Computer Gurus, HELP!!!!!!!

[deli_conker]

There's also a nice little utility that comes with Windows called msconfig. You can use it to stop malicious things loading when you boot up.

msconfig is only on 9x machines. Windows 2k and higher (excluding ME) do not have that utility.

 

[TankGirl]

That's a good one, too, Atari - and what I do is when I go into msconfig and see things checked off at startup if I don't know what they are, I google the file name and find out if it is something I want or not, and often if it is some kind of trojan horse or something you will get links to discussion group responses about it, and how to get rid of it.

 

[Atari]

deli_conker, I'm running XP Pro and it comes with msconfig.. I can't speak for the Home version.

TG, yep that's exactly how I use it too.

 

[TankGirl]

I'm running XP Home and I have it.

 

[deli_conker]

Oops. My bad. Windows 2k doesn't have it. I know on 9x machines it was fairly useful for troubleshooting but if another program starts the actual trojan, then you'll see multiple instances of it on the list (at least on 9x machines). I always saw several entries for qttask.exe which is part of quick time for windows if I unclicked it for a selective startup.

Another thing to check out is computer management. I get to it by right clicking my computer and choosing manage. It's basically a MMC console. I can't remember if xp's is set up with the same snap-ins or not, but if you look for "services and applications" and then select "services", you can see what services are loaded at startup. If a trojan is loaded as a service instead of being run as a program, it probably won't show up in msconfig.

 

[Atari]

Yep, it's the same in XP.. Right click My Computer then Manage, and Services is under the Services and Applications tab. It's one of the first things I do after installing XP so I can disable that stupid Messenger service that pops up ads all the time.