Lost Video Island

[Aislynn]

I'm having a stupid computer problem that I just cannot seem to solve, so I thought I'd present it to you, my nice, lovely, more technically savvy LVI pals here, and cross my fingers that somebody might know what I can do before I get cut completely off.

Here's the deal: Last year I got hit with spyware. Major big time. As in over 3,000 pieces of spyware clogging up my poor computer. Eek! I'll spare you the details, but I loaded my computer for bear as much as I could with a firewall, anti-virus and a couple of spyware-killing programs (but not the SP2, it didn't play well with others ) and a mere 3 months later, all the mess was cleaned up.

But it had a price. One of these programs began tightening the noose on what I could do on the Internet. First, I couldn't log onto secure sites. Then I couldn't log on to check my email. Then I couldn't log in to anything. I became a desperate, Internet research bunny. I scoured the sites of each of my security programs. Basically, nobody had ever heard of such. Nobody I asked personally had ever heard of it either. The only advice I could find was to set my browser to accept cookies from those sites (which I tried doing and it always insisted that the address wasn't valid), to put those sites into my firewall's trusted zone (again, it said there was no such site), and to clear my cookies and temporary Internet files (didn't help).

Then, one day, everything went back to normal. I was surprised but hey, I'd take it. But it bugged me that I didn't know which one was the culprit or how it got fixed.

Time passed, everything was hunky-dory. Then, about a week and a half ago, I lost the ability to log off of Lost-Media. Weird, but I could live with it. Then last week I lost the ability to log onto L-M. Now I can no longer download files from Rapid-share because it always tells me that I'm over my allotted downloading time or some such.

The noose is closing in on me again, or so I'm afraid. I wanted to post this tonight before I lose the ability to log on here. I gotta be honest with y'all, I'm frustrated and a tiny bit scared. I soooo don't want to go through another 3 months of H-E-Double Hockey Sticks again!

Just so you know, I've tried all the advice that I was given the last time, with the same results. I don't like being ousted off of L-M but I can live with it as long as it doesn't start spreading to every site like it did last time. The thing with Rapid-share is much more annoying because it makes it impossible for me to see some of the vids that are out there, but again, I can live with it as long as it doesn't take away downloading from YSI or people's personal websites. (Although, it's worth noting that about 95 % of the downloads I try from YSI now fail at about the 60 % point, but this could just be a dial-up problem, though it's never been this bad until all this other stuff started happening again. I'm going into serious vid-withdrawl here!!! )

Sooo, anybody have any words of wisdom? Feedback is much appreciated! (Also appreciated is sympathy, pats on the head, and general well-wishes. But hey, I'm not greedy or anything... ).

Other than that, I'm fine. How are y'all?

~Aislynn
The Official Desperate, Internet Research Bunny

PS - Yes, I do apparently go from one stupid computer/Internet problem to another, in case you were wondering...

So if I suddenly disappear from LVI, now you'll know why. Maybe you won't care but at least you'll know... If nothing else, maybe the problem will just "magically" fix itself again, whenever it feels like it.

Oy.

[Hobbes]

Okay, this is just gettign silly. I am now going to make it my official holy quest to get you Service Pack 2. The lack of is source of ALL of your problems with that crappy computer of yours
Now, regail me with the story of EXACTLY what happened that prevented you from being able to instal SP2, and we will walk through every possible program or computer glitch or lack of proper hardware that could possibly be the cause of it.

[Aislynn]

Aww, Hobbesie, you're my bud. I can always count on you to jump right in and try to help me out of whatever weird computer mess I've gotten into!

And now, for the Scintillating Story of Auntie Aislynn and the SP2...

Once upon a time in Never-Before-Been-On-The-Internetland, there lived a nice, young (-er than Josh Holloway by many, many years ) lady named Aislynn whose computer came down with a nasty case of Spywared-Out-Of-Its-Gourd-itis. In desperation she sought help from the High and Mighty Help Board of her anti-virus (first name Nor, last name Ton... ) which scared her senseless by its giganormous amount of incompatibility problems with the SP2.

High and Mighty Help Board: "...so if you don't have the SP2, then Holy Moly, DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT PUTTING IT ON!!! We're serious! Back away from SP2 installation disc, back away from the disc..."

Voices in background belonging to well-meaning friends: "We agree! We tried the SP2 and it really messed up our computers! We had to wipe the hard drive and completely reinstall Windows! It was horrible! Don't do it! Don't do it!"

Nice Young Lady Named Aislynn: "So what you're saying is basically--"

Everyone: "Install the SP2 and you'll be SORRY!!!"

Nice Young Aislynn: "Eek!" *hikes up skirt and runs away in her sensible high-tops from the SP2 disc, never looking back*

THE END



In other words, I've never actually tried to install the SP2. I ordered the disc and actually have it sitting right here on my desk, but was too freaked out by all the warnings of Death, Dishonor and Dismemberment to put it on the computer.

Here are my on-going concerns about it:

1) If it causes problems or has incompatibility issues with the High and Mighty Mr. Nor Ton or anybody else, then what do I do? Can you somehow remove the SP2 or do you have to do the dreaded *shudder* "Wiping of the hard drive and reinstalling Windows"? 'Cause that sounds icky, I gotta tell ya...

2) Microsoft *waves to mighty computer overlords* did a scan of my computer last year and at that time estimated that it would take me a month of straight downloading on dial-up to catch up on all the updates I need. Need I even say that that's not real feasible. Can I turn off the automatic update feature in the SP2? Or, could I set it where it would give me control over when it updates and try to start whittling away at the huge mountain bit by bit over months, taking them on at a time?

