puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

[Tim Frank]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

I created a disk image so that when I have to restore my drive again, it will be fast as I can just recreate my drive from the image.

What utility will help do this?

 

[bruceb58]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

I had a thread on this earlier asking what people recommended. I ended up buying Acronis true Image and made an image after I reformatted and put back all my programs. Reinstalling everything is a painstaking process when you consider all the drivers that need to go back on as well. The image makes it very simple.

 

[sprintst]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

Run Trend Micro's Housecall which is a free virus scanner that looks from the outside in so it is not affected by memory resident viruses. It's free and should find anything in the event you do have a virus.

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Run Malwarebytes to see if you have any spyware and will clean up even some of the worst stuff out there.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Uninstall any extraneous programs that you don't need like Yahoo toolbar, etc that's just in the way and eats up resources and are memory resident.

Run CCleaner to clean up any orphaned registry entries, etc...it's does a good job and is not destructive.

Run your Windows defrag utility multiple times and your machine should be back close to normal.

 

[Tim Frank]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

I had a thread on this earlier asking what people recommended. I ended up buying Acronis true Image and made an image after I reformatted and put back all my programs. Reinstalling everything is a painstaking process when you consider all the drivers that need to go back on as well. The image makes it very simple.

Thanks.

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

Despite my thread eariler on computer problems, but that is another story, there are two programs I use regularly, and that is House Call, it gets run about once a day, and for free, it is a great program.

Another one that I use all the time for many different functions is Advanced SystemCare, the basic version is a free download and it also has several other programs included in it besides the basic scans, it includes registry clean up, missing shortcuts, a program uninstaller, defrag, memory manager, etc. It is a good program.

Advanced Systemcare is put out by a company called Iobit, it runs in your tray, can be set to defrag on a certain schedule, scans for malware, for a freebie, it is a good program.

Now take into account, I have never ran a installed virus program on my computer and for over 20 years, I have never been infected..but that said, I recommend most have an installed virus program, I have my computer set up quite a bit different than most.

Dave

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

Now take into account, I have never ran a installed virus program on my computer and for over 20 years, I have never been infected..but that said, I recommend most have an installed virus program, I have my computer set up quite a bit different than most.

Dave

I run AVG full edition here on my PC and AVAST on another and free AVG on a 3rd.

Funny thing about virus infections that I have experienced..... the ones I have had to contend with have "mostly" come from emails. The rest and biggest PITA problems (virus sort of) have been from careless people hitting up shopping sites or the "click me" ads.

 

[Gary H NC]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

Dude, I build computers and I have no clue what you are talking about with the bolded part.

Agree with that!

A fresh OS install is the way i always go....Format the drive,it wipes it clean and start over.

 

[WIMUSKY]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

Run Trend Micro's Housecall which is a free virus scanner that looks from the outside in so it is not affected by memory resident viruses. It's free and should find anything in the event you do have a virus.

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Run Malwarebytes to see if you have any spyware and will clean up even some of the worst stuff out there.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Uninstall any extraneous programs that you don't need like Yahoo toolbar, etc that's just in the way and eats up resources and are memory resident.

Run CCleaner to clean up any orphaned registry entries, etc...it's does a good job and is not destructive.

Run your Windows defrag utility multiple times and your machine should be back close to normal.

So I ran the Malware program. Came up with about 30 files. Mainly registry keys and registry value/data. Most of it is adware with the exception of 2 that are trojan.vundo . Can those be removed safely without screwing up the system? There were 4 other files in my documents and settings. Looks to be the anti malware that I downloaded. Vendor is "Rogue.antimalwaredoctor". I'm assuming I need to save those to run that program in the future?

 

[bruceb58]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

The problem is that if you don't get everything off your computer and you use your computer for any type of banking, you are at great risk if you don't get a lot of this type of stuff off there.

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic65943.html

Go to this site and read their guide and run the programs they suggest and post your logs to their site. They are super helpful and will solve your problems.

http://www.techspot.com/vb/menu28.html

 

[NYBo]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

Beware of downloading "antivirus" or "antimalware" software that you didn't actively seek. Rogue.antimalware doctor IS malware and you need to kill it. Let Malwarebytes do its thing.

Another issue is the legitimate antivirus programs you used or have use in the past. I have fixed more computers than I can remember that were buggered by various flavors of Norton Antivirus, especially when the user "uninstalled" the program and switched to something else. The uninstall routine leaves numerous registry entries that don't play nicely with other antivirus programs that are installed after the "uninstall". Fortunately, Symantec has a Norton Removal Tool that can be downloaded from their website. Prior to its publication, I have cleaned registries by manually deleting HUNDREDS of registry entries on each computer. Not a whole lot of fun.

Another issue I ran across in the past week was the default settings of Kaspersky Internet Security Suite. By default, the program does what it calls an idle scan- a scan is initiated when the computer is idle. The compute in question, a P4 2.8 gHz Dell, bogged down to an almost unusable degree. Turning that scan off restored it to its former speed.

 

[scipper77]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

Well, I'm a little late to this thread but I don't think I've seen this brought up yet....

