Steam Powered PC....

steamhead

Active Member
Guess this is as good a place as any to ask those of you PC-chnally inclined. This thing went bust last Saturday...Since then I've re-installed the IP software several times, and it seems to be holding up this time. I noticed sumpin' was up last week when I started getting pop-up windows whenever a new page opened. It's still happening now. I've supposedly got protection against this but....
Does anybody know what's going on..?? And what I can do to prevent it..??
Any help would be greatly appreciated..!!
 

Ralph

Remember...it's for fun!
Sorry Gus, your thread title made me think you were talking about something else :)

6-30-2007-03-2.jpg


We have some real sharp computer people here (I'm not one of them) so I expect you'll get your answer.
Best wishes!
Ralph
 

steamhead

Active Member
Ralph...Like those REAL steam powered PC's...!!!

MP3...I did run Spybot before re-installing the IP software...A lot of garbage turned up & I removed it all...But stuff keeps creeping in...
I've also got the MSN toolbar with a supposed pop-up blocker, but it doesn't block worth....nuttin'.

Thanks for your advice.
 
Could be that these are just regular popups that are somehow getting past the toolbar's popup blocker. Is it every page you go to or just certain ones?
 

PWRR-2207

Rogue Islander
Popup Nightmare...

It is possible that your MSN Toolbar is letting those pop-ups in because they are on the "authorized sites" list. If you can check the sites allowed to do pop-ups list in the MSN Toolbar but cannot change them, you may want to consider...

If you have Windows XP, check to see if you have Internet Explorer 7 (IE7). [On the menu bar, click on “Help” and then click on “About Internet Explorer” to view the version.]

If you do have IE7, uninstall the MSN Toolbar and any other Toolbars that have snuck onto your PC. [Use “Control Panel” and “Add/Remove programs” to uninstall the toolbars.] Once you have cleaned the spurious Toolbars out (many of which are actually “Spyware” and/or “Advertisement Ware”), go into IE7’s settings and enable “Popup Blocker”.

Also check the “Settings” for “Popup Blocker” for any web sites you do not want popping up windows. Not all pop-up’s are bad, including the ones used by this forum, so some discretion is advised. That does not solve your current problem but should stop a lot of future ones.

To get rid of the current pop-ups, also download and install “Ad-Aware by Lavasoft” from this link to Download.com:

Ad-Aware 2007 - Reviews and free Ad-Aware 2007 downloads at Download.com

Update the definitions and then run a scan. If the software causing the pop-ups is Advertisement Ware (Adware) or “Spyware”, between “Ad-Aware” and “Spybot: Search and Destroy”, you should be able to kill it.

If the problem software is “Malicious Ware” (Malware), anti-virus programs will not find it (because it is not self proliferating, hence ‘not a virus’ by their definition) and a lot of the Spyware/Adware programs may not be able to remove it, assuming they even see it. Hunting down and killing Malware is not something I like trying to walk people through because you often end up having to edit the registry and replace system critical files after booting with a separate Operating System disk.

Anyhow, a less costly/time consuming option may be to just abandon IE for now and go with the free Mozilla web browser called “Firefox”. Even if you are running Windows 95a or OS9, there is a version of Firefox out there for you and it includes pop-up stopping. You can even download and install ‘Ads-Ons” such as “Flashblock” (used by me to stop all the singing and dancing on websites that lack the ability to show restraint in limiting the number of Flash objects on a page). Here is a link to Firefox by Mozilla:

Mozilla | Firefox web browser & Thunderbird email client
 

nkp174

Active Member
I switched to Firefox a year or two ago...and I almost never see popups now. I dislike having to use machines with only IE now.
 

Ray Marinaccio

Active Member
If it's the same thing that happened to me a couple of months ago it is embedded in your computer.
No anti ad ware/spy ware/malware program I could find would remove it and my computer became unstable from trying to disable it causing me to loose everything I had on it.
I have a pretty good idea where it came from but bringing that up without proof probably isn't a good idea.
Hope you backed up your hard drive.
Hope you have better luck getting rid of it than I did
 

steamhead

Active Member
Thanks for the inputs guys....I've printed them out so I can do some investigating tonight at home (I'm at work now...just don't let the Boss know...).

Ray....your comment about having my HD backed up is kinda scary...Now you really got me worried....:eek:
 

steamhead

Active Member
Just wan to thank you guys again....but I didn't ge the chance to put your suggestions to good use.....Santa Claus came in October this year tottin' a BRAND NEW DELL COMPUTER...!!!!! (I didn't expect it until next week...) balloon6

So, now I got to get me one of those Hi-Speed connections to get the most out of this baby..!!!

Ain't nuttin' gonna stop me now...!! (Well, maybe my trains...) :mrgreen:
 
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