warning: this is a posting by some bloody amateur using windows millenium edition because he simply cannot pay anything newer…
i’m gifted in this one: having antivirus tools run by anyone else except the producer… this time, it was really my fault: i’ve installed avast 4.8 home some days ago, but haven’t read the registration mail carefully enough. so i missed the hint about the color of the auto-update message - and clicked to install an “update” announced in a green message screen right 12 hours after installation of av4.8. needless to say, my avast 4.8 home edition is worthless now, a fake supplied by fake updates…
i noticed this first, when i did my daily “safety routine”: update avast, do an intense scan including the archives, then doing a spybot run, check the registry with an old version of regcleaner, followed by round of ccleaner action… maybe vice versa, i don’t remember… anyway: my regcleaner showed me regsitrations of stuff i never wanted. even better: it showed me a lot of stuff i thought to have uninstalled: ms netmeeting, telephone settings and drivers, aol, netscape, faxdrivers, outlook settings, ie settings…
well, i do not use this stuff. i’m using webmail and a firefox 2.0.
seeing these registry entries, i decided to kill them all. no matter the way nor the consequences. as a user of misery edition, i’m used to set up my system about weekly… i used the bit of tools i had: ccleaner, winpatrol, regcleaner… i even killed some of the reg keys manually, for example any regkey belonging to netscape or netmeeting stuff. i used the system, dynamite, a hammer and my bare hands and smoked thousands of cigarettes meanwhile: it was a total flop. the entries seemed to recreate themselves.
still not knowing, my avast was taken over by criminals, i tried to scan a folder wich seemed especially suspicious to me. i selected the folder, clicked start - and wondered: avast was performing a complete scan. during that scan, the avast icon on the taskbar was not doing anything: especially, it did not turn! and: the avast icon on the button showing an active window was not displayed correctly but upside down! the clou: the scan report showed ALL files as “skipped because of scanner settings”…
that’s when the sh*t hit the fan… i got the brilliant idea of reading the registration mail, noticed my fault and kicked my own ass…
last funny episode: the VRDB generator was started during a spybot scan. even i see this is not ok.
i have a lot of questions now:
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i still have the setup files of avast on my sytem, but i’m scared of using them. i’m sure they are cracked. is there any possibility to control this?
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i have downloaded avast 4.8 from avast.de
looking for help on my problem, i visited this site again today. it seemed a bit changed to me… the copyright section informed me, the site was owned by a company called PROCELLO. does avast work with them? -
me stupid!!! i’ve forgotten whether it was on the german or on this site, but: i’ve been offered to test a beta version of “avast rootkit scanner”… does this really exist, or did i trust the german site too much.
i tried to install the scanner, but it was not executable because of a runtime error…
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maybe you are interested in having informations about the green screen, if you don’t have them yet. wich are the files you need to have sent attached?
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maybe it’s paranoia, but i think, the windows media player and windows moviemaker play central roles in the execution of some malware. i don’t need these toys at all. do i? if they are worthless for the few web activities of mine, how do i get rid of them, especially of the media player? (i really don’t need it for sounds, for my soundcard is irreparably f*cked up.)
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microsoft offers a few patches for delirium edition. wich one is necessary?
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any way to completely remove that damn internet explorer from my computer?
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i’ve got java runtime environment installed for the one and only game i play online. my instinct tells me, jre is very useful for malware… what can i do?
finally, here’s my system as far as it is a system: toshiba satellite 1730, win me (not yet updated :-[), 5.7 gb cache, 192 mb ram, intel celeron II. avast4.8 home edition, spybot s&d 1.5.2.0, winpatrol 14.0.2007.1, a ccleaner of 2006, regcleaner 4.3, firefox 2.0 on a dsl-connection.
any help is received most thankfully. i was so happy before i f*cked up my avast: it killed a virus on its first execution, some suela-stuff.
oh, this brings me to the final question: will avast continue supporting windows misery edition? if so, i really have to think about the professional version…