i spoke too soon

 

Holy jeebus!

I wanna see your vids

 

its about time they fixed the vista issue. I bet their software still sucks tho. I've seen the xonar and the prelude. the problem is I want 7.1 AND EAX 5.0 and creative was the only option since they own that monopoly. I bought the same card as you for 99.99 and burning another 150+ on a soundcard isnt gonna happen anytime soon. hell I had to burn 75 bucks on a new mouse I didn't want today either. these computers are too damn expensive

 

im happy with my XP with the vista inspirat visual pack. Turns everything to look like vista, with the exception of the start menu system they have in vista, and the 3d icons or w/e they are.

I dont like Macs, n they aint good for gamin either because not everybody releases games for mac.

I do like some of their stuff such as safari, itunes, and ipods though.

 

Just a couple of thoughts after reading this thread.. I had the same malware induced blue screen and here is what I have learned.

1. Spybot sux! forget it! it is outdated and useless.. Don't waste your time it will not fix any of the new spyware malware threats.

2. IF you wanna get effective anti-spy protection, you need a couple of different programs. First get Ad-Aware form Lavasoft. I think they still have the basic version for free. It will detect some threats that the other's will not. You need layered protection.. different worms/malware/spyware slip by the different scanning engines so also get Counterspy by Sunbelt Software... Counterspy will give you great protection once your system is clean. Counterspy gives some of the best real time protection and program control I have seen. It also has a different engine so it will pick up some stuff Ad-Aware will not.. use both!

3. The only program I have found that will completely cure the blue screen deal is Spyware Dr. It is a must have... It also has real-time protection. I use Counterspy and Spyware Dr. both for real-time protection. Overkill is never enough!

4. Anti-virus software is pretty easy to get a decent version of for free... AVG, AVAST, and Comodo are all free and all work pretty well... Some use more system resources than other's AVG and Avast seem to be the 2 best.

Finally, there seems to be some confusion over what is a virus.. what is spyware.. and what is malware... A virus spreads to other computers and will basically lock your system... thus the term "virus" ...it spreads.. The blue screen deal is not a virus it is malware. Adware is the least harmful thing.. it tracks you, sometimes tosses up a pop-up, slows down your system, but can be removed pretty easily with the above programs.. it just keeps coming back thru websites... Malware is very close to being a virus because it likes to attach itself to system files. It also spreads within your system ,but not to other systems.. that makes it different than a virus. The bad about malware is it will infect your registry as well as windows system files so it needs to be quarantined. If you delete these files it will harm your system, possibly rendering your computer a paper weight that needs a complete reformat. My blue screen malware infection took away my ability to change the background on my computer. I could not even get to that function in the control panel. As long as the background/screen saver function was missing off of my control panel/// appearance/themes menu, I knew that the malware was still crawling thru my system. The Ad-Aware program I spoke of earlier would remove it, but it would return.. I also ran boot scans with Avast anti-virus, and those would remove more.. But as soon as soon as the computer was up and connected to the internet, the Malware would re-appear and spread itself to other files in my system. Once I got Spyware Dr. it was cured.. No more malware and my screen saver/ background menu is back where it belongs.

Sorry for the looong post. Hope this helps

 

We have found a freebie that will get rid of this particular critter, along with a lot of other problems:

http://malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

Full version not required. This has to be the best general purpose malware remover out there right now.

 

just wanted you guys to know my computer is back up and running, i tried dells customer service which is a joke they wouldnt help me because im out of warranty even though all i wanted to know was which drivers out of the 80 they list i needed, so i figured it out on my own

 

Glad to hear it man...

 

I highly recommend Kaspersky internet security. I made the switch from Norton about 4 months ago and haven't regretted it. The one thing I absolutely hated about Norton was it would let something into my system and then it wouldn't remove it. It would detect it everytime I ran a scan but it wouldn't get rid of it. The best part was Norton wouldn't alert me to the fact something was trying to get in. I had to replace my hard drive because of a virus that Norton didn't stop.

Since I've been using Kaspersky, my new hard drive has stayed clean and it alerts me when something is trying to get in. It blocks access then it deletes the file before it can do damage.

 

People get very intimidated when it comes to viruses and fixing it themselves. That virus your talking about has been around for a few years, and I just removed it again from my brothers computer.

Yes, if you don't know what your doing you have the potential to render your computer useless. But if you take your time and read up on it (goto google and just type whatever you see that the virus is causing, something will come up) you'll be all set.

I don't run either anti-virus or anti-spyware. I have a pretty broad spectrum of computer viruses and can usually tell what/when there is on. If I do get infected (haven't in over 5 years), I know how to remove all of them.

 

Well if you aren't running security measures then how do you know you aren't infected? I have a simple keylogger that would record your every keystroke and send them to me and you'd never know. Doesn't affect performance whatsoever.
Honestly not running anti-virus or anti-spyware programs on a computer that gets used a lot for internet purposes and thinking you are safe is just ignorant.