Computer Help

[Soujiro]

Here's the deal. My brother and I share my father's computer (because it's awesome) and somehow he mucks it up with all kinds of spyware, adware, and viruses. And then he blames it on me, and I get into trouble. His excuse is, "Who spends more time on the computer?" And when I reply I spend so much time on it because I am fixing it, he just says, "Ad-aware is just a crappy program that causes viruses." It makes me furious. And to boot, I only spend 30 minutes to an hour on the computer, whereas he spends nearly 3 hours.

Any suggestions so I can get him caught? I've been getting into a lot of trouble lately.

Apparently, your father doesn't spend enough time on the computer to gain any knowledge about it. Ad-Aware removes common viruses, adware, spyware, trojans, and hijackers. However, make sure to update the reference file. After using Ad-Aware, use Spybot. That should clean up most of the mess. Then use a virus scanner to get rid of Downloader.X trojans sitting in your computer.

Umm embassingly enough my Java doesn't like my computer so all it turns to is a red x in a white box.

What you described is a picture with a broken link. Are you sure it's not just a gray box that's supposed to be an applet that says "Unable to load Applet"?

[Crescendo]

Here's the deal. My brother and I share my father's computer (because it's awesome) and somehow he mucks it up with all kinds of spyware, adware, and viruses. And then he blames it on me, and I get into trouble. His excuse is, "Who spends more time on the computer?" And when I reply I spend so much time on it because I am fixing it, he just says, "Ad-aware is just a crappy program that causes viruses." It makes me furious. And to boot, I only spend 30 minutes to an hour on the computer, whereas he spends nearly 3 hours.

Any suggestions so I can get him caught? I've been getting into a lot of trouble lately.

Apparently, your father doesn't spend enough time on the computer to gain any knowledge about it. Ad-Aware removes common viruses, adware, spyware, trojans, and hijackers. However, make sure to update the reference file. After using Ad-Aware, use Spybot. That should clean up most of the mess. Then use a virus scanner to get rid of Downloader.X trojans sitting in your computer.

Sorry for not being specific enough. It's my brother who mucks up the computer, and I always get blamed. My brother is the one who doesn't believe in Ad-Aware, whereas it is the only thing keeping the computer alive. How can I get him caught?

And Spybot just destroys my computer. For some reason, it always freezes up after I use it.

[Drake Redcrest]

I'm having problems getting Photoshop to open, and I wasn't sure whether to post it here or in Art Tech. The loading screen gets to "Initializing Color Preferences" and then closes, and I haven't been able to get it past there all morning. I've tried restarting my computer and that didn't work, so if anyone can suggest anything, then thank you very much.

[Soujiro]

Here's the deal. My brother and I share my father's computer (because it's awesome) and somehow he mucks it up with all kinds of spyware, adware, and viruses. And then he blames it on me, and I get into trouble. His excuse is, "Who spends more time on the computer?" And when I reply I spend so much time on it because I am fixing it, he just says, "Ad-aware is just a crappy program that causes viruses." It makes me furious. And to boot, I only spend 30 minutes to an hour on the computer, whereas he spends nearly 3 hours.

Any suggestions so I can get him caught? I've been getting into a lot of trouble lately.

Apparently, your father doesn't spend enough time on the computer to gain any knowledge about it. Ad-Aware removes common viruses, adware, spyware, trojans, and hijackers. However, make sure to update the reference file. After using Ad-Aware, use Spybot. That should clean up most of the mess. Then use a virus scanner to get rid of Downloader.X trojans sitting in your computer.

Sorry for not being specific enough. It's my brother who mucks up the computer, and I always get blamed. My brother is the one who doesn't believe in Ad-Aware, whereas it is the only thing keeping the computer alive. How can I get him caught?

And Spybot just destroys my computer. For some reason, it always freezes up after I use it.

