ARRRRRGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!

My rule for her has always been - don't click ANYWHERE on a popup that comes up, or any banner ads, etc etc.

Deja vu. Seems like a pattern...

"win a free iPod" <click>

"hey, why am I getting errors and my computer is really slow..." <insert exasperated/bewildered look>

I can't blame her, it's her gene pool, her folks are dunces with this stuff too.


So previously....

I had used Ad Aware and Trend Micro Housecall previously to keep things in check. Showed her what she needed to do to keep things hunky dory. Switched to Mozilla also.

Now....

She is now getting Visual C++ runtime errors for the computer trying to launch a program "ctts.exe". It has not been identified by ad aware as an issue. I went to run the Trend Micro software and found it won't run. So I removed it and tried to reinstall, but it is giving me issues using the Mozilla browser, saying it can't find my Netscape plug-in directory. I tried pointing to the Netscape plug in dir (no go) and then the Mozilla plugin directory (also no go)

Does this thing not work with Mozilla? That's the assumption I made, so I tried reinstalling IE6. Every file I tried to use said SP1 was not installed. I know I installed it eons ago, so I'm now looking for a correct link. When I search MS's site, I come up with ie6setup.exe. I try to run this, and it says a newer version is installed. I try SP2 and it says I need SP1 first.

I really don't want to redo this whole thing. I need to make it idiot proof. My kids computer doesn't even have issues like this....

 

i'd suggest to follow my suggestions in the pc tips, going through the registry and msconfig... then do a search for ctts.exe and just delete it.. (did a search, not a critical file) if it won't delete, get into safemode and then scrap it.. i'd also suggest downloading the other spyware programs i recommended (cws shredder, spybot, hijackthis).

also, try running trend micro from their website. http://housecall.antivirus.com
good luck!

 

Yeah, follow those steps and you'll be good to go. Here's a site I use to translate my hijackthis log files: http://hijackthis.de/. That program should be used with extreme caution, because it can and will fubar Windows if you're not careful.