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Old Jan-02-2008   #1 (permalink)
njsam
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Strange XP behavior...

Hello everyone. I was attempting to install Mcafee Suite, and kept getting redirected to porn. They said on their page to do a stack dump and some other stuff, and it screwed things up. So I did a system restore, going back about 2 months. Now system restore, help, Media Player, and probably other stuff has disappeared. I still have the icons, but nothing works. I poked around a bit, and found alot of files with $ signs before and after the file name. I don't have an XP disk to reinstall. Thanks in advance for helping me out.
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Old Jan-03-2008   #2 (permalink)
Daniel
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Hi njasm, welcome to PCSF.

First thing I'm going to ask is, if you've downloaded McAffee Suite from the internet? If so, it could be that what you've downloaded, which most probably had a crack, it was a virus or sometype of other malware. If you just got it from a shop, this is not the problem.

Second thing. I'm going to refer to a very recent thread by Alan.

http://www.pcsupportforums.com/compu...-firewall.html

In the thread, Alan shared with us a detailed review comparing different firewalls. If you search for McAffee Suite you will find that it is rated as very poor. SO my suggestion would be to get rid of it and get something else. If you need help of what to get we will help you find something for you.

Next, in your original post, you said that it is directing you to porn. For sure, even if it's rated as Very Poor, a Security software such as McAffee is not going to direct you to porn. So the problem is eighter the one mentioned earlier or could be that you have malware (spyware, adware, virus) installed on your hard drive.

Do you have any anti-spyware, anti-virus or other firewall software other than McAffee? If so please state what you're using. First thing I would do is download these software (all free):

Lavasoft Ad-Aware free edition (anti-spyware)
Spybot Search & Destroy (anti-spyware)
AVG free edition (anti-virus)

... update them, and do a deep / full scan of the system. Remove any malware detected and get back to us with the results. I'd suggest you do a second scan as well just to make sure.

I will stop here for now, so you will not get confused Your problem is very popular so don't worry. My opinion is to backup your important data frequently just in case something happens.

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Old Jan-03-2008   #3 (permalink)
Alan
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The only thing I would add is that before you start your scans, turn off system restore and reboot into safe mode, then scan.

Help us to help you!
Be specific with your problem and tell us your machines specs.

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