Computer Troubleshooters - Oakleigh

      Computer Troubleshooters - Oakleigh assumes no liability for or consequences from unlicenced software,
      problems caused by software or user or data loss on any media through the use of information on this blog.

Archive for the ‘Windows XP’ Category

Windows reports an Antivirus is installed when it is not

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Have started seeing this a lot. You have uninstalled an AV but Windows still reports it as being there in the Security Center.

To get rid of this message, click Start, Run. Type ’services.msc’ and enter.

Now find Windows Management Instrumentation Service and stop it.

Now open Wndows Explorer and Delete the Repository folder under c:\windows\system32\wbem\

Now restart the WMI service and Windows should start reporting the AV situation correctly.

If you can’t delete the folder then you may have to disable the WMI service and reboot. Then delete the folder, change the WMI service back to Automatics and reboot again.

Windows System Suite Spyware

Monday, August 10th, 2009

This a particularly nasty spyware. Firstly run MalwareBytes or Spybot to remove most of it. then you have to manually remove some files.

This link has instructions. http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-windows-system-suite

After this, Windows may still report that an Antivirus program is currently installed, reporting it as Windows System Suite.

Do the following:

In Control Panel click on Administrative Tools, then Services, from the list of services find Windows Management Instrumentation right click mouse and from dropdown list stop the service.

Find folder C:\windows\system32\wbem, inside this folder identify the repository folder and delete only this folder (the repository folder) from your computer.

In Administrative Tools find Windows Management Instrumentation service again, and re-start the service by right clicking mouse and pressing start from dropdown list. Restarting this service re-builds the repository folder database on your computer, which should now only contain information about your currently installed antivirus & firewall programs.

To reset the Windows Security Centre you must re-boot your computer.

You should then be able to reinstall you AV program.

However, I was still having trouble installing AVG, it kept failing to start the AVG Service at the end of the install.

Following the mentioned thread and the directions for windows registry corruption:

“Please open Windows Registry Editor
- open menu Start -> Run -> enter “regedit” and cofirm OK
In opened Registry Editor find this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options
Check that none of sub-keys have name like AVG processes (all AVG processes):
avgam.exe
avgcfgex.exe
avgcmgr.exe
avgcsrva.exe
avgcsrvx.exe
avgdiag.exe
avgdiagex.exe
avgdumpa.exe
avgdumpx.exe
avgemc.exe
avgfrw.exe
avgfws8.exe
avgfwwiz.exe
avgiproxy.exe
avgnsa.exe
avgrsa.exe
avgscana.exe
avgscanx.exe
avgsrmaa.exe
avgsrmax.exe
avgstrma.exe
avgstrmx.exe
avgsysta.exe
avgsystx.exe
AVGToolbarInstall.exe
avgtray.exe
avgui.exe
avgupd.exe
avgwdsvc.exe
fixcfg.exe
And remove them from registry. ”

I deleted those entries in the registry and, finally I was able to install successfuly the AVG 8.5.

Block IE8 From Installing

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

You can download the Microsoft Blocker Toolkit

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=21687628-5806-4ba6-9e4e-8e224ec6dd8c&displaylang=en

Or add the following to the regstry:

Registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Setup\8.0
Key value name: DoNotAllowIE80 (DWORD)
When the key value name is not defined, distribution is not blocked.

  • When the key value name is set to 0, distribution is not blocked.
  • When the key value name is set to 1, distribution is blocked.

Outlook only opens in Safe Mode

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Hi Neil

I had a recent issue where I could only open Outlook in Safe mode.  Like you I did all the usual things, Repair, Reinstall etc.

It turned out to be a corrupted preferences file (C:\Documents and Settings\profile_name\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\outcmd.dat)

I deleted it and Outlook re-created a new one the next time it opened.  This fixed my problem.

 IHTH

 Regards  Bruce Richardson

****************************************

Have a weird one here.

 

XP Pro

Office Pro 2007

Outlook would get an error opening and would only open in safe mode.

Email account was an IMAP account

To get outlook working I have done the following:

 

Uninstalled Office rebooted and reinstalled office – made no difference

Uninstalled Office rebooted then followed Microsoft’s method for manually uninstalling all references to office including the registry – rebooted and reinstalled office – made no difference.