Hope that all of LVI doesn't mind that I'm airing this all in public as opposed to forcing poor Hobbes to have to get one pitiful PM after another from me (more than he has been, I should say. Just ask him about Angsty Jack. He knows about as much about my vid as I do, poor guy... *pats Hobbes on head* ) 'Cause I figure that there might be some pitiful soul out there who might be stumbling around with a similar problem, desperately hoping they'll find somebody else talking about it. Believe me, I've been said Pitiful Soul and know how rotten it is! Especially when you can't log on anywhere and just ask these questions yourself!

So, hope I'm not boring anybody. I did try to make it a slightly interesting story, as much as I could, anyway...

~Aislynn
Still THE Official Desperate , Internet Research Bunny... 'cause I just like the way it sounds...

[Hobbes]

Okay, I'm gonna start out this research now.... but I think I found one thing that could be the problem:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/sp2aumng.mspx
is that about the time your computer started screwing up again...? if so, then I think... SP2 may already....be..... HERE!!!! run for your lives!!!!!!!!
Though that's probably not the case... or else you would SURELY notice WMM becoming WMM2 but it could be part of the reason...
I'm talking here with Lostzilla, and he says he had the exact same problem, but he fixed it by installing SP2, then he just formatted his hard drive and installed a free antivirus/firewall program called Zonealarm, and he was fine.. hmmm...
I'll keep looking before you take the final plunge and install that thing, but in the meantime, I'm gonna try and be Enchirito-like here, and ask the necessary info that I can remember...
-What's your computer brand and about how long ago did you get it?
-new when you got it?
-Uh.... what main antivirus/firewall programs do you have right now?
-any other programs I should know about?
-what is your webbrowser? firefox?

[lostcalier]

I don't know much about any of this but if you don't have zonealarm go get the free firewall right now. It's an amazing firewall. It can be a bit annoying at first but it's a life saver.

www.zonealarm.com

I started to get hit by a bad spyware pop-up one night and I quickly clicked on ZoneAlarm and shut off my internet before any samage was done. Then I was able to run all of my apy ware programs and virus programs and had my computer cleared off in a matter of an hour. It's definitely a program to get if you spend a lot of time online.
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LVI Revolutionizing Fan Video Making!
www.lostvideo.net

[Hobbes]

Yeah, Zonealarm is pretty good if oyu don't have a router. If you are hooked up to more another computer or something, Aislynn, then Zonealarm isn't really needed as much. There are built-in firewalls in routers.
But, I suspect you don't have a router, so nevermind lol

[lostcalier]

[Aislynn]

*waves to lostzilla, sends sympathy for having computer problems even remotely like mine *

Thank you muchly for the link, Hobbes! Lol, yes, I think I would've noticed WMM2 appearing... Pretty sure that it couldn't be the case for me since I've never taken any of the updates...ever.

Sending you my vital computer info via PM since I'm shy about giving real details out in the open here.

And aren't you a sweetie for researching this for me? *sends imaginary box of cookies in an electronic care package*

And thank you for jumping in too, lostcalier! It makes me feel so much better just to know that people care! *blushing*

~Aislynn

And I've been wondering what a router does! No, I don't have one, as you rightly guessed. But a friend told me to get one if I ever get to go high-speed and I couldn't figure out why since I only have one computer. I thought routers just were for connecting more than one computer to the Internet.

[lostzilla]

Aislynn, I've been there but it was all behind me now. And I'm not looking back. I hope you can find the way to do the same. LOL just Format the damn thing and install SP2. Spyware are skanky bitches, get rid of em!
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http://www.dontalmostgive.org

[Aislynn]

[Hobbes]

Well all I know is I've never really had any spyware problems, and all Zonealarm did when I installed it was EAT UP my RAM like there was no tomorrow. My comp was as laggy as when WMM is open, which is sad. So I talked to an experienced friend of mine who owns a computer store, and he told me it wasn't needed as long as I had a router, windows firewall, and an antivirus system. He recommended "Avast!" over any other free antivirus system, which I now use, and haven't really had any problems YET either. Maybe the case is different with wireless routers, but he said mine has a firewall... so yeah, I believe him...
Unless I'm calling whatever the deelee with the firewall the wrong thing, then that's my fault lol

[lostzilla]

like my avatar baby Warden?
_________________

http://www.dontalmostgive.org

[Enchirito]

First, you need to dump Norton. It's the biggest resource hog of any AV and you're right it doesn't cooperate with anything very well. I've worked with them all and the best AV program for personal use is actually a free one. Avast. It's amazing.

For firewall, the XP SP2 one works decently, but I recomend Sygate. It's a little less resource intensive and intrusive than ZoneAlarm.

Also, never assume a router alone is good enough, you always should have a software firewall running as well.
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[Aislynn]

Man, I cannot tell y'all how much it mean to me to have had so many people offer me some much needed advice! When this happened to me last year, I knew nobody -- well, at least nobody who could say anything other than, "Huh, never heard of that before... Too bad for you!" There's just something particularly scary about feeling all alone on the Internet, desperately trying to keep your computer glued together with spit and a few popsicle sticks so that you can keep on plowing through useless information, trying to find one tip or trick that will actually help you!

So thank you all so much for not leaving me blowing in the wind out here! Just having some moral support has done me a world of good! Oh, and just so y'all know, I DO have just enough sense to have remembered to save and print out all of this advice. 'Cause have you ever had a broken computer with the instructions to fix it trapped inside the CPU, which is now just a very expensive paperweight??? Two words: Not. Good.

Thanks again to everyone who took time to answer! I'll keep y'all updated as I start my "computer surgery" this next week. Wish me luck!

~Aislynn

PS - I noticed your Baby Warren avi, lostzilla! I about rolled out of my chair when I saw it!

[Hobbes]