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General discussion

IE 6 No Longer Working After Spyware Removal

Nov 28, 2003 3:11AM PST

i just scanned and removed a ton of spyware using SpyBot Search & Destroy. the spyware included Cydoor, Save.Com, Gator, and a few others. After a reboot and a rescan, IE will no longer access the internet. When i open IE, I get the standard "Cannot Find Server/The Page Cannot Be Displayed". When I type in a web address (simple ones like www.hotmail.com or www.google.com, in the status bar, i can see it scan got www.hotmail.com, .edu, .net, etc....then it also does www.www.hotmail.com.com, .edu, net, etc...., which is wierd. Is there ANY way to reset IE to it's factory defaults or something? This is mom's computer. Even though SHE installed all the crap games with the spyware, i'll turn out to be the badguy if she can't get on her precious AOL (it's not working, either) and i'll have to send all her calls to the answering machine. Let's see: WinXP Home, Athlon 3000+, 1024GB DDR2700, 640GB HDDs.

Any help would be appreciated!!

Discussion is locked

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1. SFC /SCANNOW (have XP CD handy.) and 2. Install AOL again.
Nov 28, 2003 3:19AM PST

1. http://www.google.com/search?&q=XP+REPAIR+IE finds examples.

Those parasites can do a bit of damage. And can take a few tries to discover they the parasite did so you can undo or repair.

2. The parasite removal could have damaged AOL. You may try it's reinstall and then call AOL's support if it fails these two repair steps.

Bob

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Re:IE 6 No Longer Working After Spyware Removal
Nov 28, 2003 5:29AM PST

nine8102, Another possible solution would be to go to the link below, read the info along with the "lspfix.txt" at the bottom of the page, then download the "LSPFix.exe" onto a floppy disk using a computer that has Internet access. Transfer the floppy to the problem computer and run the LSPFix.exe. This may correct the problem.

http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm

HTH
Larry

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Re:IE 6 No Longer Working After Spyware Removal
Nov 28, 2003 5:53AM PST

If you can actually access the Internet please disregard my previous reply. I was under the impression that you couldn't access the Internet at all with your mom's computer.

Larry

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Re:Re:IE 6 No Longer Working After Spyware Removal
Nov 28, 2003 9:54AM PST

i should've mentioned in my first post that i was using another browser, Mozilla Firebird (awesome browzer. seriouly, check it out. no need to even install it, just unzip it and run it). The Firebird and the Netscape browsers were working fine, which led me to believe that whatever I did was a problem with MS products (isn't it always?).....anyway, after cussing a lot, i remembered System Restore. I asked mom if she'd installed anything today, she said no, and i just Restored it to this last Midnight. All is good and fine.

Thanks for Your Help.

Tony

(i think i'll still send her calls to the answering machine...it was peaceful!)

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System Restore doesn't recover all files...
Nov 29, 2003 6:36AM PST

like *.dat files and such. The internet connection may be fine but programs that depend on the spyware may not.

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Re:System Restore doesn't recover all files...
Nov 30, 2003 1:17PM PST

yeah, i know. to fix that, i told her that whatever she's recently installed that doesn't work any more, she can't have. Thanks