like in a domain environment.

A re-install of the OS is not required, if mamma_p learns how to use the utility that I provided.

6

She will know whether the Administrator account is disabled, as soon as she boots into safe mode. If it works, it works. And if it doesn’t, she can always download and try the tool you recommended.

FWIW, I was able to get into the default Administrator account on a HP laptop running WinXP that was given to my neighbor because the previous owner had forgotten the passwords. I’ve also been able to do the same with a Dell desktop. These Administrator accounts didn’t show on the graphical accounts list, but did in safe mode. I don’t understand why such a back door was left gaping open, but it was.

7

Thank you for the replies, I appreciate you taking the time to help. The desktop is fine now, Iam embarrassed to admit that there wasn’t a problem after all :-[. My lad just clicked the return key and it was ok, after me trying passwords and reboots, then almost tearing my hair out. I don’t understand it but you will, he said the password was no password, ??? it’ll ask me again in a few months and I should do the same again. What would I do without my kids!!

As for Avast, I’ll download again now, it’s odd because I downloaded ad aware on the same day as the others and that is still there. And windows security page tells me that anti virus is detected and active! The avast icon is in programmes but it is a link to the website. I’m going try now, if I have any problems I’ll be back. Thanks again for the advice