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- Apr 23, 2005
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In the hope of providing some entertainment for others out of my own misery, here's the background to my recent XP crash and burn...
I've been using Spybot S&D for a while, and I use Firefox, but I was finding that spyware was still regularly getting through. So I enabled the resident registry monitor and all seemed to be fine. Now the registry checker prevents programs from altering the registry - I think to keep out key-loggers and the like.
Anyhow, I decided to uninstall Norton (subject of previous discussion) as it slows systems down horribly. During the uninstall, Spybot warned that something was trying to changethe registry - it was, the Norton uninstaller, quite legitimately. Now you should get the option of denying or allowing the change, but for some satan-induced reason, the "allow" button wouldn't appear, just a shadow outline. I couldn't let it do the changes.
Now getting worried, I thought "I'll do a registry backup to be on the safe side, cos this is going pear". Half way through the back-up, the machine just froze.....
I left it 10 mins... it was completely frozen. Oh ****. Cue hard reboot. Beep of death, bunch of numbers, followed by:
Cannot load:
Registry.sys
A Really important file.dll
This one is really important as well.sys
More really crucial stuff.sys
Nuclear meltdown commencing.com
You are dead.dll
It is game over.sys
And alot of other files. Cue system halt. Couldn't get into safe mode, boot from floppy or CD, nothing.
At one point I had a DOS prompt and tried to dump important files onto another drive. It asked for an Admin password, and nothing I tried was right. Given that I've only ever had ONE admin password, I can't figure that one either.
After two evenings I gave up and did a re-install. And my music won't work. Something that a 3-month old backup won't help with.
Moral: Be bloody careful with registry guardians and STAY AWAY from Norton.
Jock.
I've been using Spybot S&D for a while, and I use Firefox, but I was finding that spyware was still regularly getting through. So I enabled the resident registry monitor and all seemed to be fine. Now the registry checker prevents programs from altering the registry - I think to keep out key-loggers and the like.
Anyhow, I decided to uninstall Norton (subject of previous discussion) as it slows systems down horribly. During the uninstall, Spybot warned that something was trying to changethe registry - it was, the Norton uninstaller, quite legitimately. Now you should get the option of denying or allowing the change, but for some satan-induced reason, the "allow" button wouldn't appear, just a shadow outline. I couldn't let it do the changes.
Now getting worried, I thought "I'll do a registry backup to be on the safe side, cos this is going pear". Half way through the back-up, the machine just froze.....
I left it 10 mins... it was completely frozen. Oh ****. Cue hard reboot. Beep of death, bunch of numbers, followed by:
Cannot load:
Registry.sys
A Really important file.dll
This one is really important as well.sys
More really crucial stuff.sys
Nuclear meltdown commencing.com
You are dead.dll
It is game over.sys
And alot of other files. Cue system halt. Couldn't get into safe mode, boot from floppy or CD, nothing.
At one point I had a DOS prompt and tried to dump important files onto another drive. It asked for an Admin password, and nothing I tried was right. Given that I've only ever had ONE admin password, I can't figure that one either.
After two evenings I gave up and did a re-install. And my music won't work. Something that a 3-month old backup won't help with.
Moral: Be bloody careful with registry guardians and STAY AWAY from Norton.
Jock.
