Hi, new to the board.
Some history on my current problem:
The day before yesterday, my Norton Antivirus reported "An internal error has occured please uninstall and reinstall Norton Antivirus". At this point, the anti-virus software was innactive.
Not having the original installation disk, I ignored this and kept working.
Because I use this computer for sound recording and editing, I need it to run very efficiently but I get a lot of spyware. When I notice a strange activity that seems like spyware, I usually just run the task manager and I can see the culprit. I end process, run a search for the offending application (e.g. "specialonlineoffers.exe"), and then delete the application off my hard drive. This usually does the trick.
OK.
Yesterday, I was given a link by a fellow recording engineer of mine that listed some tweaks I could make to my machine to make it run a little better. I performed all the tweaks or found that some were already done on my machine. These can be found here:
http://www.rolandvs2480.com/tweakxp.htm
Then, today, i found what i believed was a program that should not be on my machine. It was called "lbojfu.exe" in the system32 folder (i find a lot of the spyware hides out here). I deleted it.
Also, at this point, I completely uninstall Norton Utilities because it keeps giving me the error message at startup until I can find my installation disk at home so I can just install it later.
Symptoms:
Now, I can not run a windows search. When I press F3 or use the start menu (search > files or folders), the window comes up and I get everything except the search panel is just blanked out. Solid tan color. No searching. Also, in thsi particular window nothing will happen when I click on "folder options". Folder options will however appear when I am not trying to run a search.
So I tried to go to the help section in windows xp to see what this could be. I click on "help and support". Nothing. Nothing even came up.
Ok, I say, I'll just go back to a restore point. I go to run system restore. Nothing. Nothing even comes up.
These are the three major symptoms.
I'm afraid I have a virus that is slowly messing up more and more things on my computer, or perhaps I've deleted an important system file?
What I've done so far
Not much except I remembered I had turned off the system restore feature as a part of the "tweaks" that were recommended on that site. I turned it back on, but no luck. Same symptoms.
Does anybody have any clues that could help me? I'm not really a computer expert but just now little things that i've picked up from others.
I would really appreciate any help.
