How do I restore my settings?

[William2002]

You guys always solve my problem, so while you're trying to solve this problem, I'll be working on it, as well. This forum something like going to your doctor. You try tell all the relevant information and symptoms and hope you haven't missed anything.

There is something bugging my system, but I don't know what it is. Most of the weird stuff ( or all0 started after I took FTT's and paul's advice and installed Spybot. I also immunized.

Some of the stuff. This size of the font in hotmail changes on its own. My system crashes now frequently. System settings were changed last time and now the screen is slightly smaller and pointing slightly inward at the bottom. PC cillian didn't find anything. Norton Anti-virus has been continuously running for six months. Im running windows 98. How do I restore system settings?

Thanks from William

[mjc]

None of the symptoms you describe seem to be directly related to Spybot, but some of them could caused by removing certain spyware apps.

If possible could you please post the log of what fixed?

[Budfred]

I have heard of some people having trouble with the immunize function of Spybot, but it sounds like you have more than that going on. I also found that the latest update to Norton AV destabilized my system and resulted in my computer trying to dial in each time I boot. So far Norton has not been helpful in solving this....

[kayofcircles]

If the Hotmail thing started about a week ago, I am seeing the same thing on my 98SE puter. I think they screwed things up again. Font in the Compose window is so tiny I am having problems reading it, but I haven't taken the time to see if there is anything I can do about it. Last time that happened, they "fixed" it within a couple of days, but not so far this time.

When you say "crash" do you mean freezing online? Months ago, I froze a couple of times online..think in Hotmail..because of popups. Was pleasantly surprised when ConAltDel actually worked! And could close out the popup. Would close entire IE window, but at least I wasn't having to reset, and I stayed online.

[Whyzman]

Ah yessssssssssss, the old "Immunize Function!" Spybot! :(

It sounds like you might indeed have a couple of things gone awry...

I would try removing the Immunize stuff from Spybot first...make sure you un-tick the two additional security "Recommended Miscellanious Protections." They have been a a recurring burr under my saddle!

And, undo both of the other IE Security immunize features and see if that helps...

You will need to reboot for the changes to take effect!

Kay, are you running Spybot also?

[Sylvander]

TO PROTECT YOURSELF AGAINST SOFTWARE & CONFIGURATION PROBLEMS

1.Set up a system of making backups.
2. As you proceed forward in time, make backups at key points, particularly before you install new software or make risky configuration changes. Leave a trail of about three backups.
3. Move important data off the C: drive. [e-mails, favourites, address book, My Documents]
4. When you hit a problem. Re-format your C: drive and restore the most recent trouble free backup. If that backup includes the problem restore the one before it etc, etc.
5. When the problem has been eliminated, move forward again with caution. Install one programme after each routine backup [or else take a backup before each prog is installed] and see which one causes a problem to appear [Some installations cannot be uninstalled or will not uninstall correctly]. Then “jump back” again to the backup that doesn’t include the problem.

It seems to me that you cannot be caught out if you do this. There is always a “place of safety” to which you can retreat. Moving forward is then less of a risk.

[kayofcircles]

No, Whyzman..I confess. I did download Spybot about a month ago, but haven't gotten around to fooling with it. And admit to some trepidation because of posts I read on the Immunize part. Also, I would have balked if it's supposed to run in the background..I don't want anything else running off the resources of 98SE.

Sylvander: You're absolutely right, and I say it sincerely, but I am always behind on puter maintenance chores. Last month, I downloaded the AVG update, and then got busy and forgot to install it. This month, I downloaded the update, and installed it, and ran all the puter stuff..like ScanDisk and Defrag..and so count myself "up" on most chores. If I get my Favorites to a floppy every month or so, and I save my work faithfully to CDs, then I figure I am doing pretty good. So, I am not a good example, but I think if we can get people here to back up important files, get regular updates to their anti-virus programs, and run the main maintenance things..well, that's sure better than not???

[William2002]

Yes, i think when I immunized, that's what started the problems...Since then I'm getting viruses, which Norton is catching, and my settings are changing all by themselves, mostly its' how windows and fonts and colors are displayed. I found some of the settings and mostly things are back to normal, but will keep on trying to figure out the rest of the settings and adjust.

Anti-Trojan, yes I may need that. I will look into it. And to De-immuize, may be the way to go and just use spybot once a day or twice a week to delete ads.

My theory is that once a person immuninizes, it blocks future attempts by those companies to gain access to info off your hard drive. When they find that out--they get angry and send viruses and trogans to mess you up.

sylvander: yes you have the best suggestion for protection -- i like that and when I get back to normal, I will do the three back -ups as you suggest. That will be a lot better way to go forward.

Thanks and I'll get back to you

William

[Budfred]

I doubt that the people who are blocked by immunize are the culprits, it is more likely to be where you are browsing or the type of programs you are downloading. Most SPAMmers and spy makers don't get personal, there are plenty of unprotected users for them to prey on without having to deal with someone who is protected.

[Sylvander]

KAY
1. I have used “TweakUI” to move the location of “My Documents” and “Outlook Express Favourites” to a new home on my D: drive [a separate physical drive].
2. I changed the location for the home of the e-mails for each identity using:
“Outlook Express>Tools>Options>Maintenance>Store Folder>Change”.
I can’t remember if it automatically moved the files or if I had to do it manually.
After they are in the new location and a change is made to the e-mails, the changes will be made at this new location.

As a result, they never really need backed up [although I do it anyway just in case the drive should fail].

