Trouble

[mjwebb007 0]

A friend of mine somehow completely screwed up his computer by visiting "inappropriate" sites. It is now a spyware/malware quagmire. His wife who is fairly computer competent tried to reformat the hard drive and all she succeeded in doing was removing explorer.exe from where it is supposed to be (or this may be a result of something they have been infected with). I have a few problems now. I have removed some of the spyware and such with Spybot. I can't even get a web browser open to download Ad-aware. Unfortunately, the most stubborn spyware on there opens up its own website and shuts down IE when you try to navigate away from it. I found out also they are only on SP1a of WinXP. I made a disk at home of software to help i.e. Ad-aware, Hijack This, etc. and a copy of Firefox to get around the IE issues. My real two questions are is there a way to retrieve the CD key from their installation of Windows legally? Reason being that their father built his for them and they have the original disc (Verified to be a true copy) but they don't have the COE so I can't do a clean install. Second, to prevent a format and to make the system more stable, what do I have to do to get explorer.exe back to where it was? Right now it says it can't find explorer.exe in the A: drive. Please insert the correct disk. Obviously windows is searching for explorer.exe there but I know that isn't right. And Windows comes up but acts ridiculous so explorer must be where it can find it but is corrupt (maybe)? Thanks for any help.

[Cormac 0]

MJ, try this for the serial key. http://www.majorgeeks.com/Keyfinder_Thing_Lite_d5253.html

After that I would due a complete reformat and then use some kind of HOSTS program to keep your buddy from the bad places. I use this for my HOSTS blocking. http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

 

Good Luck

[mjwebb007 0]

Thanks Cormac. I will try this and update with results.

[mjwebb007 0]

Thanks Cormac. I got the key and did an install but had a complication. Windows is installed and spyware free. BUT when you start the computer, it gives you a menu for Windows XP Home Edition or Windows XP Home Edition setup (which then leads you to installing Windows again). I am pretty sure I need to adjust boot.ini or something but I don't want to mess with that and mess something up? Any ideas?

[Cormac 0]

Sorry MJ, I know nothing about that stuff. I would ask Sampson or Wilhelmus, they seem really knowledgeable about that kind of stuff.

[Wilhelmus 1]

Can you post the contents of your boot.ini?

 

Usually you only need to delete the line, which have the 'Windows XP Home Edition setup' on it.

 

Or you can try to use the msconfig to clean the boot.ini.

 

Start->Run: msconfig

select the BOOT.INI tab,

click on Check All Boot Paths button.

 

[mjwebb007 0]

Thanks. I will post contents if I need to. I looked up editing the boot.ini file and I am pretty sure deleting that one line like you said will do it. I thought about the msconfig route too so if neither of those work, I will post again. Thanks for the help.

[mjwebb007 0]

It worked! Just used msconfig and Checked All Boot Paths and asked me if it wanted to remove the invalid entry. Sometimes Windows IS easy.....