another headache

[Psychodic_Greak]

This time its on my dads notebook...

I haven't really been on this computer since id say may/june....so as to what he downloaded/did....its beyond me...and at this point im not trying to do a system restore [not recovery, i know the difference] back to may... because in the times ive been on this computer since may [once/twice] ive had to fix it both times. Now heres the problem...went on AIM 6.0 to chat with some friends tonight and I got an instant message, the box came up but it was a blank box. no text or nothing.

ok simple fix, just uninstall and reinstall riiiiiiiiiight?
WRONG. went into the control panel, everything looks good... then went to add/remove programs...

Adobe Flash 9
Adobe Reader 8.1.0
AIM 6
AOL
etc
etc
etc
























other programs FINALLY show up ALLLLLLLLL the way at the bottom

what in the blue hell did this man do? this is the first time ive ever ever ever heard of an issue of this sort.

anyways....i uninstalled and reinstalled aim [on 56k mind you as I have the computer here at my grandmas house and just got aol to have some sort of internet for myspace/aim and such.

now that I have the computer running somewhat better than it did previously, im willing to give it a shot at fixing the issues WITHOUT restoring previous issues by going back in time, and WITHOUT rebooting the entire machine because A] god only knows where the cds are as he is moving B] dontt really want to lose all of the information, just the infected. I am once again turning to AVG for support as last i checked ewido/avg was top notch under NAV.

I believe its some type of malware/trojan horse causing this issue....ill appreciate any help that can be shared. Also, since the connection is running extremely slow [compared to the DSL speeds i am used to] here is my AOL screen name [when on america online the ims come in fine. AIM is the only thing i cant read.] its klgreen666. pleeeeeeaaaaaasssssseeee instant message me with any help you can share.

heres his build

Dell Inspirion 1200
XP
AOL browser
248mb ram
1.30ghz

thnx

[glc]

You don't have enough ram to run XP well to begin with. Add AOL and its incredible bloat and you have a brick on your hands.

I've seen that in add/remove programs before - when certain versions of Autocad are installed. It's not a problem, just annoying.

That model laptop may have the hidden restore partition if you need to do a full wipe - press Ctrl+F11 at bootup.

[Psychodic_Greak]

so what your saying is that rid myself of AOL and all should be well again? Ive already put it out there that there really isnt a difference in prices, and that ill settle for DSL lite, so im more than likely going to do that.

Now if I run a recovery, thats going to whipe my system clean? I cant do that, this is my dads notebook and he has a lot of important things on here that im not even gonna mess with. For right now i did download avg, did a full scan last night everythings good as far as performance wise, even though there isnt enough ram to run a stable winxp, so far so good.

if add/remove issue isnt anything to worry about im not gonna mess with it. i guess aim isnt working as i installed aol and that bum-fd aim cause last time i worked before my dad moved it worked so im just gonna delete aol and get dsl lite again

thanks glc

[sdkfz]

If your looking to improve perfomance with XP you could add some RAM. Unforatunatly that laptop has only one slot so you have to remove and then buy a bigger module but 512 is 37.00 and the max of 1 GB is 92.00.

http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=Inspiron%201200

The shift FF11 is a wipe if the HD has the partition set upp from Dell, It will tkae the lap top back to fresh out of the box (cept no new plastic smell), all, everything, etc on the hard drive now will be gone.

If a nuke and pave is in your future - Does it have USB? If so you could use an external drive - copy contents of the exisitng lap top drive onto it and then wipe the lap top. This way anything saved file wise is still available. software installs will still need the disks though. If not get an external enclosre, pull the drive and copy it into anoter PC, replace wipe etc...