Programs running in the background

[system]

Hi everyone,

I am trying to help a neighbour with her computer, and need your help.

The computer is running very slowly and often freezes. I wen into msconfig and then startup to disable the many programs she had loading upon startup.
Rebooted the computer, and it seemed a little faster, and didn’t seem to freeze up as often.

Later, a program did freeze, so I pressed control/alt/delete to close it. The list of open programs was HUGE.

I am assuming that there are still a lot of programs running in the background, but don’t know how to stop them from starting up.

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys.

[system]

Probably filled with Spyware.

Stop using Internet Explorer, and download Firefox instead.

getfirefox.com

Grab Spybot Search and Destroy, update it, and scan.

safer-networking.org/en/download/

[system]

Nice site mig

Mig wrote:

[quote]Grab Spybot Search and Destroy, update it, and scan.

safer-networking.org/en/download/[/quote]

Saaweeeet!

[system]

Everytime I use SPybot, I try and update it, but there’s never been an update available… or so it says. What’s the deal? I downloaded Spybot almost a year ago, there had to have been a few updates since then.

[system]

Download the updates from the website manually, then.

You have a piece of spyware that blocks spybot from updating. Yes, the spyware writers are now writing stuff that blocks the anti-spyware stuff.

I saw the same behaviour last week. Full spybot scan shows no spyware, but won’t update. I update manually (download the updates from the website), then scan again, and voila! There’s the piece of crap that was hiding.

Direct link to the updates:

spybotupdates.com/updates/fi … cludes.exe

[system]

What POS software are the kids using that adds LOP? They get on the computer once, lop is back on it. It’s■a bugger to remove, SpyBot and AdAware will take it off, but it comes back after a couple reboots.

[system]

It comes with a fake version of edonkey (from edonkey.com).

But it is also loaded by activex sites, usually warez/mp3 sites.

Also included with MSN Messenger Plus.

Take deep freeze off a school computer, and within a day or two, it’s unusable!

[system]

[quote=“MiG”]Probably filled with Spyware.

Stop using Internet Explorer, and download Firefox instead.

getfirefox.com

Grab Spybot Search and Destroy, update it, and scan.

safer-networking.org/en/download/[/quote]

Thanks everyone for your help - the computer is running better now.

[system]

Was that the problem? Did spybot help?

[system]

So I installed the Spybot updates… and now the scan doesn’t work. All it does is scan in a second and say there’s no problems.

[system]

Messenger Plus… that’s the culprit. You know the worst part of doing tech work is the parents who some right back 3 days later, the virus scanner is uninstalled, adaware is removed, and they’re completely infested again and they insist it’s your fault, you didn’t do it right.
One day, I’ll crack and say "No your kids are stupid little assholes and guess who raised them that way"
Just removed 306 viruses and 500 odd spywares off my stepson’s comp. He kept saying ‘the computer’s no good, the wireless connection is no good’ just like our fucking customers do. So he gets his ears chewed off tonight, ‘If you wanna be a game designer you better learn to manage your own computer’!
No more ‘borrowing the laptop’, new rule is if you can’t fix it you can’t use it. Lessons on fixing are free.

edit: the WOW crack torrent wouldn’t run and his friend told him you had to uninstall the virus protector to make it work. Teenagers know everything, you just get stupider as you age I guess