Question

Can't access any Antivirus website

Asked by: lrthames

Running Windows XP Pro. Cannot access any antivirus website. There are already several tickets on this site about that but I do not have a c:\windows\system32\drive folder. I have uninstalled Norton Antivirus 2004 at this point but I am at a loss. I have downloaded and run Adaware and Spybot 1.3. Any ideas?

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Asked On
2004-07-08 at 09:22:14ID21052141
Tags

access

,

antivirus

,

website

,

any

Topic

Anti-Virus Applications

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: sunray_2003Posted on 2004-07-08 at 10:10:26ID: 11504224

Hi lrthames,

Have you tried this yet ?

go to this location  c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
and open that hosts file using notepad

remove all entries in that except
127.0.0.1  localhost
and those entries that you had manually entered

restart your system and check if it would allow you to go any anti-virus website

SR..

 

by: LeftofCoolPosted on 2004-07-08 at 10:11:43ID: 11504236

Try restarting in safe mode with networking. To do this press F8 a few times while your computer starting up, then from the list that will follow select "safe mode with networking". Here's some Anti-virus/spyware/adware tools that should aid you in your trouble once you can get the browser functioning.

Anti-Spyware/Adware

Ad-Aware 6
http://download.com.com/Ad-aware/3000-8022-10214379.html?tag=lst-0-1

Spybot Search & Destroy 1.3
http://download.com.com/3000-8022-10289035.html?tag=lst-0-1

Spy Sweeper 2.6 (free trial)
http://www.webroot.com/wb/products/spysweeper/index.php

Hijack This
http://download.com.com/3000-8022-10227352.html?tag=lst-0-3

Web Shredder (Removes all Cool Web Search variants)
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html#cwshredder


Online Anti-Virus

Computer Associates Online AV
http://www3.ca.com/virusinfo/virusscan.aspx

Symantec (Norton AV)
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/default.asp?productid=symhome&langid=ie&venid=sym

McAfee Free Scan
http://us.mcafee.com/root/mfs/default.asp

McAfee AVERT Stinger
http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/

Trend Micro Housecall
http://housecall.antivirus.com/housecall/start_corp.asp

Panda ActiveScan
http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/

Kapersky Online AV
http://www.kaspersky.com/remoteviruschk.html




 

by: lrthamesPosted on 2004-07-08 at 10:12:27ID: 11504243

I went to the file and the only entry in there is:

127.0.0.1 localhost

Any other ideas?

 

by: sunray_2003Posted on 2004-07-08 at 10:14:14ID: 11504261

What error are you getting going to any anti-virus website ?

Check if you can go here

*************
http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

http://security.symantec.com/
**************

Have you used a different browser ?

Make sure there is no restriction in your machine preventing going to anti-virus website

Can you not install any anti-virus and scan for virus ?

SR

 

by: lrthamesPosted on 2004-07-08 at 15:47:10ID: 11507609

I ran the antivirus program stinger  in safe mode and it found a trojan horse in the "hosts" file. That was the problem. The hosts file looked fine when I looked at it in Notepad. That's why I didn't notice any problem.

Thanks for your help. I wanted sunray_2003's answer to be the accepted answer and lefofcool's to be the assisted answer but it didn't take it that way for some reason.

 

by: sunray_2003Posted on 2004-07-08 at 17:24:04ID: 11508072

Thanks for letting your know

you may want to post a 0 pt in CS requesting the mods to change it for you

SR

 

by: lrthamesPosted on 2004-07-09 at 15:38:11ID: 11516501

OK, the moderator let me change it so we're all set. Thanks again.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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