Craig Knows Things

You’ll need;

• Spybot Search & Destroy
• Ad-Aware
• Hijackthis
• AVG Free Edition

What to do:

• Turn off Startup Items, restart computer
• Install then run HijackThis, restart computer
• Run Spybot- Fix Problems, Run Ad-Aware- Fix Problems, Run AVG scan- Fix Problems
• Restart computer, run HijackThis again
• Evaluate problems, take additional action.

First
On your computer click start and then click run (Win+R). If you can’t get to the run command from the start menu you can press the windows key plus r.

In the run command type, “msconfig“.

Next choose startup. Then choose to disable all.

This will uncheck all programs that are set to automatically start when the computer turns on. After fixing your computer you can go back into msconfig and reselect the programs you’d like to start when the computer starts such as aim.

Step two
Once your computer has been restarted and is running again it’s time to install the programs listed at the top of this page.

First install HijackThis. Run HijackThis and select all the startup programs that seem shady. Restart the computer.

After restarting the computer install Spybot Search & Destroy. The installer is pretty self explanatory. It’ll ask you to;

1. Make a backup, do it.
2. Download updates, do that.
3. To immunize your system, do that.

Once it’s installed run a scan, fix the problems.

Now for AdAware. Once installed run a scan and choose to fix the problems.

After AdAware is installed install AVG Free Edition run a scan and fix those problems.

Lastly, I’d run HijackThis again, check the boxes next everything I’d like to get rid of, then restart.

Our last step is to evaluate our efforts and figure out what it is we haven’t been able to remove. A particular pesky virus I come across quite often is the trojan / virus vundo.

1. Download combofix from any of these links and save it to Desktop:
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

**You’re going to need to save and run the file from the desktop**

2. Double click combofix.exe & follow the prompts.

*Attention*
Do not click combofix’s window while it’s running. That can cause it to freeze.

Combofix shouldn’t take more then 20 minutes to run.
If it does, (press ctrl, alt and del at the same time) this will opeb the Task Manager click the processes tab and end the processes that are findstr, find, sed or swreg, that should cause combofix continue.

If you have problems with Combofix visit how-to-use-combofix

I received a question the other day in my email and realized that this issue comes up more often then I would have expected.

Basically when people are minimizing their windows to the taskbar the windows disappear. Not just when they minimize something like firefox, which seems to have its own minimizing issues, but when the minimize ANYTHING.

Many ways exist to get to your now hidden minimized files. Alt+Tab, the task manager found using CTRL+ALT+DLT, alt+space, and so on. The following fix should make these temporary solutions unnecessary.

Download the following file, save it to your computer, run it. I guaranty it’s virus free. If you don’t believe me though go ahead and download AVG Free Edition which it an excellent virus scanner!

xp_taskbar_desktop_fix_all

Right click the link above and choose save target as. You should now be presented with an option asking you where on your computer you’d like to save it. Choose a place you’ll remember that is easy to find. Once downloaded, run the script from the location you saved it at. Restart.

      About a month ago the office I work for was cleaning shop. They gave a spare computer to our secretary’s husband for use at his new company. A few days ago he went to use it for the first time and realized he didn’t have any passwords for it. When he called us he informed us the only accounts on the computer were those of two of our resale agents, agents that had left the company over five months ago. No one knew the password. I had an idea however! You see the administrator account on xp systems usually doesn’t ever get a password assigned to it. Here’s what you can do if you fall victim to the same problem.

The following method only works if no password is assigned to the administrator account.

This method can be used to reset a users password, delete a user, or add a new user.

• Start the computer in safe mode.
• Log in as the Administrator using the username administrator with no password. (most users never set a password for the administrative account)
• Access the Control Panel
• Select Users

Starting the computer in safe mode

• Turn the computer off and wait 30 or so seconds.
• Turn the computer on and start tapping the F8 key.
• A Windows Advanced Options Menu should appear. If you get any sort of message such as keyboard error you probably pressed the key too soon. Simply restart the computer and try again.
• Use your arrows to select Safe mode then press Enter.

This should have started safe mode. If it did not another way to get the Windows Advanced Options Menu to appear is to force a computer off as it’s booting into xp. When you turn the computer back on it should inform you there was an error and give you an option to start safemode.

Logging in as Administrator

Now you should have a window that is asking you for a username and password. Use the following;

Username: Administrator
Password:                      

Password is intentionally left blank above. As I mentioned earlier most people never set the admin password. This is how we’re getting in! Through carelessness on our own/ someone elses part which has left the computer vulnerable.

Accessing the Control Panel and using the users panel

Once logged in we can open the Start Menu and then choose the Control Panel. Sometimes the Control Panel is located to the right of the word Settings in the Start Menu. The Control Panel has a few different views but nomatter which it opens in just look for the option User Accounts.

Once in User Account area you can choose various users. You have options once you have chosen a user to delete the accounts, to reset their passwords, and to perform other various actions. You can also add a new user with a password that you’ll actually know.

Once finished adding, removing, and modifying account you can close the window and restart the computer. Viola! You’re not able to log in!