PC support

[vaaaska]

Just love these machines...not...

A friend of mine just installed Norton Antivirus and now after she boots nothing works. Can't click on anything...

It's been so long since I've tried to fix one of these machines...does anybody know of a good place on the web that has lots of good notes about different startup/boot options and the like? I come across some things that are so cavernous and...I'm sure you get the idea...

I think we need to try to do a selective boot and then uninstall...but we'll have to TRY to set this up from dos if it's possible. Ai caramba...

BTW, the Norton site has horrible support...they don't even have a forum...

Thanks...v

[LordShryku]

Well, you should tell us what OS it is.....

If I remember, F8 brought up options to go to Safe Mode in earlier versions of Windows. Don't know if that's the same with XP and the like.

[pohopo]

It is F8. Just keep pressing it while it boots and it will eventually bring up a screen so you can boot in safemode. Then try to uninstall Norton. I am not sure if msconfig works in safe mode. If it does use that and disable all startup programs.

[vaaaska]

Originally posted by pohopo
It is F8. Just keep pressing it while it boots and it will eventually bring up a screen so you can boot in safemode. Then try to uninstall Norton. I am not sure if msconfig works in safe mode. If it does use that and disable all startup programs.

Woops...it's XP.

Yeah, you can't uninstall Norton in safe mode. I think we need to trash everything...argh...

[Sxooter]

I'm having a flashback to when I was a Windows tech support guy. Nowadays, when someone asks me about a windows problem I just kinda get a glassy eyed thousand yards stare in my eyes.

[dalecosp]

Originally posted by pohopo
It is F8. Just keep pressing it while it boots and it will eventually bring up a screen so you can boot in safemode. Then try to uninstall Norton. I am not sure if msconfig works in safe mode. If it does use that and disable all startup programs. It does, I'm quite sure. If it doesn't, regedit works --- most of that stuff would be under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\run, I think (I'm on my NIX box, but it hasn't been too long :rolleyes: ) There are also occasionally entries in "RunOnce", and "Services", and it's possible that a path containing "WindowsNT" (where the path I typed above says "Windows") could also have a key structure similar to this one.

But I amd quite sure "msconfig" works in safe mode.

Disabling all startup stuff should help a bit. M$ calls it a "clean boot", IIRC, and the procedure is known as "clean boot troubleshooting". Frankly, a "clean boot" from my point of view involves your computer and steel-toed footwear, but I digress.

originally posted by Sxooter
I'm having a flashback to when I was a Windows tech support guy. Nowadays, when someone asks me about a windows problem I just kinda get a glassy eyed thousand yards stare in my eyes.Heh, I wondered why people started looking strangely at my face after the part where they say, "have you ever heard about anything like that before?"

[dalecosp]

Also, it might pay to spend a little time trying to figure out if the system is "clean" anyway ... most Windows systems we see these days aren't. Norton is a very well known program, so it's targeted heavily by malware creators. If the machine is infected with a "norton killer", that could be part of the original problem (there's obviously something quite wrong with the software).

Of course, you can't depend on Norton to do it. Some of my favorite resources:

Spybot Search and Destroy (http://security.kolla.de/)
Trend Micro's Housecall (http://housecall.trendmicro.com/)
Avast! (http://www.avast.com/)

You can run Spybot and Avast! in safe mode, and if you can get "safe mode w/networking" you can update them --- updated versions will catch most of the stuff out there. It's possible, though, that whatever bug(s) it has will cause some problems for Spybot and/or Avast as well.

You also may have to face the possibility that if the machine has been compromised to the extent that some infection can kill Norton (and Explorer, I gather), that explorer may have been compromised severely anyway, and the only way the box will ever be really safe is "flattening" (or replacing...)