Doing the above is a little tricky because if you restore a backup that doesn’t refer to the files in these new locations then they will be ignored until you re-do the re-addressing or re-location and you must be aware of this.
As I type this I am re-specifying these locations as the proper addresses after a restore.
I’ve put in the recycle bin, all the [e-mail] files that the restore created and since the up to date files are sitting pretty on the D: drive, when I restart the PC, Outlook Express will expect to see its e-mails on the D: drive and so it will.
I’ll have to do this for each identity.

The advantage is that the e-mails [and “MY Documents” & “Outlook Express Favourites”] are never deleted [even when the C: drive has been re-formatted] and are always up to date.

[Paul Komski]

Also useful if you multiboot and want to keep these things current for more than one OS.

There must be a registry key for the OE locations, which if saved, could be just merged back after the reinstall.

[kayofcircles]

Thanks, Sylvander. Paul has mentioned that Store folder stuff before, but I didn't know where it was..thanks for path. I appreciate the info; not sure I will do it because I don't have any email all that important. Most of my email is just chit chat..:) And for the rare, other than trivia email, I save it to a text file over on D drive. Favorites, however, I should probably do because I am always adding/deleting links to that and don't get around to backing it up every time I do make a change..as I do Address Books and such.

[William2002]

Thanks Sylvnder for the path in saving emails to D Drive. That was done manually once when I had to reformat C Drive. Now I will be more aware of saving things in a safe place. I suppose that because viruses and trojans just go after applications and OS, that your data is safe...which brings me to another thought...why not have all your data on one drive and your app's on another? that way you could reformat anytime without the hassle of losing data.

William

[Sylvander]

That’s a very good idea William.

I’ve ALMOST achieved it.

On my C: drive, the Windows & Program files folders occupy 99.21% of the total space.
Other files occupy only 0.79%.
That’s about three quarters of one percent.

FILE SPACE OCCUPIED [bytes]
Total Occupied = 996,161,504 [100%]
Windows folder = 495,567,956 [49.7%]
Program Files = 492,725,862 [49.5%]
Sum of these 2 = 988,293,818 [99.21%]
Remainder = 7,867,686 [0.79%]
[I used “Disk Frontier” to give me these figures]
[It should be available here http://www.choicecomp.com/download.shtml but never is]
[Try here http://dl.winsite.com/bin/downl?500000031670]

This keeps my C: drive lean and mean.

All the MP3’s and wave files are in their own partition.

[William2002]

Well, Syl, You've only got .79% of your "C" Drive taken up with Data. I'm going to work on that idea of storing all of my data on Drive D. It will take a little research, incorporating the 3 system backup Plan, of course. Since I\'m working more than full time at a business that I'm theoretically supposed to make money with, it will take me more than a couple of days to do that.

In regards with my last run in with trojans, etc. I've cleaned up most everything to the point that I can work effectively and fast, so I've calmed down now. I "de-immunized" the Spybot thing, although I don't know if that actually helped. It did put some ads back on my screen though...oh well. What I'm left with is that everything that is dispalyed is one size smaller than what is normally is--fonts, toolbars, boxes, windows, areas within windows, etc. i just have to squint a bit more to operate...no biggee until I find the setting for that. The color blue is much darker than normal so I'm thinking to adjust my screen color a bit more to see if that helps -- otherwise there may be another setting within windows?

Back to work now...

William from Calgary, Canada

[Budfred]

Until you figure out how to get things back to normal, there is a function in several version of Windoze to use a magnifier (part of the accessibility options I believe) that will magnify anything you put the cursor over.

When you say you get ads, do you mean while you are surfing the web or intruding offline. If you mean on the web, you might want to try using a different browser. Netscape 7, Mozilla and Opera all allow some limiting of ads that intrude. If you mean offline, you still have some cleaning to do....

[mjc]

I think you are dealing with a couple of different problems...one of which is that your screen resolution has been set to soemthing other than what you had before. Righ click on a blank area of your desktop and select properties...then see what your resolution is, and change it to what you would prefer.

Also when you undid the "immunize" did you do so from the immunize page in SSD or did you just restore what you remived in your last scan?

[William2002]

mjc: you just twigged me on to my solution. Yes, my screen resolution was changed. During the last couple days I settled on 1024x768. During that time I tried, however, to go back one setting to 848x480 but that setting makes everything really big, elongated downwards, and awkward, so i went back to 1024X768. However when you suggested to look at the res again, I went back in and went two settings over and discovered that the 800X600 is not elongated and looked a lot like the one I had before. However, to change back and forth between these two settings you have to adjust your screen positioning quite a bit (and I remember that I did adjust my screen pos when I went to 1024X768). So now my general is the same as before, and I know I have to option to go to the smaller res which gives the option to show a lot more emails description on one page, more icons on the desktop, word processing docs are smaller etc. It's kind of cool actually. The only other thing on the desktop is the color black is very pronounced in my icons in the taskbar. I'm sure I adjusted that somewhere too, but I forgot where.

When I immunized, I went back in to spybot and just restored what I had before (with a couple of exceptions, like the sextracker, etc.). And yes ads only appear when i'm online which is all the time that my computer is on, because I'm on cable, and business is constantly conducted online, etc. What the heck is "SSD" anyway?

I can't find the Magnifier under accessibilty options in the Start Menu, but now I don't need it anyway. :)

ONwards and Upwards,

William, form Calgary, Canada

[Budfred]

SSD = Spybot Search & Destroy....

You may want to use Spybot to remove those spyware programs again, restoring them did not turn off immunize, that is a separate function...