Netgear Rangemax Problem - Help!

albertross_2

If you don't want the toolbar yes, you might be able to uninstall it on it's own from control panel, add/remove, not sure..

Obviously it didn't clean up what I thought it would..

mleonard79

Hi again,
well I've run all the scans listed and it found a lot of viruses but I still don't think the computer's entirely clean. I just deleted the yahoo bar so that was no big deal. After coming out of safe mode I ran the panda activescan and it found some viruses still there but was asking me to purchase something for £18.99 to get rid of them so I just cancelled that. I then ran the housecall complete scan and it also found 3 viruses but crashed while trying to delete them or quarantine them so I think there's still some bad stuff on there. I ran the safety live one after that though and it didn't find anything so I can't be sure. The computer seems quite slow though. Also something strange happened to the desktop's background controls under display in control panel - being in safe mode had taken away the normal background so I went in there to put it back but it won't let me as I can't click on anything in the display box, very strange. Any ideas on how to get that to work again?

Outside of that the wireless connection (which was what this was about in the first place!) is still saying the signal strength is low which I'm surprised at since it's meant to be rangemax and thus the best reception but it seems to be connecting ok now anyway. The only thing left to do for that is set the security back up as its still down as disabled. Should I just try the WPA-PSk security settings that albertross details in his first post?? Thanks for all your help today - could not have done anything without it!

mleonard79

Oh and just one more question!! Should I leave all those scanning programs on the computer (ie ccleaner, ewido, windows defender)? I have set up a free zonealarm firewall and AVG anti-virus software and have told him to run ad aware and spybot often as this is what I do on mine and it seems to work. Should this be ok? Thanks a lot again.

Michelle

albertross_2

I suggest one resident AV, one resident anti-spyware, and one resident firewall. By resident, I mean running all the time, so that it will catch something before it infects. So AVG, Zonealarm, and Defender would catch most if not all nasties. Resident scanners usually have an icon in the bottom right of the taskbar, next to the clock (Defender is an annoying exception to this rule, so you don't know it is running unless it picks up a problem, or you look in task manager)

As far as on-demand scanners, and cleanup tools go, have as many as you like, and run them manually occasionally. No one product picks up everything, so it gives you strength in depth to have more than one scanner. Use web based scanner (windows live scan etc..) as well, every month or so. And also make sure Windows is set for automatic updates in Control Panel, security.

(don't forget to make sure they are all set to update, to pick up new threats).

P.S. A good backup system is always a good idea. If you have got £20-30 and a DVD drive, then Norton Ghost or Acronis Trueimage software will enable you to write a complete image of a working system, to a few DVD's. If anything should go wrong in future, it would be a breeze to put it right. Compare that to re-installing everything, patching everything, and trying to get valuable data back, it's worth the money.

Don't forget to turn off the SSID broadcast on your router, and enable WPA-PSK if it is turned off, preferably with a 63 character password from here: https://www.grc.com/passwords

mleonard79

Hi albertross,
I think I'm finally on the home strait with this now! I figured as much as far as the running applications go so that's all sorted and I've set up the WPA encryption and its working on both computers this time - I used the MAC address from the second computer instead of the main one this time as that's where the wireless adaptor is, that may have been why it didn't work the first time round. Should I check "Turn Access Control On" in the Wireless Station Access List page? Also should I have "automatically detect settings" for LAN in "connections" off or on on the main computer? I know it should be off on the second one. Now that the network is set up does that mean that files and printers etc are automatically shared or does that need to be set up some other way? I'm assuming it needs to be set up but its not really important as the main thing was sharing the internet connection to save money! And finally have you any ideas on what to do to get the background settings to work on the second computer - its very strange how they seem to be disabled? Thanks a lot for all your help with this over the past few days.

Michelle

albertross_2

yes turn access control on, and disable ssid broadcast if you haven't already (this stops most people knowing you are there). If you don't use bittorrent etc, I'd also turn upnp off on the router. Also change the default router password, and backup your router settings to a file (It's on the router menu). Leave automatically detect settings off if everything is working.

There is a sticky thread at the top of this page about F+P sharing. It shouldn't be on by default, and your firewall is probably blocking it anyway, so you'll have to punch a hole in zonealarm to get it to work.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=121274

Not sure what you mean by background settings, wallpaper?? Could you elaborate? Are you logged in as an administrator?

mleonard79

Yes wallpaper I suppose, when I turned the computer into safe mode yesterday it reverted to a plain blue screen as it does in safe mode but when I went into control panel, display, desktop to change it back it wouldn't allow me to choose a background. The background buttons seem to be disabled and also the browse and position buttons are grey and you can't click on them either. The only ones that you can use are the customize desktop and colour buttons. Its all very strange!

albertross_2

Does it do this in normal mode as well?

mleonard79

Yes sorry its normal mode I'm talking about. It's been like this since I came out of safe mode. It's not a big deal but my brother wants his normal wallpaper back instead of just the blue screen but it won't let us do it! There's only one user account in his name so we're logged in as computer administrator but its still the same.

albertross_2

Assuming that you're all clear of viruses, then it sounds like your profile is slightly corrupt.

You could try this:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/wallpaperenable.reg

(click the link, then run)

or go into control panel, and create another user account, see if it works using that user.