What on Earth have they done to my computer?!

jenniewb

I need help! (Please!)

I had a microsoft update yesterday. I updated and restarted my computer.

When I restarted I found all personalisations had been taken away. I used to have Vista as my personalisation and now its just Windows Classic. I tried to change this via the Control Panel but the Vista view is nowhere to be found!

I have tried messing with the colours and styles but its just not the same. I cannot stand this lay out- grey boxes and clunky tabs, I hate it! It was the reason I changed in the first place!

I also cannot use Google Chrome anymore. There is a fault, the pages will not load which is frustrating as most of my data is saved on bookmarks in Chrome.

Can anyone help me at all?

Coopdivi

Do a system restore to before the changes were made and set updates to notify you before installing. When they've downloaded click the advanced button to see what it's going to install so you've got some idea of what might have fubbered your computer before.

JasX

Coopdivi wrote: »

Do a system restore to before the changes were made and set updates to notify you before installing.

thats a very bad idea and will likely result in you getting swamped with malware, viruses and other headaches alot worse than you're experiencing now, time between security patches being issued and viruses appearing exploiting the vulnerability trying to catch anyone slow to appply their patches is only getting shorter.....

tronator

jenniewb wrote: »

I need help! (Please!)

I had a microsoft update yesterday. I updated and restarted my computer.

When I restarted I found all personalisations had been taken away. I used to have Vista as my personalisation and now its just Windows Classic. I tried to change this via the Control Panel but the Vista view is nowhere to be found!

I have tried messing with the colours and styles but its just not the same. I cannot stand this lay out- grey boxes and clunky tabs, I hate it! It was the reason I changed in the first place!

I also cannot use Google Chrome anymore. There is a fault, the pages will not load which is frustrating as most of my data is saved on bookmarks in Chrome.

Can anyone help me at all?

Maybe there was a problem during the log in and you're logged in with a temporary profile. Was there an error message when you logged in? Are all your documents still in "My Documents"?

Try restarting again.

aliEnRIK

As above, did you simply try a restart?

Coopdivi

JasX wrote: »

thats a very bad idea and will likely result in you getting swamped with malware, viruses and other headaches alot worse than you're experiencing now, time between security patches being issued and viruses appearing exploiting the vulnerability trying to catch anyone slow to appply their patches is only getting shorter.....

That's how I've got my computer set up and I've never had a virus. Malwarebytes has been on my system for going on 4 years and it's never found anything despite thrice weekly scans.

I want to know what the Microsoft updates are before they end up on my computer and I hate it when Microsoft turns my computer off when I'm in the middle of doing something.

Anyway the forum is all about advice and opinions. As no one had replied to the OP I did just that.

What've you done apart from have a whine ya trumpet?

jenniewb

Thanks for the advice.

The problem is I already did the updates- thats what left me in this mess.

So far... managed to find the Vista personalisation and change from the classic view to the Vista view. There are a few 'boxy' classic type things I can't seem to get back again (such as the tabs on the web pages) but the menu bar and etc seems back to normal.

I have no way of using Chrome anymore!

I tried but nothing will load- not even the first screen. I tried uninstalling and then reinstalling but it didn't work. I just get a blank chrome page which looks like its trying to load but never does. I tried the F1 key but all I get is the option to "kill page" or "wait". Neither help: the kill pages takes away the whole page, the wait gets rid of the help box and continues to wait for it to load. After 15 mins I assumed nothing was going to load.

Not sure what has gone wrong- all I did was to install what Microsoft had advised me to- it all looked pretty normal to me.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

mmm, I see I have notification of 5 important updates from Wednesday, so wiil update one at a time, just in case.

jenniewb, you could try uninstalling updates, control panel > programmes and features > view installed updates, to see if that helps.

JasX

Coopdivi wrote: »

What've you done apart from have a whine ya trumpet?

I've given sensible advice that'll stop the OP comming back on here in 3 months riddled with viruses, keyloggers, maybe their ISP will have thrown them off the net for being a compromised spambot, perhaps even had their bank account login nicked.....

Yes it is possible to keep on top of things your way IF you are disciplined enough remember to apply the released patches every day. I'm not sure what value you think the OP will get from seeing the individual patch technical details, no offence intended but I'm assuming they don;t have the technical background to be able to put that info to any use......

In which case why open such a big hole in their computers security for no obvious gain?

Automatic updates don't force you to shutdown in the middle of what you're doing.

jenniewb

Will try to remove the updates- just wierd that it happened and had such an effect- tried a virus scan and showed up something on a quick scan. Didn't give it a name but said it can repeat itself and was a "sevear" threat. The virus programme got rid of it apparently as I ran a further scan which showed up nothing.

Question: will a virus protection show up malware and spyware? (must seem like a pretty dense question but am not very technical!)

luci

No, for malwareware/spyware you need to download https://www.malwarebytes.com Remember to update it first before you run it.