Well, to begin with, I have two comments first and then more of what you're
probably interested in.
Please, don't feel defensive; I mean these by way of being informative as
opposed to calling you down:
1. Details such as provided here would have been valuable in saving
people's time in responding about things you've already done. That can get
pretty irritating and some will stop reading the thread when it happens.
2. I didn't read the aumha link because, excellent as aumha is, I think I
got enough from your post here to get a grip on a few things. I can see
it's been a long haul, FWIW <g>.
More Inline:
Thanks Poprivet, but I have already gone through a great deal of this
stuff lately - see for example
http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=25...&start=0&sid=baa3c6949aa491dc1fc5478b484e281f
And scanned with all manner of virus scanners and anti spyware
gadgets while following advice from the AumHa people and from the
networking.wireless group here and in alt.internet.wireless (See
'Continuous TCP/IP error messages' threads.)
See, things like above, you really need to indicate what specific programs
you ran. Some are good, some are unknown, and others are known to be
downright dirty or destructive. So, saying you used "all manner" could
either be good, or a red flag, depending on what you used and what it did.
My month trial of AVGGuard has only just run out today for example -
and I won't be using it full time as it slows down start up of the pc
very considerably. These crashes and TCP/IP errors happened even
with this - presumed very good - malware protection running full
time, so I would have thought I was as free of malware now as I am
ever likely to be, and that the problem ought therefore to lie
elsewhere.
AVG is decent but ... it only checks for viruses; not for most other
malware. If you wish to continue troubleshooting and receiving assistance,
you're going to have to name the applications you used in addition to AVG.
e.g., things like adaware, spybot, defender, etc etc etc.
The seize ups that result in me having to pull the plug, don't
generally show up in the error logs: there are only the TCP/IP ones,
already investigated, and the one that always is the first item to
appear on start up, which is 'unable to create symbolic link for
device serial0', which has baffled all commenters so far, and stayed ....
I followed as much of the cleaning advice as I could from these
groups, and it largely led to dead ends - only really stopping short
of Jeff Lieberman's suggestion that I needed to connect up a 'clean'
pc between the modem and the router and use this to 'sniff' the
traffic with WireShark, because he suspected that the pc had been
'taken over by a Trojan that is running a botnet'. I had a look at
....
That wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility to be zombied. And I
understand what you mean about WireShark et al; it's not good to have to
learn them under fire and they are a little cryptic. There's no shame in
admitting that; it's just a fact.
There are ways to detect zombied PCs, but I'll pass on those for now because
I think even if that is going on, you now have other, compounded problems.
A further suggestion, from a computer repairer friend, is that he only
manages to get rid of such errors by reloading IE - which he says
means reloading OE as well and is not at all a straight forward
process. (AumHa actually favoured getting rid of McAfee and upgrading
to IE7; but again, others have suggested that IE7 itself is a pain...)
Remember, when you read things on these groups, it's the people with
problems that write in: You will seldom see a "works great" post because
that's not the purpose of the newsgroups. I and every acquaintance I have
plus relatives, are running IE7 with nary a problem. The only recurring
"problem" was some people couldn't figure out how to turn on the text menu
in IE7.
But, IMO, that's not going to help. I really think your problem is more
system oriented in areas beyond just IE.
I recently turned off all the 'exceptions' on the firewall settings
(windows), but this does not seem to have resulted in any noticeable
changes in performance.
All these tests take an enormous amount of time (some of the web
scans can take a number of hours), and often the pc will freeze in
this time, with the only option then being to pull the plug. Thus a
'kill top process' button on the toolbar - or permanently on top of
everything, would indeed be a godsend and it could simply be hit as
soon as one heard the hard drive gaining speed.
AFAIK there is no such thing. Tack Manager is basically what you're asking
for. I suspect ANYTHING would encounter the same problems.
As for back ups: I do regularly back up my e-mail, but would have to
buy a separate hard drive to back up all the rest: is there now an
off the peg package of drives and software which will back up ALL of
my files including the operating system without a lot of mucking
about? And how would I stop this transfering the 'presumed malware'
along with the good data?
OK. Yes, there is. Ntbackup (or backup in Home), which you already have,
or can download free, will do what you want. Then there are applications
such as Norton's Ghost or Acronis' True Image that will do it, too, but they
cost in the $50 range each as I recall. Those are imaging programs that
would benefit you a lot after you've got things running again, and recovery
of something like this would then be a snap. So they would be great to have
but not much use for your current problem other than cacking up DATA that
YOU created. Once everythign works right, THEN create an image of the boot
drive, and you can get back to it with just a few key clicks, most of the
time.
BUT ... I am NOT suggesting you back up the SYSTEM files! The important
files to backup are the files YOU have created. Photos, letters,
spreadsheets, games, editors, etc. etc. etc.. Forget about backing up the
operating system; you know it's borked. In fact, a virus/worm/trojan
whatever could also be lurking in the files you've created, or especially in
an e-mail, so it's kind of an iffy situation, but it depends on what you
think you need to backup. Backup your OE stuff as you already do, and
anything else you created that's important to you.
Programs can always be reinstalled in the long run, so don't worry about
programs. Basically, if you back up My Documents, assuming you've used it
properly for storage, is probably all you need to back up, besides your
Favorites folder and OE stuff if you've relocated them.
You still haven't indicated what the size of your hard drive is, but
external USB drives up to around 160 Gig are available at pretty decent
prices today. An external drive is the best location for backing up to
efficiently.
DVDs would be a second choice, OR in addition to the external device, with
CDs in last place. Floppies; well, forget it. And yes, you can tell backup
programs to make files that will fit on floppy, CD or DVDs for copying to
them.
If you can throw any fresh light on all this, after checking out all
the details you asked for by reading through the AumHa, and other
threads I indicated, then I would be most grateful for your kind
assistance,
I'm going to suggest, in view of the time already invested and the time
still to be invested, possibly without fruition, that the best thing for you
to do is backup and reinstall windows.
I indicated a Repair Install in my last post. But you should still back up
your DATA first.
If that fails, then a full reinstall starting by booting from the XP CD and
deleting/recreating the partition/s and following onscreen instructions WILL
result in a completely new, virgin installation. Auto-Update can re-apply
the windows updates and you can install all your programs again. NEVER
connect to the 'net without having your Firewall, AV software and spyware
installed FIRST. So, make sure you have those available before you start
the reinstall.
It'll take about an hour and a half to install XP, give it another hour
to install your programs from their CDs, and from there it's just cleanup.
READ the screens closely in getting started: Be certain you have the
right drive identified if you have more than one. Be certain to
delete/recreate the partitions in the beginning.
If you bought the external hard drive and Ghost or TI then you can even make
images of the reconstruction of the drive as you go along. That way, at the
touch of a button, you can put any image back without going thru the hours
of work a manual reinstall takes.
I'm afraid what you're asking for in a do-all button just isn't feasible,
IMO. It wouldn't be able to run any better or in any less space than Task
Manager due to the already existing problems.
If you need repair or reinstall instructions and can't find them by say
Google, ask; there are links to htem all over the place.
HTH,
Pop`
