One other recommendation: if your router has a firewall, turn it on and turn off the Windows firewall. It is much better in my estimation to have the protection at the first line of defense, and it places less of a burden on your PC.
A side note: if you replace all those anti-malware programs with Vipre, you'll probably notice the system is much more responsive, because you will have removed all those programs from memory, freeing up the footprint they put there, and replaced them with just one which is much smaller than most AV programs alone. As near as I can tell, Vipre on my Vista Ultimate system is taking up around 13 mb of RAM with active protection enabled. A typical AV program just by itself can easily take up 3-5 times as much or more. Emmitt Dove Manager, Converting Applications Development Evergreen Packaging, Inc. [email protected] (203) 214-5683 m (203) 643-8022 o (203) 643-8086 f [email protected] From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of cfgrimes Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 6:58 AM To: RBASE-L Mailing List Subject: [RBASE-L] - Re: Security Programs Though I have not had the problem below (at least not to my knowledge), I would love to get all your advice on the best protection programs for anti-virus, anti-spyware/malware, firewall, etc. so I have the best chance of avoiding future problems. I am a single user and am hoping there are some good free (or not too expensive annual fee) programs that will protect me. I have Windows XP Professional on new computer purchased a few months ago. At that time, my Windows/drivers were updated by paid tech guy. But I am not getting any additional Windows updates as every single time I have done this in the past, it has completely wrecked my computer (and several other friends have had same experience - HATE Microsoft weaknesses). Anyway, I am currently using only Windows firewall (have router), which I don't really know how to configure. Used to have Norton - HATE Norton as caused more hassle/problems than helped, so didn't reinstall in new computer. I also have Avast! Anti-virus, Spybot, Spywareblaster, and Malwarebyte's anti-malware (all free programs - but, again, I really don't know enough to use them other than with their defaults). I also use Tune-Up Utilities and Ultimate Troubleshooter to clean up and check what is running. I have Privacy Control, but newest version of that continually removes all my passwords from email, and they don't know how to fix that, so will probably remove as I don't remember my passwords and have to use Restore to get them back (as I did with another of their programs, DriverControl, which totally messed up my printer drivers and couldn't fix after tons of emails to them and 8+ hours on phone/email with Hewlett Packard - Restore didn't help there). Will the programs I'm using keep me safe enough? Are there others any of you would recommend? Hope this is an ok question to ask this group. Cathy Grimes Huntington Beach, Calif ----- Original Message ----- From: Emmitt Dove <mailto:[email protected]> To: RBASE-L Mailing List <mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 5:04 PM Subject: [RBASE-L] - RE: OT - no DOS box - FIXED Your anti-malware program let something through. You need better protection. Emmitt Dove Manager, Converting Applications Development Evergreen Packaging, Inc. [email protected] (203) 214-5683 m (203) 643-8022 o (203) 643-8086 f [email protected] From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 7:12 PM To: RBASE-L Mailing List Subject: [RBASE-L] - OT - no DOS box - FIXED Must have been something running rampant today. Per John's advice, I did a search on ComboFix, was sent to BleepingComputer.com (my sentiments exactly). In their virus forum, found half a dozen posts from today from people describing the same problem I had. No DOS box, no regedit, cannot edit batch files ... I downloaded ComboFix, ran it, and IT'S FIXED! Got a DOS box, got Regedit ... It printed out a big old log .txt file, but I can't make anything out that tells me what it did. THANK YOU JOHN! Now if I can only figure out how I got it so I don't do it again ... Karen