Also removed, not just disabled, all addins – no good.

I have even started outlook without email support.

 

It does not matter what I try Outlook encounters a problem and closes.

It will only open in safe mode.

Fix a corrupted printer driver

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

http://www.mrtechnologyllc.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47:corrupted-print-drivers&catid=32:windows-xp&Itemid=74

Sometimes in Windows XP the print drivers will become corrupted which will prevent the user from printing. I’ve seen this happen primarily when using an HP device. The following are the steps to removing the printer and corrupted driver.

Delete all printers in control panel.

  • From the Administrative Tools select Services and stop the Print Spooler service.
  • Go to windows\system32\spool\drivers\w32×86\3\ and delete everything in that folder.
  • Go to \windows\system32\spool\printers and delete any .spl or .shd files
  • Go to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers. If there are any subkeys present with printer names delete them
  • Restart the spooler. Re-install the printer drivers.

This would be the starting point to fixing a corrupted hp print driver.

Windows XP Logs on, then Logs off

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

You need to restore the file userinit.exe to C:\WINDOWS\system32\ and restore the Registry data:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
“Userinit”=”C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\userinit.exe”

Go to regit on another networked computer - registry - connect network registry -and enter the computer name with the problem. You can edit the registry that way .

Or take the hard drive out, connect via usb, and load registry hive that way.

Or Download tool http://www.ms-mvp.org/

Windows XP SP2 install, stops at “Checking Product key”

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Then I found the solution (thanks Ste123) on a Microsoft forum of all places and here it is. Naturally, use it at your own risk.

1) Open a CMD prompt
2) Then type cd /d %windir%\inf
3) Then type ren oem*.inf oem*.old
4) Then type ren oem*.pnf oem*.old1
5) Then find the file by name INFCACHE.1 and remove it from the inf directory
6) Close all windows and reboot the computer to safe mode and
start the installation of SP2 and it should go fine

Thanks to STE123

Windows gets IP address and can browse LAN but not Internet

Friday, November 7th, 2008

This is becoming more and more common. Your PC gets IP address settings OK, can browse the LAN but cannot access the Internet. Spyware cleaners cannot update because they use the same setting as IE. Hijack This shows the list of items loading at startup. Look for a registry entry for Internet Explorer for the ‘proxy override’ or ‘proxy server’, usually it is set to 127.0.0.1 (localhost) or .local which causes IE to look at the local computer (itself) for internet access.

Remove these entries and reboot will normally get the browsing and online updates happening again, and still do a scan for spyware using Spybot and Malware Bytes.

Outlook cannot dismiss reminders

Thursday, September 11th, 2008

: (Subjective)
Past Reminders keep firing with below errors every time Outlook is opened.

while dismiss them- “Cannot turn off the reminder. You may be reminded again. the end date you entered occurs before the start date”

while try to open the related item- “Cannot open the item for this reminder. The end date occurs before the start date”

O: (Objective)[Environment]

PRODUCT VERSION AND SERVICE RELEASES

Windows 2000
Service Pack 4
Exchange Version: 5.5
Exchange SP: 4

A: (Assessment)
Ø Logged on to the mailbox using Outlook and found the same symptoms.

Ø Carried out the below steps to delete the items in Reminders folder.

Download MFCMAPI tool from http://support.microsoft.com/?ID=291794

1. Run MFCMAPI on the desktop
2. Go to Session->Logon and Display Store Table
3. Select your profile
4. Select Mailbox
5. Expand “Root Container”
6. Right click “Reminders” and select “Open Contents Table”
7. New Window Launches with Title Reminders
8. Select the reminder items that are being problem, Right click and select “Delete Message”
9. Close MFCMAPI

Ø Reopened Outlook and don’t find the past Reminders firing again. The issue got resolved.

Good Luck!

HP Notebook cannot find usable Hard Drive when installing Windows

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

Tip to the wise - if you have had problems trying to install Windows (any version) on your HP laptop, and it fails to find any usable HDDs, try the following:

Enter the BIOS (Hit F10 key during BIOS load)
Change the SATA drive setting to Disabled
Save
Reboot to CD