mmmmkay....i aparentley got a virus wich my friend told me was "SASSER"....i have no idia how it got in because i run 2 AVs and do a compleat scan just about every day.....i think the vrrus was responsible for explorer.exe using 100% of the cpu time somtimes, files refusing to be deleted or moved or renamed, a box forcing me to shut down called "NT authorety system" , loss of menues, and the freezing of IE when i tride to go to MS updates to try to get a tool to remove the virrus...amung other things....none of the AVs found anything...i think sasser disabled them somehow ....its still a mystery how it got in in the first place.

anyway 1 reformat later....i was told that SP2 and all the MS updates would prevent this from happening agen...so SP2 is installed and now when i have panda firewall on ,i cant do anything with the internet, no p2p,no chat,no email, no surfing....

but it works fine when i have the firewall off...

WTF is going on now?

check your hosts file. im not sure what it is on windows xp, but on windows 2000 its c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts


most spyware/viruses modify the hosts file to prevent you to use windows update, virus updates, etc. this would be a place to look.


also, run a scan on http://housecall.trendmicro.com and maybe that'll catch the virus because many viruses are becoming smarter. they disable firewalls and anti-virus scanners.

well i reformatted this morning so it should be clean now... and every time iv tride housecall it quits and gives me a "page cannot be displayed" like 3/4 the way thru the scan...

i reformatted like 3 weeks ago too so i dont know how a virrus got in that fast...i allways scanned anything i ever DLed...and scanned everything like every day...

i was thinking about installing linux but i was told that linux and mac are just as bad...

linux is ok, however it's not easy to use as a windows desktop yet. i got windows boxes and linux boxes, i prefer windows to a desktop and linux for my servers.


i was infected with the suckit linux rootkit. loaded a bare copy of linux on floppy disk on this 133mhz 16mb linux laptop. i loaded some vulnerable software. the suckit rootkit ran a secret ssh server on port 1984, which had root access. they modified the ps command to hide the secret server.


is your windows up to date?

Hi CRT

as banmicrosofttoo said make sure your windows is up to date.

Once you sure it is updated completely, check to make sure TCP/IP is configured correctly.

After the most recent windows updates a week or 2 ago. It seems they managed to bugger up my TCP/IP settings, which I had to reconfigure.

Also check your dns cache settings they messed those up also.

Leave it to M$ to mess things up.

Also remember sp2 has a firewall, and it isn't good to run 2 firewalls at the same time, as they tend to conflict with each other.

You can find instructions on how these are supposed to be setup and configured in your windowsXP by going to start>help and support.

yes it should be up to date...i installed all the MS updates...

this is the first time iv ever reely kept my pc up to date... up untill last night i just had xp pro sp1 and no updates.

yeah like previously mentioned, wasnt Windows Firewall turned on by default in SP2?


their idea of an update is changing your settings without your knowledge, but its a good idea for the average home user who just surfs, IMs and e-mails.


i used to remember getting winnuke'd by this kid who would winnuke the whole dialup ip range the ISP had. his box was patched and so was mine, so nukenabber started to go off. the good ol dialup days back in ~97-98. last night i was messing with my friends old laptop because the good one was in the shop. it had win98 on it, somehow i got a blue screen of death and i started to laugh my *** off about it.

Well Guys

I have WinXP (Home) SP1 with all the updates, I found that when I did my latest round of updates (last Saturday 19th August) I ended up loosing all sound (video and audio) from my PC plus my ability to send faxes. MS security updates had also made it almost impossible to surf the internet while my firewall was on.

The MS updates had switched off my audio facility by replacing the sound card driver and disabled my modem by causing it to report that it was another brand of modem.

Some of these updates cause more problem than they solve, I have managed to get my PC sound and faxing facility back without losing the security updates. However, I am sick of these updates and the unpredictable things they do, plus my PC is now the way I want it so no more updates for me.




UK Bob

microsoft did distribute corrupt hotfixes the last time they were released.

ok i think im just gunna sh!t-can sp2 ....its more troble than its worth....heres my plan:

reformat AGAIN ...

install my xp pro sp1

install AVG pro 7

install nod32 2.50.25

install sygate firewall 5.5 pro

install ad aware pro and all the important updates for sp1.


is this a good idia and will i be safe from virruses for good?!?