davey

Wow !!! Unless it is something that you have unknowingly done. I can understand the Work PC being some sort of administrative thing going on. But happening on your Home PC seems like something malicious going on. Keep us filled in. davey

So your CD drive just needed a "little" exercise ? If find that if I don't do the same mine acts and sounds a little strange at tomes. I know but some users just don't use their CD drives as often as others. Like me for instance. Good luck, Larry. Due to Dennis' detailed reply I am finally going to look into the exciting and mysterious areas as regards the Recovery Console. Wooo-oooo-ooo!!! davey

Hi Humpty, I am a member of Malwarebytes.org so I logged in and applied the fix from their site. I also tested what you uploaded for non-members of Malewarebytes.org at Rapid Share. Downloaded it and extracted and executed and it works as well as far as I could tell. My "SecurityProviders value" is no longer corrupted. So I could not actually apply the fix. davey

Hi Bravo, Excellent questions and ideas. Make sure that you review the links so that you get your cookies and Macromedia/Adobe "flash cookies" saved. It really doesn't hurt anything if you don't, you just have to re-enter some data when you log-in at some of those sites. It seems now that more sites are using "flash cookies" and less of the old un-encrypted cookies. Your Autocomplete Forms History is a security risk if you are not the only one using your PC but many people leave it uncleaned anyway. That is up to you to decide. NO DATA that is "cleaned" by CCleaner is backed up by CCleaner. The only things that are backed up are changes to the Registry in the Registry issues function . You must set the option to Show prompt to back up registry issues at Options > Advanced. You must also reply "Yes" to to the back up prompt. It is always best to let CCleaner create the back up file name. If you do change it just be sure that you put the extention .reg at the end of the name. If you are an average user I suggest leaving the Registry alone as far as Issues are concerned. IE browser defaults settings are currently set not to to do any deletion. Add-ons and other browsers must be reviewed individually. Any file "deleted Normally" is available to be used and overwritten by some other program immediately. Most of what is deleted normally is overwritten during the normal use of your computer. It is recoverable if not overwritten by CCleaner or some other program. Many users have "recovered" accidentally deleted files through the use of another Piriform program called Recuva. "Secure deletion" option in CCleaner precludes recovery as the files are immediately overwritten. davey

OMG, I have been corrupted. Off to reboot and see a priest or a shaman or such. Thanks for the heads up Humpty!!! davey

Hello bravo, Welcome to the forums. Boy, do we love our members that do their homework. Please accept my apologies for the circle that the Help page can put you in... . What you need is this helpful webpage. http://www.ccleanerbeginnersguide.com/ CCleaner Beginner's Guide.com Bookmark and save to Favorites See the section labeled Options. You want to read Options > Settings . Personally, I only use two of those Settings. Language which is important to some degree and secure deletion which I set to normal most of the time or 1 for one overwrite. (one well placed bullet to the head is usually more than sufficient for each byte overwritten.However if you like you can apply several so maybe a few of those bytes can never be resurrected.) Augeas has given you the meat and I'll throw in the potatoes and a little sauce. Enjoy and you are always welcome back for more ! Best wishes, davey

OK!!! I'll bite. What did you do ? When did you do it ? davey

Hi Eagle Creek. I understand your concern. I use both Windows Disk Defragmenter and also Defraggler. I believe in the benefits of prefetching and windows optimization. These do excellent work for MOST PC users without any need to be a "techie" or doing any program updating at all. You don't have to understand what should be put where and such as regards files and folders. However, there are certain users that can benefit by also using Defraggler. Defraggler, at least in my testing, does not destroy the positioning done by Windows if you will only use the the files defragmenting features and not the "Whole Disk" defraging features. Windows Disk Defragmenter does a good job for the average user.(Better than some people are led to believe.) Some third party products do worse than WDD. Some third party products do a little bit better to a lot better job depending on how you use them . Defraggler is a third-party product and used by many IT "professionals" due to it's speed with files. You can use these links to understand more about specialized disk defragmenter products. I found it very informative for those doing serious investigation. Benchmarks*: Windows XP Disk Defragmenter http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/2007/1...fragmenter.html Monday, November 19, 2007 Another Look at Defraggler http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/search/label/Thumbs%20Up Sunday, April 27, 2008 The Great Defrag Shootout http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/2007/0...ootout-all.html I consider myself a helper to the "newbie" PC user or the average PC user. This is a link to my latest comments on defragmentation for MOST users. http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?s=&amp...st&p=112671 Good luck in your investigations, davey

Hi Larry, I always learn something when I research your questions. Either from my own testing or in this case from the other members responses. No, I don't consider myself a Piriform guru, more of a PC newbie. I am glad you describe what happens at boot up for your machine because it sure is different from my Dell Dimension 2400. I am sure this is new to many other users and it sure increases our understanding of other manufacturers PCs. Like on my Dell, you probably have some function key to use at boot time to review all the various settings. It may be that when you created that boot CD you refer to that some of these settings have been changed by the related software. I would check my settings related to Boot Sequence and Fast Boot. BTW, my boot.ini time is the same as yours. I used Hazel's once a month reset the other day to eliminate a "power button" startup problem also. I don't find the practice "silly" at all. If it works, do it. Good luck, davey

