Hi melody!

When you decide to format the hard drive you do need the operating system disc. I am not sure what he did LOL. I got a good laugh about it though thinking about the blue screens on the TV

Here is a website with step by step instructions on what you need, and what to do to format the hard drive.

http://lifehacker.com/software/windo...tch-157578.php

I do this once a year even if my computer has no problems, a clean install just makes everything nice and new again. Then you can begin to clutter up the registries putting on and deleting programs all over again LOL.

Wow, I got the ANTI VIRUS 2009 on my laptop. It took over everything on my computer. I couldn't do any thing without it showing up. My son, who works on cumputers in his spare time, got rid of it for me. I don't know how he did it, but he didn't have to use my recovery disk.( Circuit City would have used my recovery disk to fix it, it was still under warrenty) It has been about 2 months now, and my computer is just like new. I haven't seen that nasty little critter again. I had Mcaffe security, and my son changed it to AVG. He says he gets a couple of calls a week about this problem. It is vivious!!

did your son reconfig the registry? I have used a few diff virus programs avg's is good and can be had for no cost, norton caused me headaches

This interests me. I did have the AVG free virus scanner but I found it was letting through viruses, and would not get rid of them when I scanned, even though AVG had identified them.

I was getting lots of Trojan Horses, like one every 2 or 3 weeks and the scanner wasn't even picking them up. My friends started telling me that my emails came with Trojans attached, and I was having to download other scanners to get rid of them, because AVG would not remove them on scanning.

I have now gone to McAfee and have had no viruses and no Trojans at all, yet this is the direct opposite of your own experience.

Also........I'm interested to know what virus scanner you're using Melody for this nasty to have got through onto your computer.

I really like adding the Threatfire program to run along with your other AV/antispyware.
it checks for system changes a different way than most anti virus pgms and stops it before damage is done.

It's FREE too!
more info here-
http://www.threatfire.com/

I've been using it for 5 months along with Zone Alarm security suite -
http://www.zonealarm.com/store/conte...rity_suite.jsp

I tried/tested the top 5 or 6 security suites trial programs last fall and this is the set up I liked best.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The Anti-spyware thing that the guy downloaded is called

Super Professional Anti Spyware.
He did all the work. I just sat back and watched while my computer downloaded this BIG program and it did it's thing.

He said that they allow the Verizon Internet Security Suite Users to use this. I don't remember the website. The next time I run a scan, I'll look for the website and let you know.

I can only hope that this thing is off of my computer for good.

Melody

P.S. I just googled Super Professional Anti Spyware, and it gave me a link. I went there and it says 'FORBIDDEN, error".

I think this is a particular website that the guy from Verizon, well, that he knew how to access.

But it got good reviews. Do a google and you'll see what I'm talking about.

One more question (please!!!)

Since Alan did his thing on the computer, Mozilla is no longer my default browser. When I cllick on a link in Outlook Express, it brings me to the web via Internet Explorer.

How do I go about making it do that via Mozilla?

There MUST be a way to do this right??

Thanks much.

Melody

To make Mozilla Firefox your default browser -
Go to start, then near the top of that first list there should be {it's always there on mine & my daughters - so I think it should be in the same place for most XP users}
Set Program Access and Defaults
click that
then click Custom and make your selections

you can always make changes there if you need to

I did exactly as you suggested.

I clicked on custom. I gather SOMETHING was supposed to appear on my screen??

Nothing appeared.

So I went on the Internet and did a search on How to Make a browser a default browser, and

VOILA.

You bring up Firefox, you go to tools, you go to General, you see where it prompts you "Do you want to check if Firefox is your default browser?"

I clicked on this, it asked me if I wanted to make Firefox my default browser, and I clicked on yes.

The rest is history.

Guess what?? I finally figured out how to do SOMETHING on this darn computer, ALL BY MYSELF.

Alan is NOT THE ONLY MCGUYVER in this house!!!

lol

LOL good for you, I was going to tell you that way at first but thought the other way would be easier.

hmm, mine drops down/expands a list when I click custom...