CD-RW writer & I.E.
hey, i havent posted in a while but im back because this is starting to get to me. I just recently(3 days ago) installed windows 2000 as a clean install and really i im glad i dont have ME anymore(i needed to format it close to every 3 months to keep it running smooth).
My first issue: It came when i installed 'Sony CD Extreme' so i could burn CDs. After i installed the program, windows dosent want to reconize the Cd drive(CRX140E). It says in the device manager that my registry might be corrupted. I have unistalled it and then reinstalled the driver that come with windows but it dosent help. Should i just look for drives on the net?
My Second issue: When i go on the internet it loads the homepage as 'http://smartsearch.ws'. So i changed it to want i want, but i go to another page it reverts back to 'http://smart...". When i type in a address like 'google.com' it looks for 'http://smartsearch.ws/?q=google.com' and gives me back something like 'http://smartsearch.ws/Online+Degree.html'. I dont want this. what happend to just giving me google? I tought it was spyware so i ran spybot. What happend? It loads but after a second it just closes for no reason(which wheni first installed it, it ran fine). This also happens with 'HijackThis'. I did get a screenshot of before it close and the first 15 or so entries are that smartsearch thing. I havent been able to load my antivirus(cd drive dosent want to work--remember?above?--) so ive been running without it. i included the screenie to show you, you think it would be safe for me to delete this entires? Could this be a virus/trojan or some spy/ad ware?
note- i do have adaware on my computer but i havent installed them yet because the installer program just closes by it self too. I also have TDS3 and it looks like that dosent close by itself, but is that a good program for detecting trojans?
*** another thing i just noticed. i now have ALOT of favorities i never made. And when i try to delete them, they are gone for a second but they pop back up agian.ugh, this is getter worse ****
Any help would be appriciated!
My first issue: It came when i installed 'Sony CD Extreme' so i could burn CDs. After i installed the program, windows dosent want to reconize the Cd drive(CRX140E). It says in the device manager that my registry might be corrupted. I have unistalled it and then reinstalled the driver that come with windows but it dosent help. Should i just look for drives on the net?
My Second issue: When i go on the internet it loads the homepage as 'http://smartsearch.ws'. So i changed it to want i want, but i go to another page it reverts back to 'http://smart...". When i type in a address like 'google.com' it looks for 'http://smartsearch.ws/?q=google.com' and gives me back something like 'http://smartsearch.ws/Online+Degree.html'. I dont want this. what happend to just giving me google? I tought it was spyware so i ran spybot. What happend? It loads but after a second it just closes for no reason(which wheni first installed it, it ran fine). This also happens with 'HijackThis'. I did get a screenshot of before it close and the first 15 or so entries are that smartsearch thing. I havent been able to load my antivirus(cd drive dosent want to work--remember?above?--) so ive been running without it. i included the screenie to show you, you think it would be safe for me to delete this entires? Could this be a virus/trojan or some spy/ad ware?
note- i do have adaware on my computer but i havent installed them yet because the installer program just closes by it self too. I also have TDS3 and it looks like that dosent close by itself, but is that a good program for detecting trojans?
*** another thing i just noticed. i now have ALOT of favorities i never made. And when i try to delete them, they are gone for a second but they pop back up agian.ugh, this is getter worse ****
Any help would be appriciated!
0
Comments
Those should remove any active spyware, and what they don't remove, you can remove manually from Spybots other controls (Its under "Tools" >> "Browser Pages").
CD-Rom drives shouldn't actually need drivers though, but yeah, always look for the latest version on the net, to see if that helps.
Start|Run|regedt32|enter key
and delete everything in the registry that has the string 'smartsearch.ws' in a value or a direct key. The 02 entry is a malware entry also.
Basicly, what those leys have done is this:
The Default_Page_URL tells IE to make the smartsearch.ws unofficial domain (.ws is not an ICANN domain) the home page for IE. Thus, when you run IE it goes to the coolwebsearch site and the coolwebsearch site then resets all the other settings. The Default_Search_URL sets the default search engine to the coolwebsearch site and that site then resets things if the Default_Page_URL key is "killed" but the Default_Search_URL key is not "killed."
This is basicly not a trojan per se, AFAIK, but is something that I WOULD get rid of as a priority thing.
If not used to a registry editor you can choose to backup the registry first (and I would, and tell it exactly where on HD to back up adn it will make a file of type .reg you can use to restore if you FUBAR things), but you need to pull the entires like the 02 that refer to 'smartsearch.ws' in values also, but in this case get rid of the keys themselves. Note that the single quotes contain what you type in in the find dialog, so you do not type the ' marks, just what is between them. What you do is this:
Open registry editor with commands as above.
Go to Edit|Find and type in your search string (smartsearch.ws)
Tell it find (button click)
Delete the key containing that value, except for the Default_Page_URL and Default_Search_URL keys-- those get the value "_blank" for now. The other keys just get DELETED with the delete key.
When done with first key delete, hit F3 key, let it hunt, then delete if not one of the ones as in above paragraph. Delete with exceptions as in paragraph above this one, hitting F3 after each delete, until you get to a point where it says it is done hunting through registry.
When done with registry cleaning of 'smartsearch.ws' I would run IE . It will open with a blank page. That is what you told it to do with _blank. Go into the Internet Options, and set the home page if you know the URL, and that will make you a new Default_Page_URL key when you exit IE. Restart it and see that your home page works and comes up. You can then open the Search sidebar and choose a default search engine, like Google.com.
Why did I not tell you to directly edit the two keys I told you to make _blank??? Typos in URL can keep IE from opening.... Yes, the underline before blank is deliberate and needed.
You might want to print this....
John.
oh,Ageek,i did try deleting every key in regedit but they would just come back agian.
Anyways thanks for all the help!!!!!!!!
As for the the cd drive, i guess there was an issue with my cdrw because i just d/l a patch that was to un-dissapear the cdrw drive in Win2K, and it worked. Strange problem? Sure, but oh well, its fixed.
Wait.. so it was related to Java? Or was it cookie-based? Are you still having problems?
You may want to get Pest-Patrol monitoring your cookies and memory as your antivirus prog (if it exists) seems to do jack-all. In the past, I've used spywareblaster, cwsshredder, trojanscanner, hijackthis, and last but not least, pestpatrol. You'll be happy to find that these are a set of small+efficient progs that get the job done. In the future, you may also want to compress+save some of the apps to floppy/cd media for easier access.