Friday, January 28, 2005

No Popups

No annoying popups from offeroptimizer.com or requests to connect to the Net from abetterinternet have plagued me today. So far, so good.

Earthlink

While we were on vacation in California, I signed up for the free Earthlink Internet Service that came with the laptop. I was able to find a local number to use from Keith's Mom's house. The only problem with it was I couldn't send e-mail from Eudora with it. I could download e-mail into Eudora, but nothing would send. I thought it had something to do with using Earthlink with my pti settings. I didn't fuss with it. Instead I used webmail to send my messages.

Another drawback: I noticed that when I am logged in with Earthlink, I constantly am getting attacked with some sort of virus or worm. It is pecking away at the firewall trying to get in. When I am connected with PTI, this doesn't happen. It may be that Earthlink is a bigger target for malware than PTI.

I thought that Earthlink was connecting to the Net at a faster speed than PTI, but on my laptop, PTI is winning with 40 Kbps.

I tried sending an e-mail to my Earthlink address and Eudora said it wasn't suitable when I had the STMP set up with the Earthlink setting. When I used my PTI mail settings, I was able to send and receive e-mail from my Earthlink address.

If I were to drop my PTI Internet Service and go to Earthlink, I would definitely want to be able to send my e-mail without having to resort to webmail to do it.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Am I Clean?

So far today, I haven't seen any more appearances of abetterinet, offeroptimizer, or randreco.exe. However, every time the computer hesitates the slightest, I feel like, "Oh, no, what have I done now." I keep expecting something to go wrong or some program not to work because I was messing with the registry.

Randreco.exe

I was nervous about turning off system restore. Maybe that is why the randreco.exe keeps coming back. So I turned it off. (Right-click My Computer -> Properties -> System Restore tab -> Check Disable System Restore.) I printed out a thread at Tech Guys that had a similar problem to mine. Some of the information was not usable because she had WIN98 and I am using XP. I followed it step-by-step as much as I could. I deleted randreco.exe from C:\WINDOWS\system32 again along with two files from C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch, RANDRECO.EXE-124C875B.pf and RANDRECO.EXE-31950531.pf. These files reappeared at 12:06 a.m. I think I know what I am doing wrong. I need to make sure all the browser windows are closed. This time I rebooted the computer in Safe Mode and deleted them.

I used HijackThis to delete Farmmext.exe files and C:\WINDOWS\Zserv.dll. Then I followed the instructions to REGSVR32 /U C:\WINDOWS\ZSERV.DLL (from Start -> Run).

When I searched for zerv.dll on my computer, I found it was still there. So I deleted it again. I hope this doesn't mess up anything.

I also deleted all the files from the temporary folders. I have typed this from memory, not necessarily in the order that I did it.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

I Can See PHP

My mood had turned completely around. I feel happy that I can now view PHP webpages on my computer. Here is how I changed the settings to allow them to open.

Go to
Internet Explorer browser -> Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced

Under the heading: Security Check "Allow active content to run in files on My Computer"

Since I don't remember seeing this option before, I am assuming it came with the installation of Service Pack 2.

I had to stumble across this solution on my own while I was looking for adware on my computer. Posts to other webforums and a search of the help files on my computer did not help.

This also solved the problem with my input box for dictionary.com.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

Search and Destroy

After following all the instructions on the Tech Guy forum for getting rid of spyware, I still keep finding the randreco.exe file reappearing. I ran the TrendMicro HouseCall, the Spybot Search & Destroy, the Adaware, and CWShredder. Before I admit defeat and post my log to the forum, I am going to look into the Windows folder and the Program Files for files created this past week to see if I can tell if anything new has been added that shouldn't have been added.

Friday, January 21, 2005

Adware

My suspicion is that I have an adware program on my computer. There must be somthing else that is working to restore the randreco.exe file after I delete it. I run Spybot Search & Destroy, and that didn't seem to fix the problem. So I went back to the Tech Guys forum, and followed their list of suggestions. I downloaded Adaware and CWshredder. I ran both of them. The problem continues to reappear.

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Annoyances

Service Pack 2 has caused the input box for my link to dictionary.com to be blocked. To get it to work, I have to click to allow it, and then click to say, "Yes" that I really want to allow. Those extra two clicks is a constant annoyance every time I want to look up a word in the dictionary.

As I explore SP2's influence on my browser, I see that it is blocking popups. That is a plus, I suppose, however, it isn't doing a complete job. I am getting popups from optimizer.com anyway. I am also getting notices from McAfee Firewall that abetterintenet wants to call its mother ship. The name of the file doing the calling is randreco.exe. So I deleted it. However, after awhile, this file mysteriously reappears. I don't know what is going on, but I intend to find out what is causing this.

Friday, January 14, 2005

No Help in Sight

I posted my dilemma on the Rival Pro forum and at the Tech Guys forum. So far nobody has come up with a solution. At the Tech Guys, nobody even replied to my question, although I noticed on that forum that you can post the logs of computers that have been hijacked by adware.

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

PHP and SP2

Before the installation of Service Pack 2, I was viewing php files on my computer with Explorer. I clicked on the file, and it opened just like any html file. I could see the webpage as it would appear online except that the PHP includes did not execute.

After the installation, I click on the php files, and nothing happens. On my laptop, I would get this ominous warning that I might get a virus or malicious code if I opened it. I click okay, and the warning appears again. I clicked on "Don't show me this warning again," and then I the laptop went into this endless jerky loop. I had to shut down the computer to get out of it.

I thought maybe the file associations were lost after the update, so I reset php files to open with Explorer. (Right click on file -> Open With -> Choose Program -> Browse -> C:\Windows\explorer.exe) This puts the opening of the file into a loop. Ctrl-Alt-Delete doesn't even show it on the Task Manager but you can tell something is happening because the monitor is flickering.

From the Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Delete), I could only highlight my name and click on Logoff. Then I clicked back on my name and logged on again.

I got a popup message that McAfee Filter was not on, did I want to turn it on? I clicked Yes, and it asked me again, and this kept looping as long as I clicked on Yes. I clicked on "No", and it quit asking. Then I clicked on my McAfee icon, and all of the options were grayed out. So I disabled Virus Scan and tried turning it back on. That didn't work. *big sigh* So I restarted the computer. Now McAfee appears to be working normally. The buttons are active and files are being filtered.

I tried associating the PHP files with other programs. Internet Explorer won't work. I associated it to IBSERVER.exe and all that does is open a menu. I tried associating it to apache.exe and that does the same thing. I have a file called php.exe and that opens and closes quickly a DOS window.

So finally, I associated it with Notepad. That's the only program that will work with php, but then I cannot see what the file will look like online.

Now I am wondering if I need to set up a PHP server on my computer to read the php files. I tried doing that before but never got the kinks worked out of it. Now I think my version of PHP is outdated.

I can only open the php webpages with Notepad, Is my only solution to set up a server on my computer that will run the php files, or is there a way to get Explorer to display the php files like they did before I installed Service Pack 2?

(shtml files won't open either.)

Saturday, January 08, 2005

PHP

Since I have updated my computer with Service Pack 2, I cannot open my php files with Internet Explorer.