Ctrl+Alt+Del, start task manager --> Google everything under the processes tab. You would be surprised how programs that you install whether intentionally or not can just eat up system resources. My daughter kept trying to slip one past me and install frostwire to illegally download music and then delete it. Every time she did this I would know about it because the computer would suddenly run like poop. Turns out you can't uninstall frostwire using the uninstaller. It just makes it look like it's gone but still leaves the main process running which eats system resources.

Google is your friend here, it will tell you what every process is and how to remove it if it shouldn't be there.

I have also run a few virus scans using my avast anti-virus. Funny how the scan found stuff that got on to the computer while avast was running (again mostly all traced back to those frostwire downloads).

I used to be a clean reformat guy but since I started doing the above method I have never needed to do it. I've never in my life gone more than 2 years without reformatting until this computer. I've been using this one with no reformat for I think 5 years.

 

[WIMUSKY]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

Beware of downloading "antivirus" or "antimalware" software that you didn't actively seek. Rogue.antimalware doctor IS malware and you need to kill it. Let Malwarebytes do its thing.

Another issue is the legitimate antivirus programs you used or have use in the past. I have fixed more computers than I can remember that were buggered by various flavors of Norton Antivirus, especially when the user "uninstalled" the program and switched to something else. The uninstall routine leaves numerous registry entries that don't play nicely with other antivirus programs that are installed after the "uninstall". Fortunately, Symantec has a Norton Removal Tool that can be downloaded from their website. Prior to its publication, I have cleaned registries by manually deleting HUNDREDS of registry entries on each computer. Not a whole lot of fun.

Another issue I ran across in the past week was the default settings of Kaspersky Internet Security Suite. By default, the program does what it calls an idle scan- a scan is initiated when the computer is idle. The compute in question, a P4 2.8 gHz Dell, bogged down to an almost unusable degree. Turning that scan off restored it to its former speed.

Well, I let Malwarebytes do it's thing and removed everything it found. Maybe it's me, but, it seemed to have helped the system. It seems I can navigate quicker.

We use IE and have Inprivate browsing and inprivate filtering enabled.
InPrivate Browsing helps prevent Internet Explorer from storing data about your browsing session. This includes cookies, temporary Internet files, history, and other data. Toolbars and extensions are disabled by default.

We also use Norton. I dug around a little, but, didn't see anything about idle-scan. That may not be an option in Norton. Our system is a DELL P4 3.0 GHz.

 

[NYBo]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

We also use Norton. I dug around a little, but, didn't see anything about idle-scan. That may not be an option in Norton. Our system is a DELL P4 3.0 GHz.

I don't believe Norton has that option.

 

[sprintst]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

So far so good. It wouldn't hurt to run malwarebytes again after a reboot to see if can clean anything else as sometimes the trojans try to protect themselves by not letting you delete files in use or renaming.

Uninstall anything in add /remove programs in the control panel that doesn't look like it needs to be there like any of the toolsbars, etc.

Run ccleaner and it will clean up the registry.

http://www.piriform.com/

Most preople don;'t realize that a windows system will get polluted with files that were added by junk programs that overwrite shared files dll's, etc in Windows until you are not even running Windows anymore.

Nothing is like wiping the whole system and reloading with the os again and adding the proper device drivers but most people won't be able to do it perfectly.

ccleaner and some defragging will probably get you close to original as you are going to get for now.

running msconfig from your command line will show you the programs running on startup but you have to know what to disable on startup but it may give you hints on what to uninstall if you don't need those programs.

 

[Go Aweigh2452]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

I would also recommend using Firefox instead of IE for internet...

 

[ShadowB]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

I had the same problem and cured it by defragging then running Spybot, Malwarebytes and Hitman Pro 3.5. and ran a registry Cleaner (which is usually the main cause). As noted in this thread be careful when downloading. As stated there are impostors out there. Be very careful of free registry cleaners, many are actually spyware. If you can, download from reputable sites like CNET and do a review search on unknowns. Note not one malware produce does it all. Hitman Pro is excellent for taking care of Outlook & Google related issues, especially with IE 8. Personally I quit using IE and went to Mozilla Foxfire. It does a better job of filtering cookies and other junk files, and doesn't have the IE issues with Script 2032 print problems or with Yahoo et al, but that's my opinion. Spybot and Malwarebytes are excellent as well. You may have to pay for a good Registry Cleaner but they usually do the full job where most free cleaners don't. If you use any free product be sure to re-run your spy/malware & McAfee (et al) programs before using that download - you may catch a problem download before it causes you problems.

 

[Summer Fun]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

I would also recommend using Firefox instead of IE for internet...

+2 on that. .
Iboats doesn't play well with IE. When I had IE it would take about 30sec's to load a page on here.

 

[eastont]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

The best and easiest way is to buy a Mac. End of problems.

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

The best and easiest way is to buy a Mac. End of problems.

Wait a moment, I have broke and infected quite a few Mac's over the years...

 

[Solittle]

Re: puter dragin it's butt, what to clean up

For all who post stuff about computers - - It would sure help if you mention what operating system you are running and a bit of info about your computer & peripherals -