I'm working on a client's machine that had these problems at his office:
1) when clicking on the start menu, it would flash open then close
2) when clicking on a shortcut it opens the shortcut properties for the application
He, effectively, couldn't get to any programs at all.
I brought the machine to my office and the symptoms did not appear.
I checked it out. There were hundreds of spyware, as well as hundreds of viruses.
I backed up his data and restored his system using his restore disks that came with the system.
Should be clean - still no problems as described above - installed spy blockers and anti-virus.
Updated everything.
Works fine in my office.
Take it back to his office. Dang! the symptoms above appear again.
What could cause the symptoms? Ideas?
Thanks
Sam
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the first thing to try is changing the mouse and the keyboard. If the problem still appear, disconnect any external device like printers,modem,hub usb,.......
If this not help, consider that if this PC was reconnceted to a LAN when went back to office, many of the viruses you've correctly deleted, could have reinfected this PC.
Hope this help
Yes, I was there. I installed spybot with teatimer and spyblaster. There wasn't enough time to pick up any spyware.
It started immeadiately upon setup at his office. The only difference from my office to his was attaching his printer. I pulled his printer plug and deleted the printer driver.
It cleared up and everything worked normally. For about ten minutes. Then the problems started again. He didn't touch the system while all this was going on.
ucozza,
yes, it's on a LAN, I didn't think about that. the only external device was the printer (described above) modem is integrated on motherboard. speakers were connected to integrated sound board.
I'm going by his office in a couple of hours. I'll pull LAN access off so it's stand alone again, run spybot and avg and see if anything has infected it since yesterday. I'll use another keyboard and mouse and see what happens.
Any other suggestions while I'm there?
have you stopped the system restore in WinXP before the antivir and spyware check and cleaning operation?
If you dont this could be the problem. You have cleaned the system, but when it restart the "system restore", start checking the system, restoring the files cleaned from AV to the same state it know: the infected.
QUOTED:
System Restore option in Windows XP
Users of Windows XP should temporarily turn off System Restore. Windows XP uses this feature, which is enabled by default, to restore the files on your computer in case they become damaged. If a virus, worm, or Trojan infects a computer, System Restore may back up the virus, worm, or Trojan on the computer.
Windows prevents outside programs, including antivirus programs, from modifying System Restore. Therefore, antivirus programs or tools cannot remove threats in the System Restore folder. As a result, System Restore has the potential of restoring an infected file on your computer, even after you have cleaned the infected files from all the other locations.
Also, in some cases, online scanners may detect a threat in the System Restore folder even though you scanned your computer with an antivirus program and did not find any infected files.
--------------------------
For instructions on how to turn off System Restore:
http://service1.symantec.c
sometimes i make this error and this helped me.
Let us know :-)
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by: rindiPosted on 2005-02-03 at 10:54:42ID: 13217797
Were you there or did he call you after he had used his system again? Maybe he just picked up the spyware again. Did you install spybot with teatimer enabled?
Does he use a mouse along with the software for that mouse? With most mouse software you can change the behaviour of which button does what, maybe he just switched the mouse to lefthanded? Or maybe did some individual settings?