Hi Keith, Are you saying that this occurred on both your home Win98SE system and your work WinXP system ? Or which system ? davey

Hi Paul, Maybe I can get some responders that use Firefox 3. It seems that there have been a number of strange things happening between CCleaner and Firefox 3. From your descriptions it sounds like Firefox may still be in the process of closing. I don't use Firefox but many other users remind us that sometimes people think it has closed down and it really hasn't. This could definitely cause conflicts between CCleaner, FF3 and the whole shutdown process. I am sure we will hear from other FF3 users. BTW, I want to thank you for being so thorough in your report and your own efforts in trying to resolve this problem. I think you have a combination of causes and eliminating them is going to benefit your daily work in the process. Good luck, davey P.S. Since you called it a thingy, I will provide the link. UPHClean should be installed by ALL WinXP users . This will clear up a lot of slow shut down problems. UPHClean http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en You probably needed it long before now. If you use ERUNT or NTREGOPT you will notice the change in how long it takes to copy your user hive decreases. I read your post so you get to read this blog. I am sure Sysinternals had a lot to do with it. This relates to one of those processes you reported in your post. http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/01/12/512232.aspx Ring any bells !!! You may have already read this thread but I want you to pay special attention to this post and what is said about Nero and other possible "indexers" not just Windows old search but the new one 4.0 and other products as well. Turning off one of these "indexers" may solve your intermittent problem also. The "indexers" are necessary for using the product but once they are finished then they should be turned off. http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?s=&amp...st&p=112754 If it persists I want you to recall what Products or Programs that you used that day or recently and write them down. This way you can track down a relationship to the symptom. From this link you can see that there are problems with FF3 as regards "private data". http://www.labnol.org/software/browsers/cl...ory-cache/2468/ I recommend that you turn off any such things in FF3 or IE7Pro for IE. I also recommend setting all Advanced settings in Internet Explore to "Restore Defaults". Leave the cleaning job to CCleaner or use the other but don't try to use both or problems will occur. I guarantee it. Me I trust only CCleaner. If you try a combination you find that things you thought were being erased are not.

Hello mrfoam, Looks like you have done your homework before coming here. Just some other things to look at or jog your memory. Any unusual Include entries in CCleaner? User and system environmental variables set OK ? Any reboot programs like PageDefrag set to always run at boot? Just some more thoughts that is all. Good luck, davey

Hi mmebill, Welcome to the forum !!! We love cake and cake makers. Yes, youhave an old version of Adobe . We will help you with that later. What you need is a good PDF Reader and many members on this forum use it. So you know it must be good. It is easy to install and small so it doesn't eat up your disk space either. Plus it is free ! It is called Foxit Reader 2.3 for Windows http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php Get it and install it and use it. It does everything that other Readers do. Go decorate that cake and come back and I will tell you how to use CCleaner also. That cake is waiting. Good luck, davey P.S. To save you time and headache just click on Download on the right hand side of the web page.

Hi Jack, Glad to see you are being helped on the Spyware Hell forum. Some people try to fix some of these problems themselves, never realizing that along the way other things have been damaged in their PC. Plus some of these malware programs are constantly being changed by the Criminals. Yes, you do exactly what they tell you to do on the Spyware Hell forum and don't do anything else until they advise that your PC is "clean". There is lots of "good stuff" here and good people also. You come back when you are finished getting your PC back in order!!! You can help yourself and all those you know after this experience. You can help in this battle against Criminals on the Internet by protecting those you know. Good luck, davey

Hi again hannubys, I am not sure if this information will help you or not but maybe it will give you some ideas. Running CCleaner over a domain to clean profiles, For Network Administrators and Domain controllers http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?s=&amp...ost&p=98819 Good luck, davey

I certainly do apologize for my misunderstanding of what you were doing at the time. I do remember you saying that you had just installed something and did not want to complicate matters by doing both at the same time. I think it was a virtual machine software. No wonder my download was so slow . All you guys were downloading the whole thing at one time. Wow !!! That also means I went out on the limb by my own little self. dramatically speaking of course. I am sure there were many others that did it the same way. The one thing I do know for sure is that later it was relatively faster to download. And I sat there, being none the wiser thinking if Hazel did it that way, that is how I am going to do it. I better get my CD ordered now in case I need it . Well it worked !!! Thanks Hazel, davey

Hi Danny, Welcome. We are glad to have you as a member. I am pretty much a "newbie" when comes to these configurations. Only thought that comes to mind is turn off all advanced tabs as they do a lot of resetting to defaults. The Custom Files and Folders you can leave on. Does anything possibly related to the Application software show on the Application tab maybe wireless or infra red related ? I am asking to stir your thoughts and maybe provide some more info for the next member that can help. Good luck, davey http://www.ccleanerbeginnersguide.com/ CCleaner Beginner's Guide.com Bookmark and save to Favorites Beginners advice Start here with this link and follow its advice. http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?s=&amp...st&p=105208 Also see this link about the Registry and newbies. http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?s=&amp...ost&p=96510 Come back and let us know how you did and what else we can help you with. There are lots of easy things to learn. One step at time.

