Can't Download Avast/Unknown Virus

Viruses and worms
21

Right-click “my computer” and select “properties”. (An alternative way of getting to the same window is to go to the control panel and select “system”.)

Near the bottom of the “general” tab, under “computer”,copy the info on processor, and (particularly) RAM.

Your page file has been set rather low, it would seem, and if it has been set by someone who knows what they’re doing, your RAM is probably 512, or possibly 256. This is pretty marginal for an XP computer attempting to run current software.
In general computer usage, do you get messages on screen about Windows running short of memory?

22

Yes, that Max and Min would have to be set by someone and has been said should be based around the RAM you have, which we don’t know. So we can’t say if this figure is suitable for your system.

The major thing is that it isn’t massive, in this case it would be using a minimum of 384MB and a maximum of 768MB of the available space on your Hard disk.

You could enquire at a shop how much it would cost to clone and replace your existing disk or simply install it as a second hard disk and you move your data to the second hard disk. If you bought the hard disk from the shop it is likely to cost more than purchase from an on-line source.

Only one memory management option can be checked, you can’t set either of those and be able to set a Min and Max figure also.

23 
- [b]First off[/b] my old problem with windows OCCASIONALLY shows up when I run VLC media player (as in, not much of a pain in the $%& yet). It crashes, sends error report, but now I get an extra pop up that says: Error Report Then 'Dr. Watson PostMortem Debugger.' It then closes VLC, Utorrent, any folders I have open, but usually leaves a couple of random things open.

Tarq57, here is what it says under My Computer > General:

System: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Version 2002, Service Pack 3

Compaq Computer Corporations
Compaq Presario
Intel (R)
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.00 GHz
1.99 GHz, 512 MB of RAM

Other than that it just says registered to ‘my name’ and below that a long number with dashes. In reponse to whether or not I get a message about Windows running short of memory, I used to until I tripled the harddrive space I had previously. Now I never get it. Just the same problems with Avast not being able to download new updates, and internet explorer crashing when I try to watch any sort of streaming video, site with too much flash, etc.

[color=green]By the way, regarding the comment about the RAM being pretty marginal for for an XP attemption to run current software, the truth is I really don’t run much if any current software. Mostly I just download songs, movies (then deletet them after watching so they dont take up space). Other than that I play online poker and that’s about it.[/color]

DavidR,

You sort of lost me with all that, but does that mean i’m basically screwed until someday I can afford a hard disk + installation?

Also I forgot to mention this, I don’t know if it has anything to do with these problems but when I use Ccleaner, everytime I run the registry option it leaves me with the following problem even when I have chosen the ‘fix it’ option multiple times:

C:/ProgramFiles/Adobe/Acrobat 7.0/Reader/AdobeUpdateManager.exe"AcRd87_0_9-reboot 1

Registry Key: HKCU\Registry\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

My understanding is that it’s only used to open .pdf files. Does this mean I can just delete this thing and forget about it then?

24
By the way, regarding the comment about the RAM being pretty marginal for for an XP attemption to run current software, the truth is I really don't run much if any current software. Mostly I just download songs, movies (then deletet them after watching so they dont take up space). Other than that I play online poker and that's about it.
Could you open the task manager (ctr alt del) and select "processes", ensure the bottom left box "show processes from all users" is ticked, and report the number of processes running, please?

If you could expand the task manager and take a screenshot to post here, (you may want to edit out your username from some of the listed processes) that would be better still.

25

Ok, hopefully these aren’t too distorted or anything, I’m sure everyone knows by now how computer illiterate I am by now. At first I forgot to check ‘all users’ but then when I did absolutely nothing changed, (just fluxuates a little regardless of whether it’s checked) so I went ahead and posted the original ones since there was no real difference (I have no other users on this computer). If you still need it though please let me know.

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m145/SemiCharmed69/WindowsTaskManager2.jpg

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m145/SemiCharmed69/WindowsTaskManager1.jpg

26

Try disabling the Spybot Teatimer.

That might well remedy a lot of problems.

27

How do I do that? Just use the end process option under processes, or is there some other way of disabling it?

28

No, don’t do that.

Been a while since I had dear old Spybot installed, but (as with most running processes) it’s best to do it via the program options.

That means opening Spybot, you might have to select the advanced menu, and locating the real time protection area. If I remember correctly there are two resident options. One is the teatimer, I can’t remember the other, sorry. But remove the tick from both of them. Close the interface.

Another way would be to remove Spybot completely. Before doing that, any immunization that has been applied by the program should be undone. Do you use spybot at all? Did you install it yourself?

29

Ok, still having trouble finding any real time protection area. I went under advanced and searched around, all I found was under Advanced > Tools > System Startup, then there was a long list of programs, one of them was:

Key: HK_CU: Run [User 5-1-5-21-3508293876-720897496-4103935507-1008]
Value: SpybotSD TeaTimer
Command Line: C:\Program Files\Spybot - Search & Destroy\TeaTimer.exe

Also under the ‘Resident’ tab it gives two boxes to check or uncheck:

Resident “SDHelper” [Internet Explorer bad download blocker] active. (This one is checked)
Resident “TeaTimer” {Protection of over-all system settings} active. (However this one is not checked, it says in the notes it was deleted in the startup user entry on this date, so I re-checked it until I know whether or not this is what you are talking about).

Also, if I were to remove Spybot completely, how do I undo the immunizations? I use that function everytime I use Spybot (although I can’t remember the last time this program actually found anything whatsoever so I have no problem with that option). And yes I installed it myself.

30

OK. Hang on, I’m going to install it myself to refresh my brain. I should be able to post back in about 10 minutes.

31

I believe you can do it this way:

Uninstall Spybot S&D w/Teatimer: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/howto/uninstall.html. In addition, you need to go into Advanced settings to disable the resident protection (2 areas to possibly disable – Teatimer and some IE blocking), then de-immunize if the immunity has been set. That takes a minute or more sometimes. The run the program’s own uninstaller, which should be in the Add/Remove Programs.

32

Here’s a few screenshots.
The first shows how to undo the immunization. Press the undo button (circled red). This may take a few minutes.

The second shows how to get into the advanced settings. Do that if you haven’t already. You have to “OK” your way into there.

The third shows where in the advanced settings to deal with the teatimer and other resident. (Tools>resident, where I’ve red-arrowed). Go there, and make sure that the two boxes (boxed in red) are unticked. (I think you may have been in another area - maybe “system startup” when you looked.)

Once all that is done, you can uninstall the program via the control panel, or follow Safesurf’s link for directions.

I quite like the motivation of the Spybot author, and feel it is probably a useful application, still under development, but in all truth, I think the free version of MBAM used as a demand scanner probably beats it. Hands down. A view shared by others smarter than me also.

33

Alright, sorry for delayed reply. No changes whatsoever. This is sooooooooooooo frustrating, I just want to be able to update avast and be able to use my internet without going out and buying a bunch of crap to add on to my computer but apparently I can’t. This thread is running quite awhile now, if you guys think you can’t resolve this without me having to go out and spend money then I guess it can be closed because I just don’t have the money.

Plus, I have so many folders under program files and about 90% of them I don’t recognize, some of themn over 300 MB large. Is there any way I can figure out whether or not deleting certain folders will screw up my computer further or clear more space? Somehow my hard disk space has gone back down to 4 GB instead of over 5 GB. I don’t want to transfer my few favorite bands music from my computer because all I can use are CD’s to put them on, so what happens when I want to make a mix while im playing a game or doing something else in my room? I have to switch CD’s to hear dofferemt songs almost defeating the purpose of even having more space. I’m on the verge of giving uo.