Then it's your brother who's the idiot. For Spybot, is it trying to create a System Restore point? If so, go into Advanced Mode and disable that setting. You certainly won't want spyware to be restored onto your computer.

If you want to get him caught, clean the system of the spyware and clear your history before he uses it. After he finishes his session on the internet, check for spyware and then check his history. If you find suspicious sites, that's what he was accessing to get all that spyware.

I'm having problems getting Photoshop to open, and I wasn't sure whether to post it here or in Art Tech. The loading screen gets to "Initializing Color Preferences" and then closes, and I haven't been able to get it past there all morning. I've tried restarting my computer and that didn't work, so if anyone can suggest anything, then thank you very much.

Try changing your Color Profile Settings. Right click the desktop > Properties > Settings tab > Color Management.

[Drake Redcrest]

I'm having problems getting Photoshop to open, and I wasn't sure whether to post it here or in Art Tech. The loading screen gets to "Initializing Color Preferences" and then closes, and I haven't been able to get it past there all morning. I've tried restarting my computer and that didn't work, so if anyone can suggest anything, then thank you very much.

Try changing your Color Profile Settings. Right click the desktop > Properties > Settings tab > Color Management.

It didn't work. Is there anything else I can do?

[Soujiro]

Try uninstalling and reinstalling Photoshop.

[Drake Redcrest]

Try uninstalling and reinstalling Photoshop.

Just tried it, and it still doesn't get past the Color Preferences thing. Is there a specific thing that I'm supposed to add on in the Color Management menu?

[Soujiro]

It should be AdobeRGB1998.icc.

When reinstalling, did you completely remove all files in the Photoshop directory?

[Jim]

Umm embassingly enough my Java doesn't like my computer so all it turns to is a red x in a white box.

Any solutions?

Im betting you are using XP. XP doesnt support java based applications straight out of the box. All hail the Microsoft think-tank

To use Java with XP, you need to download what is known as a Java Machine. You can download the best one "Java Sun", from this link :

http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp

[Soujiro]

Microsoft stopped distributing Microsoft VM (Virtural Machine) because of the lawsuit by Sun.

[Sock]

And Spybot just destroys my computer. For some reason, it always freezes up after I use it.

Oi, my computer hates Spybot too. It crashes before I can scan not even a quarter of the files. Ad-Aware, luckily, works fine.

[drummer.a.h]

I know Dave has helped me (rather...attempted to) with this in the distant past, but it didn't work, maybe because I didn't get it, whatever I dunno. But I still have this virus, and now my boyfriend has it too...and it's just not good...

It's that one virus where you can't use google, yahoo, altavista, ask jeeves...etc. I've had it for around half a year now, and it's pretty stubborn. Any advice on getting rid of it?

[Universal Senja]

Hopefully this will help. =)

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/t1065071835

Here's what you really need to know though (Quoted from a post):

I found a fix for this issues late tonight before I formatted the PC. My girlfriends son downloaded some MP3 software which had a ton of adware embedded. The lavasoft adware killer did not dectect this issue. This adware placed a hosts file in the c:\windows\help folder. This hosts file contained static IP addressess which caused the searchs from google and yahoo to timeout. I deleted the hosts file from c:\windows\help and everything is back to normal. I hate that adware crap. I had no idea windows would look in the c:\windows\help folder for a hosts file. I thought windows would only look for host files in either a folder where an executable is run or in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc. For others that have this issue open windows explorer. Select the search button. Type find hosts. Select C Local Hardrives. Delete all hosts file. Then reboot just for good measure. This will correct the issue.

[drummer.a.h]

*dances about*

Ugh, it is so nice to be able to use google.com again. Whoo.

Thanks so much!

[Soujiro]

And Spybot just destroys my computer. For some reason, it always freezes up after I use it.

Oi, my computer hates Spybot too. It crashes before I can scan not even a quarter of the files. Ad-Aware, luckily, works fine.

It probably stops working because of the Restore Point feature.