Hi Delius, Welcome to the forums. You take care of your brothers feelings right now, OK. I am sure he feels awful. You came to the right place. Recuva will not put anything onto your other drive. Make sure of each Drive assignment. You just double check everything as you go along. Get your brother to assist. Two heads are better than one. At the top of this forum you will see special topics under the heading Important Topics on the left hand side. They start with this topic and include a Beginners Guide http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=14299 Best wishes to you and your brother, davey P.S. You can get advice to backup that data to disk, CD and DVD in the Software forum. Of course you want to "recover" from the old drive to another hard drive first. There are others on this forum that may want to give you some specific advice as to how to handle this situation. Please wait for the other members to respond. They understand how important this is to you and your family. Was the Drive in question originally the C drive or what? Can you also tell us a little more detail about the old hard drive, your system, your XP version, edition etc. Do you have other removable disks, flash drives , memory sticks etc? The more info the better.

So that is where you have been !!! Cold "Root Beer" most of the time. Drop by anytime !!! Coffee all the time. davey

Hi kiki, It is wonderful to hear such reports. Everybody that helps here and especially those that developed the program really deserve to hear this more often. Thank you for your report. davey P.S. If you want some good advice and free backup software then you just post a "new topic" in the Software forum. Celebration in California !!! and the U.K. !!!

Hi Jack, Welcome. Ouch!!! Bad stuff going around. Don't hookup your wifes PC in any way with yours. Go to this link and apply what you can. You may have to create some CD to get your PC back to the Internet. Then you can get the help you need. Don't try to fix it on your own. Please!!! and don't pay any ransom or it gets worse. http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=17457 You couldn't have picked a better place to come. Good luck, davey P.S. You did exactly the right thing. Believe me!!! You are in the state of shock for right now. It will abate but take your time. Remember, you are still in control of the situation. The guys in the Spyware Hell forum are experts in all these situations. Relax with your wife and have a few good laughs. It will help a lot. If you have pets, they sense your feelings better than you do. They might need a little extra attention and potty time or walk also. Take care of you and yours. You have been attacked. The PC is secondary.

I agree 100%. davey

Hello AgnosticJaz, Welcome to the forum. First thing to do is Reboot. You may be using some old modules instead of some new ones waiting to be loaded. Let me know, davey http://www.ccleanerbeginnersguide.com/ CCleaner Beginner's Guide.com Bookmark and save to Favorites Beginners advice Start here with this link and follow its advice. http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?s=&amp...st&p=105208 Also see this link about the Registry and newbies. http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?s=&amp...ost&p=96510 Come back and let us know how you did and what else we can help you with. There are lots of easy things to learn. One step at time.

Hi Kathy, I just copied and pasted exactly what Disk4mat put into that code box for you. It is only one line and is in the quote area of the Reply above this one. It will take you exactly to the Recent folder that you want. Click on the Views Icon(looks like a rectangle with colored spots) above the right hand pane and select Details. This will show you a list of each file and the date it was created. This list can get pretty long I would imagine. You may need to do this frequently but at least you get to control exactly which file is deleted by you. Warning: Never delete an index.dat file. Answer "No" if you ever get messages about deleting an index.dat file. The same goes for an desktop.ini file. FOR THAT MATTER, DON'T DELETE ANY FILE THAT YOU DON"T UNDERSTAND WHAT IT IS. Maybe later when you learn more. Best wishes, davey

Hi tsbeaty, Welcome to the forums. Sorry it is not on such a good occasion. I don't know how you got here but you are certainly in a good safe place. Corona gave you some good advice to handle normal software removal. Corina also advised you to wait for some more opinions also. This was excellent advice. DennisD a forum Moderator did some investigation and realized that it is possibly a bad situation that you are in. This is apparently no run of the mill software removal process. This software may be designed to stay in your system for quite awhile without you knowing what it is actually doing. You need professional, expert help that we can't offer in this Software forum. THIS IS SERIOUS as it involves your PC, financial, and personal security. Since these criminals are constantly changing their software, you must get this expert help. Apparently this SpyBuddy is just what it is named. It is used by "spies"(aka Criminals) to look at everything going on with your PC. Newer spyware makes itself out to be best Spyware Killers on Earth. They try to imitate the real good programs that are recommended from places like this. You tell everyone that you know to come here or places we recommend to find out what is good or bad. The link I give you will advise some good software and good places to read about Security and good security software. Your best bet would be to use our Spyware Hell Forum to get rid of this and make sure your PC is "clean". Go to this link and follow its instructions. Or you may be infected for a long time and not even know it. http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=17457 Good luck, davey Be sure to thank whoever sent you here. Be sure to warn everyone you know "Do not download" from anywhere nowadays without getting good advice first. These criminal organizations are even taking known valid "anti-criminal companies" to court.