Norton purged, Avast, spybot, malwarebytes installed

[kc7jty]

Took a while but I got 'er done. spybot was acting strange in the beginning but seems ok now.
Windows defender, and User Account Control, are running as well.
I guess the UAC is like the tea timer in spybot, it asks permission every time something wants to make a change to the machine.

btw, I was able to purge Norton 360 with the crap cleaner.

[kc7jty]

On Spybot I get a pop up window when downloading and immunizing telling me I don't have authority to act but it lets me act anyway by clicking on act as an administrator "OK". What's that about?

[kb2vxa]

If you want things to run smoothly without conflict disable Tea Timer and run S&D as an on demand scanner. Only one memory resident at a time or they tend to squabble and that one should be your main AV software, anti-malware really should be run on demand. As for that pop-up I tend to believe you haven't set yourself up as an administrator in your OS settings. No big deal, I just learned it has a "manual override" you can use.

Norton sucks raw eggs and it's a bugger to remove completely as you just found out. (;->)

[kc7jty]

Only one memory resident at a time or they tend to squabble and that one should be your main AV software)
please explain memory resident...

[ad4mg]

Only one memory resident at a time or they tend to squabble and that one should be your main AV software)
please explain memory resident...
A memory resident program is one where all or a part of that program remains active ("resident") in memory, even if the main program interface is inactive. Anti-virus programs are all usually memory resident in that they will usually have "modules" that remain in memory to scan exe files as they are executed, and in some cases, to scan internet connections for viruses.

An excellent example of a memory resident program, Bill, is the Tea Timer utility that comes bundled with Spybot S&D. The Tea Timer remains resident in memory, and watches for any changes in the system registry. It gives the user a warning that some other application is attempting to modify system settings, and gives you an opportunity to intercept such attempts.

The Tea Timer is an excellent utility, but is very annoying when installing legitimate programs unless you disable it first. If the User Account Control is attempting to do the same job, then you may encounter conflicts between it and the Tea Timer utility.

Personally, on my XP machines, Bill, I don't use the Tea Timer, and I'm careful in my browsing habits, and use only the Firefox browser.

The only way to be 99.9% safe is to run one of the Linux flavored operating systems for internet browsing, but eventually this will probably change as Linux OS's like Ubuntu and Fedora become more mainstream and popular. In the meantime, running a good ant-virus, and frequently scanning the system with anti-malware software is the best defense. Of course, make sure you have some way to restore the system should a disaster occur. Manufacturers don't always provide restore disks, but sometimes they will provide the installation routine for the operating system on a hidden (usually) partition on the hard drive. It is frequently referred to as the System Restore feature which usually shows up in the bootup menu, or at boot time with a special keypress, frequently the F-12 key.

An absolutely foolproof backup of your system is possible only when the hard drive isn't "mounted", because Windows is constantly writing to the hard drive (swap file & registry entries). When working on computers for others, I use an external USB hard drive, and a Linux Live CD utility disk named "Clonezilla". The machine is started with the OS on the CD, and it can create an "image" of the entire hard drive in compressed format on the USB drive, including free space sizes, hidden partitions, the MBR, and partition tables. In the event of a disaster, Clonezilla will use that image to exactly reproduce the entire hard drive as it was during the instant of the backup. If you ever want to archive your system in this manner, the Clonezilla Live CD is a free download, all you'll need is an external USB hard drive. I can provide step by step instructions if anyone is interested. Clonezilla can also back up this image to other devices, including your network, but I've found the external USB drive to be the easiest method. It's almost plug and play it's so simple.

[kc7jty]

thanks Luke, I think I'll be lucky if I can restore the machine to a former time if needed.