Windows Vista help and advice needed.

[vitriol]

Hello guys and girls,

Need a little help and advice with Windows Vista, not my own laptop, but a friend of a friends.  The original fault was "it won't connect to the internet and we can't browse the web or check email."

Now for a few details.

It's an Acer Aspire 5720, it has Windows Vista SP1 installed on it, no antivirus was installed on it when it was given to me, although I'm led to believe that it had Mcafee Internet Security on it previously.

I've given the laptop's Wireless adaptor access to my router and it can connect, but hovering the mouse over the network icon in the system tray says that there is "Local Access" only.  It is being given an IP by DHCP from my router and I can ping the router and receive a reply, but cannot ping any external websites.  The computer then stops responding and seems to hang, the cmd window cannot then be closed.  Other windows can be opened, like the control panel, but it's overall performance is not what you would call reliable. 

One thing that I found odd was although there was no programs open (on the desktop) there were eight instances of internet explorer open in the task manager, (really strange and screams malware to me).  Apart from this there didn't seem to be much in there that would cause concern.  I installed Malwarebytes and the latest definition from a USB stick and proceeded to do a full system scan.  Three hours later there were 47 infections found and Malwarebytes successfully removed them all.

I rebooted but still cannot obtain an internet connection.  The computers performance is still not great.

I downloaded the Wireless adapter drivers from the ACER site, uninstalled and removed drivers for the Wireless adapter and proceded to install the downloaded driver.  Some modicum of success as a hover over the network icon now reveals "Local and internet" access.  Still cannot browse the web.

Other things I've tried. 

Creating a new user account, I thought there may be something specific in the normal user account blocking access, but still cannot connect to the web in the new user account.

Tried using a wired Ethernet, still no joy.

Tried using Firefox, Chrome browsers to eliminate problems with IE.  No joy either.

I think the malware may have altered the behaviour of some critical components within windows.  I say this as trying to open msconfig reveals a file system error.  I really do not know the extent of the damage that the malware may have caused.

I've recommended that the computer be formatted and reinstalled to my friends friend and asked him to supply the install disks, guess what, he doesn't have them, not sure if there is a system recovery partition either, I'm off to investigate this after I post.

So I'm at a bit of a loss at the moment, can anyone recommend anything?

Thanks in advance and sorry for the long post.

[Rik]

Hi Vit

I think re-installation is the best path too, it sounds like that machine is seriously screwed. Have you tried booting into safe mode with networking support to see if that makes any difference?

Acer's normally have a recovery partition on the drive.

[esh]

Some malware mess around with settings to try and avoid you getting it fixed. Please try the following before a reformat:

You will need an *ADMINISTRATOR* command prompt open:

Code Select Expand


netsh int ip reset


Press enter and reboot the computer.


Edit: once you have it fixed, make a permanent system restore spot so you don't have to go through this malarkey again.

[vitriol]

Thanks for the replies.

Rik : Safemode + Networking makes no difference.  I've just looked on the acer site and it says that ALT +F10 will open the recovery partition.  Going to investigate further.

Esh : Will try that if recovery is not possible from the partition.


Back soon, will keep you posted.

[Rik]

Good luck.

[vitriol]

There is indeed a recovery partition I'm in it now.  Selected restore to factory default but it's asking for a password, the password hint is : son

So I've contacted my friend to contact his friend to ask him what his son's name is (I really hope he has one)

[Rik]

Never try a third-hand repair, Vit.

[vitriol]

System recovery is done just waiting for Vista to do it thing and setup all the hardware and drivers, should be booting into it soon.

[Rik]

 

[vitriol]

OK so got it installed and up and running, thought that I'd upgrade it to service pack 2 before connecting to the internet.  All went fine untill I tried to to do a Windows Update.  It will not update and gives error code 80072ee2.  I've followed the instructions in the Microsoft Knowledge Base to no effect.  How great is that? 

Reinstalling again and will run Windows Update without prior upgrade to service pack 2.  See if that helps.

/mumbles/.........None of this cr*p with Linux........

[Rik]

Or your own machines.

[vitriol]

well after around 300 updates, the computer is now bang up to date.  I've installed MSE as the anti virus / malware solution.  I use that myself and it seems to be pretty effective.

thanks for the help guys.

[pctech]

For future reference I've found the MS Update Catalog at http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Home.aspx useful for downloading updates to burn to disk and apply offline when rebuilding machines.

Is ActiveX based so you need to use IE.

[vitriol]

Great link.  Bookmarked for future use.  Karmas to all.

[Rik]

Glad you got there, Vit. Third-hand work deserves a karma.

[vitriol]

Thanks Rik,

I've learned a valuable lesson.  When dealing with laptops, consult the manufacturer support sites for additional information, i.e recovery partitions.

[Rik]

Then thwack the idiot that messed it up.