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Geek Culture / The most dead end windows problem i have ever had. need urgent help please.

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PAGAN_old
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Joined: 28th Jan 2006
Location: Capital of the Evil Empire
Posted: 24th Jun 2008 14:13
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Good morning everyone! Sorry to interrupt but i need some epic help
I think my windows explorer is broken or something. At one point, when i restarted windows only the background showed. No icons no start menu or tool bar or anything. I read on the internet that this problem could be solved with help of task manager that can manually access everything. But sh*t in my face, not even the task manager works. so i cant access anything. I tried safe mode and all the other modes available in advanced startup and i get either blank background with mouse or a BSOD. i cannot access the command prompt or anything the task manager does not work. I even tried taking explorer.exe from another system and replacing it, but it made no difference.

anyone have any idea on any other way to fix this? i spent all night and couldn\'t do it.

I need to get this fixed before Wednesday when i will be going to russia (and taking the laptop with me)

i would appreciate any advice

thank you

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Van B
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22
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Joined: 8th Oct 2002
Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 24th Jun 2008 14:21
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Reinstall.

This has happend a few times at work, usually after someone clicks on a nasty popup telling them they have spyware - but really the only way to ensure you get rid is to format and reinstall.


less is more, but if less is more how you keeping score?
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PAGAN_old
18
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Posted: 24th Jun 2008 14:26
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i tried fixmbr and fixboot in the recovery console, no result. maybe the recovery console can do some other stuff?

this sucks because this is a nearly fresh installation

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Van B
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Posted: 24th Jun 2008 15:59
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Recovery console is a feature of windows that has never once helped me with this type of infection.


less is more, but if less is more how you keeping score?
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Alucard94
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Joined: 9th Jul 2007
Location: Stockholm, Sweden.
Posted: 24th Jun 2008 16:04
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Just reinstall man, should fix it.

If someone says pls because it is shorter than please I say no because it is shorter than yes
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PAGAN_old
18
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Joined: 28th Jan 2006
Location: Capital of the Evil Empire
Posted: 24th Jun 2008 16:27
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not sure that this is even an infection, more like an error caused by some stupid conflict with windows. The last thing i was doing before the problem was playing a game of carmageddon 2. everything before that was fine.

i really do not want to reinstall because it would take forever to load up everything again (and thats at least 50 gb of stuff)not to mention back everything up.

currently i am trying to get the task manager to come up (i already had it once) i can try to fix it from there.

i know for sure now that something is wron with my explorer.exe

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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MSon
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Location: Earth, (I Think).
Posted: 24th Jun 2008 16:48
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Quote: "The last thing i was doing before the problem was playing a game of carmageddon 2"


I personally avoid that game as i've seen 2 different PC's crash whilst trying to play carmageddon 2 OnLine.

Everyone Be Cool, You, Be Cool.
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Van B
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Posted: 24th Jun 2008 16:54
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The reason why explorer is acting weird, and why the task manager will not come up is because your registry has been raped. Even if you do manage to get the task manager up, there's nothing you can do from there that will permanently fix the problem - if these problems could be effectively fixed with just the task manager then the malware programmers would be out of a job.

Suck it up and reinstall, but partition your hard drive this time so you can store your documents on a non-system drive. Maybe worth buying a USB drive to store and backup your files - especially if your gonna be traveling with the laptop.


less is more, but if less is more how you keeping score?
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bond1
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Posted: 24th Jun 2008 16:57 Edited at: 24th Jun 2008 16:58
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And then make a disk image of that clean install - in case you ever have to reformat again you can be up and running in about 15 minutes with a squeaky clean machine.

----------------------------------------
"Your mom goes to college."
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 24th Jun 2008 17:29
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Well VanB, Looks like i will have to un-rape the registry.

Mal ware programmers. i guess i understand profit of spyware and jacking stuff from your drive, but what benefit could raping someones registry have? yet again you never know what else is happening to your pc during malware attack,

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Van B
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Posted: 24th Jun 2008 18:27
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They 'rape' the registry to ensure that the malware stays in your PC - so they will do things like set your wallpaper to a HTML file which can act as a portal for all sorts of other malware, then disable the ability to change it. They also disable task manager to prevent you shutting down processes, which is not always a help anyway.

Put this way, it's possible to write a program very easily that gives more permissions to shut down processes than task manager. I wrote one a while ago that can ban a list of processes and keep them banned. Handy, but only when you know exactly what process is malware, or which process you want rid off (AVG for example).


less is more, but if less is more how you keeping score?
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 24th Jun 2008 18:35
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i know what you are talking about vanB, i had one of those a while ago, thats one of the more extreme cases. Well ive been at it all night and i give up.

by the way, this is the first time i travel with a laptop through US border when customs control started checking laptops. I am kinda worried, anyone have any idea of what to expect from the border control?

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Sid Sinister
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Posted: 25th Jun 2008 07:17
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Quote: "by the way, this is the first time i travel with a laptop through US border when customs control started checking laptops. I am kinda worried, anyone have any idea of what to expect from the border control?"


Lets just say you have much more to worry about that your registry getting raped






Just kidding

"If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants" - Isaac Newton
-Computer Animation Major @Baker.edu-
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xyzz1233
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Posted: 25th Jun 2008 09:19
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I once had a similare problem from some malware, and in the end I ended up reformatting. However, before I did that, I ran a program called ComboFix, which fixed almost everything. Try that.
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