Firewall installation issues

[jyms]

{I will move this to poker tools after it's solved}

I have had some issues with blue screens off and on for about a month or two. Finally last night I was running some updates and Comodo {firewall}had one too. After that I had some alerts pop up for threats found and avoided by AVG resident shield. I was trying to get rid of a start up reference {ICLaunch 000} that could not find the file to boot {it was a run once in the reg.} But nothing would get rid of this file or find Malware/virus issues

Long story short, I could not get my computer to boot and ended up with a reinstall of the Operating system. Now I have found I cannot get a firewall installed. Here is where I am at. I installed AVG free. Then Mozilla. Then I installed Windows defender and Snoopfree. no problems. I installed Comodo (no anti virus) and the computer reboots non stop, but no blue screen.

Safe mode helped me uninstall Comodo and I tried once more. Same shit. Then I installed everything else. Sound/ mouse/media player11 drivers all no problems. Rebooting fine. I then tried to install Online Armour instead. Exactly the same issue, rebooting non stop, just loops to windows logon and back to restart. Is this an AVG issue? Should I go with Avast or Comodo anti virus and firewall? Or is it a windows firewall problem? I never had defender on my old setup, I just added it after going through the primer in "tools".

Any experience?

[badandy519]

Never used Comodo... Maybe try Zone Alarm for your firewall?

[Jack Sawyer]

AVG is a POS

maybe try AntiVir instead?

[jyms]

Yea thanks guys. Andy, I was trying to stick to the recommended versions by Jack and Warpe in the "primer" they put together and although I have used zonealarm before it's never been recommended by many that know better so I avoided it.

Jack, I know that Avast and antivir are recommended as better I actually just used AVG again because of familiarity and before I knew of this issue or looking at your advice. Some of your links are not working either in the article although if you know how to look they are still available. I will start with uninstalling AVG then and then move on to Comodo or Online Armour. I have some updating to do.

[Ash256]

which Windows version do you have?

[jyms]

I was just looking at this. I have XP media center edition and cannot find anywhere if it's 64 bit or 32. I removed AVG and I had the comodo installed again and same issue with antivir. That's the 32 bit comodo which I never noticed I had. Gonna try the 64 bit version.

[Jack Sawyer]

I think its the XP. The Media Center Edition OS was never super ready for prime time.

You should try installing XP Pro and see if you still have issues. If you really truly require and need media center capabilites, try freeware http://xbmc.org/.

Also, I have been using Windows 7 RC1 for a long time now and never had any serious issues. You should try it as well, as its currently free until its expiry date (which is in over a year, which should be enough time for you to have saved the monies to buy the by then retail version). It has top notch media center capabiliteies integrated which sadly I have never used or cared about.

[jyms]

I don't need media center it's the OS that came with the new machine. I need a stable XP until such time as I feel confident in stripping Vista to the bones. I hate OS's with bells and whistles. Tell me mor eabout 7 RC1. Should I have a version of XP pro but it won't do a rescue and I have been trying to avoid a format to preserve my mistake of not having a partition to save my data. My HM backup alone is over 18gig

[Jack Sawyer]

Oh, I thought you formatted. This complicates things.
The only way you are gonna get your computer to work again properly is to format it.

That said, older copies of Norton Systemworks some of the time got me out of similar jams like this without having to reinstall. There was a utility called "Norton Windoctor" as part of the suite, it would delete erroneous entries in the registry etc.
http://www.symantec.com/norton/syste...-basic-edition
Its not 100% sure it can help your specific situation, but it has helped me in the past with similar situations with rampant blue-screens, etc on WinXP.


Needless to say, I do not know where at present you will get a free alternative to this that can help you in this specific situation.

You'd need to 7-zip or rar those 18GB backups into smaller 4.35GB chunks, and burn that shit then format and reinstall pristine OS. I recommend you try Win7 RC1, its good. Win7 RC1 is kinda like Vista, but made faster, more userfriendly and more polished.



If you keep putting it off, the inevitable task will only grow bigger.

[jyms]

No what I did was have it backup my full HD and do a delete/fresh install of my OS. I would love to just upgrade form here if possible. I know I am putting shit off but I really don't have time right now to be starting from scratch.

