many errors! please help!

[radel11]

hi, i have been having many problems lately with my computer.
i cannot open any microsoft office programs without getting an error about 'proplus.msi' and needing to reinstall office, and that file is not on my computer.
i keep getting random windows explorer errors that shut down that and those say kernell32.dll i believe.
and lastly my computer will randomly restart itself sometimes when i am using it.
any help is greatly appreciated!!!

 

[Dr Dave]

If your using IE your computer is probably infected. try Spybot or Adaware and clean it up, here is an answer to your first problem.
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00458.htm

 

[Christia]

It's definitely a virus or spyware/ adware (possibly others, but let's keep this easy to start out with.)

The very first software I would strongly recommend you use in Microsoft’s Anti-spyware (yes! They finally made one!)

You can get this simply by going to http://www.Microsoft.com/ and clicking on Popular Downloads Anti Spyware.

After download is complete, run a scan and see if it helps at all.

If nothing works, then I would strongly recommend getting Spy Sweeper. http://www.webroot.com/products/spysweeper-indepth/ it is honestly one of the best programs out there. I recommend scrolling down and downloading the 30 day free trial. See for yourself


Now, this will most likely solve your problem, but this doesn't rule out that it could be another threat.

If this doesn't work, then go to Norton and I would suggest downloading their 15 day trial, but, while Norton is the best antivirus out there, do not attempt to just use this first, because Norton is NOT the best choice if the problem can be solved much easier Please post back, and let us know what's going on with your situation

 

[radel11]

thanks for the quick responses

well i have norton but the year subscription ran out a couple weeks ago.
i have cleaned out everything i could find with adaware se and spybot s&d, will the programs you mentioned find something that these wont?
just as i was looking at this a few min ago my whole screen turned into what looked like win95 for about 2 seconds then shut down...
im trying to fix the microsoft office problem right now.

edit:
so i found that i have the websiteviewer spyware, and also haxdoor-h
im reading some other posts to try to deal with these... could they be the cause of all my errors and also the microsoft office problem, the site that was left to try for that did not help.

 

[Christia]

Actually they are a little different than Adaware and Spybot.


Adaware and Spybot are not as strong as Spy Sweeper's or Microsoft's Anti-Spyware program. For example, Spy Sweeper will sweep ALL of your registry, and all of Disk C, and also finds more than just Adware and Spyware and can also moniter changes (for example, if your Home Page is changed, and it wasn't done manually) and it also scans memory.

In fact, one time I ran both scans at the same time (Ad Aware and Spy Sweeper) and Spy Sweeper was actually able to find more than Ad Aware (it found the same ones as Ad Aware, but more, btw).


Spy Sweeper does take a lot of memory and takes longer than Spy Bot and Search And Destroy does, but it is better at detecting spyware and finds much more suspicious entries as well as finding and removing everything related to Spyware and Adware.

The only reason I recomended Microsoft's Anti-spyware program, really, is because if you decide Spy Sweeper is not worth it after the 30 day trial, the Anti spyware program from Microsoft would be my second reccomendation. They bought the Giant Spyware software, and their own upgrades to it and it updates every week.
Anyway, I strongly suggest you try out Spy Sweeper. It couldn't hurt.