Help!

[Odd Job Man]

I seem to have given myself what looks like a massive problem and I would really appreciate some help from you people who know what they are doing.

I've connected my other home pc to broad band and booted it up without sorting anti virus software first (I know, I know). I've had a flood of warnings about virus infections and loads of download activity - mainly it seems from unsavoury sites. All of this was pretty much uncontrolled as I was unable to turn off the pc and one of the warnings was that Task Manager has been disabled. When I switch on now I get a totally blank screen.

If someone can help me regain control of the machine I will very grateful and my daughter whose pc it was that I screwed up may speak to me again. I'm using Windows 2000 XP Home incidentally.

 

[pc1962]

Oh dear you are in a pickle!

I would try to reboot and launch safe mode...[hit the key f8 on boot] enter safe mode and restore your pc to the time before you connected to warez and crack sites...lol...if you manage to restore ok before you do anything else rightclick my computer then properties then system restore ...and tick the box to turn off system restore...reboot.....run your favourite spyware prob and get the free anti virus solutions from the net or whatever your preffered bloatware is and run that too just to check all well, if the virus scanner finds something google it to find how to remove it.............if none of the above works...........im afriad youll have to bite the bullet and re-install windows.

Hope that helps...it worked for me....

 

[Igorian]

If the above works, which will depend upon the nature of the infection, make sure you run Windows update and download all the security patches. Don't forget to turn system restore back on after you have cleaned the machine.

 

[Odd Job Man]

Thank you pc 1962 and Igorian, however trying System Restore didn't work. Is there anything else I can try short of reinstalling windows? I know this may sound over-simple, but as the problem seems to be that the Task Manager has been disabled by the Administrator, can I re-enable it somehow?

 

[Igorian]

Have a look at the solutions in this link. It is aimed at XP, but should also apply to Win2K.

However, it really depends why the task manager has been disabled. If it wasn't deliberate, then something nasty has done it and in this case, there may be other hidden damage. Once you get a working system, backup any important stuff and then get some antivirus software. There are many freebies and Avast is one of the best.

 

[Odd Job Man]

Igorian - many thanks for your time in suggesting a remedy. Problem now sorted after re-loading Windows unfortunately. I may still have a problem with internet connection, but will open a new thread on this if I cannot fix it.