[jyms]

prolly hindsight 20/20 and all but is there a way to make a prtition and save this backup folder and reinstall the OS. I have an XP pro disk I just didn't want to format.

[Warpe]

Do me a favor and run chkdsk.

My Computer>rightclick C:>Properties>Tools>Error Checking>Check Now>click both checkboxes>Start (requires restart)

[jyms]

I am doing it. Its just taking forever. was stuck at 19% on stage 4 for a long time. On the laptop until this runs it course

[Ash256]

You could try disabling unnecessary services

http://forums.techarp.com/general-so...n-expunge.html

[Jack Sawyer]

More info on Win7 Jyms

http://gizmodo.com/5150298/windows-7...yline=true&s=x
http://gizmodo.com/5147665/

[oskar]

Software firewalls are close to useless against a serious attack. The best option is a router or an old pc dedicated as firewall with linux and iptables.
If that's not an option for the time being, just use the default windows firewall.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283673

The best thing you can do against malware in general is still not running as admin unless you need to. - I think it's called 'restricted user' or something - you can just set it back and forth in system - users. And set a password for the admin account at least.

Only download programs from download.com, sourceforge, freshmeat... sources you can trust.
bigboobsteenanaldildosexasianshemale.com is not a trustworthy source

Do the windows updates regularly. I know lots of people just disable them - set it to "notify, but don't download or install" - and install them asap after they're out. Same with software updates... update your programs regularly - especially those that are use a network connection.

Whoever said it: chkdsk is a good idea. Also inspecting your HD's health every now and then, especially if you're not using a raid 1, 5 or jbod array. - You'd be shocked how much data is lost on a regular basis. It's only thanks to the self-healing ability of drives that these things work at all.

[jyms]

Well ran Chkdsk and it took forever last night. Some of what you say oskar is cool . I am on a router, I have windows firewall and I have fully updated my windows since it's the first thing I do when installing my OP system anyway. What sucks with that is windows will only update on the schedule and you have to do it manually if there is a bunch which I have done.

system restore is off, I have Superantispyware and Malwarebytes now, as well as Snoopfree so I feel OK. I don't use Explore and poker sites is my main surf site. I only use Youporn and redtube for my pron needs so they don't seem to be an issue. Not sure what caused the last problem but it may have been a conflict since I cannot find much on ICLaunch 000 anyway. Just some questions about the file and most are non english sites. I will jsut get all my shit from teh backup folder and delete that. I have only 39 processes running as opposed to the old 69.

[Warpe]

jyms, go to control panel>administrative tools>event viewer>application and look under source for Winlogon with yesterday's date. That's the log file for chkdsk so if it fixed anything it should be recorded there. fyi.

[jyms]

Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.

244196000 KB total disk space.
66039868 KB in 137464 files.
48920 KB in 11832 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
231020 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
177876192 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
61049000 total allocation units on disk.
44469048 allocation units available on disk.

[Warpe]

Surprised it didn't find anything at all. My last one looks like this:

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Winlogon
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1001
Date: 4/8/2009
Time: 2:29:24 PM
User: N/A
Computer: (edited)
Description:
Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 59 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 59 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 59 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.

39070048 KB total disk space.
21855044 KB in 169326 files.
112260 KB in 20990 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
406544 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
16696200 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
9767512 total allocation units on disk.
4174050 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
70 f7 02 00 75 e7 02 00 86 c1 04 00 00 00 00 00 p...u...........
90 25 02 00 02 00 00 00 0c 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 .%..............
58 39 d1 06 00 00 00 00 50 9b b1 2a 01 00 00 00 X9......P..*....
b2 38 3d 41 00 00 00 00 4c f2 2f b5 04 00 00 00 .8=A....L./.....
82 6f 7a b0 01 00 00 00 1a 83 bb e0 07 00 00 00 .oz.............
99 9e 36 00 00 00 00 00 90 38 07 00 6e 95 02 00 ..6......8..n...
00 00 00 00 00 10 ed 35 05 00 00 00 fe 51 00 00 .......5.....Q..

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.


For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.