my OS has died - i think

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

ok, so i got rid of the spyware and trojans, and everything was cool.

but, about 2 hours later, im going through files when BAM! my taskbar and all my desktop icons disappear. i tried restarting, nothing. ive tried creating new shortcuts, nothing. im having to use the task manager to start anything. all my files are fine, nothings gone, just the taskbar and icons.

anybody?

im running 2k pro, before you ask about what os im on

[Marcus Telcontar]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;253861

http://www.learninglinux.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=438

No 2 MAY be it. No 1 isnt it, but it gives somewhere to start.

http://www.computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/forum/86240.html

http://www.computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/forum/85915.html

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

k, well i checked for the sysu.exe, but it wasnt in processes. thanks for the links though - ill probably be spending time there

ive got the 2000 service pack 4 running right now

edit ~ no dice. still nothing

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

after a wonderful 2 hour talk with akrabbim, and a partial reinstal later, my net is now down. i have to reinstall winpoet, but every time i try, im asked to put in my 3ds max 5.1 cd.

what ak thinks might have happened was that one of the trojans got itself so deeply embedded into windows that when i dumped it, it took a key .dll file with it.

i may not be online tonight - ive decided to give the thing a much needed and now very necessary reformat

[Darth Viscera]

I ran Spybot at the same time as Christin and suffered the same problem, though I didn't realise it until I rebooted 40 minutes ago. When I did, I noticed that my driver settings had all been wiped out and were unrecoverable by reinstallation. I had to use Windows XP's System Restore feature to restore all the way back to my checkpoint on February 27th just to get XP running perfectly again. :(

[Ace McCloud]

wondering, how do you make checkpoints?

Luckily all the trojans I've found have been in volume information =)

[Figrin D'an]

As long as system restore is active on your machine (it is by default), it will make restore points regularly. You can make your own if you choose to be more exacting about it. Overduing it will take up a fair amount of HD space, though.

[Darth Viscera]

maybe christin should try last known good configuration

edit~no, that wouldn't work, cuz she reinstalled win 2k

[Mr Dust]

It didn't work anyway... Win2k only holds one backup, and that backup didn't do it.

[Morgan Evanar]

Flatten and reinstall, its only way to be sure.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

still backing up - up to 18 cd's and still not done

sooooo..... i dont foresee myself being online nightly for a week or so



edit ~ reformatted and so smoooooth