Download problem

[Harry]

Hi,

A friend is using Windows ME on a Gateway machine. She also had Hotbar
installed.

Since she was receiving a mess of pop-ups I told her to download and
run Ad-aware. That would remove Hotbar and clean up a lot of the
cookies, etc. triggering the pop-ups.

She did that and removed some 699 (whew!) entries. The Hotbar removal
seems to have worked well. The number of pop ups were also greatly
reduced.

But when she tried to download a free pop-up stopper program from 3
different sites she got the following error message:

"Windows cannot access the specified devices path, or file. You may
not have the appropriate permissions to access the item."

She says that shows up right over the download screen with a big red X
on all three of the available downloads.

I don't use ME so I am not familiar with it. From the little I could
find on the web it may have something to do with a corrupt or missing
file, rundll32.exe.

Am I on the right track or is there another cause that I can help her
with.

Thanks, Harry

[Noel Paton]

Reboot to Safe Mode and run CWShredder - to remove what variants of the
CoolWebSearch hijacker.
http://www.merijn.org/cwschronicles.html

Use CWShredder, the removal tool:
http://www.merijn.org/files/cwshredder.zip
http://www.merijn.org/files/CWShredder.exe
http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads/tools/CWShredder.exe
http://www.zerosrealm.com/downloads/CWShredder.zip

--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2004, Win9x)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
or
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2001/Mar01/Mar27pmvp.asp
"Harry" > wrote in message
s.com...
> Hi,
>
> A friend is using Windows ME on a Gateway machine. She also had Hotbar
> installed.
>
> Since she was receiving a mess of pop-ups I told her to download and
> run Ad-aware. That would remove Hotbar and clean up a lot of the
> cookies, etc. triggering the pop-ups.
>
> She did that and removed some 699 (whew!) entries. The Hotbar removal
> seems to have worked well. The number of pop ups were also greatly
> reduced.
>
> But when she tried to download a free pop-up stopper program from 3
> different sites she got the following error message:
>
> "Windows cannot access the specified devices path, or file. You may
> not have the appropriate permissions to access the item."
>
> She says that shows up right over the download screen with a big red X
> on all three of the available downloads.
>
> I don't use ME so I am not familiar with it. From the little I could
> find on the web it may have something to do with a corrupt or missing
> file, rundll32.exe.
>
> Am I on the right track or is there another cause that I can help her
> with.
>
> Thanks, Harry

[Harry]

Thanks for the reply Noel.

I am not quite sure I understand however. From what I read about
CWShredder, that is used to stop the CoolWebSearch from redirecting
her to their sites. She is not being directed anywhere but her system
will not allow these downloads.

And if she is not able to do downloads how can she download
CWShredder?

Since I am not familiar with ME and she is a total novice we have a
case of the blind leading the blind here. LOL In fact I wouldn't even
know how to tell her to boot up in safe mode.

Any further thoughts appreciated.

Harry


On Sat, 22 May 2004 23:42:32 +0100, "Noel Paton"
> wrote:

>
>Reboot to Safe Mode and run CWShredder - to remove what variants of the
>CoolWebSearch hijacker.
>http://www.merijn.org/cwschronicles.html
>
>Use CWShredder, the removal tool:
>http://www.merijn.org/files/cwshredder.zip
>http://www.merijn.org/files/CWShredder.exe
>http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads/tools/CWShredder.exe
>http://www.zerosrealm.com/downloads/CWShredder.zip

[Noel Paton]

Booting to Safe Mode is exactly the same as in other versions of Windows -
F8 or CTRL at boot time.

CWS doesn't only redirect, it also loads a lot of crap, and botches a number
of other things. The Shredder can generally fix it.
- you can run it off a floppy, while in Safe Mode, or Normal Mode, so
download it on another PC, copy it to a floppy, and run it from the infested
machine.

also run the LSPFix from here
http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm

.....and check the settings in Internet Properties|Security - make everything
Default settings, and see if that helps

--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2004, Win9x)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
or
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2001/Mar01/Mar27pmvp.asp
"Harry" > wrote in message
s.com...
> Thanks for the reply Noel.
>
> I am not quite sure I understand however. From what I read about
> CWShredder, that is used to stop the CoolWebSearch from redirecting
> her to their sites. She is not being directed anywhere but her system
> will not allow these downloads.
>
> And if she is not able to do downloads how can she download
> CWShredder?
>
> Since I am not familiar with ME and she is a total novice we have a
> case of the blind leading the blind here. LOL In fact I wouldn't even
> know how to tell her to boot up in safe mode.
>
> Any further thoughts appreciated.
>
> Harry
>
>
> On Sat, 22 May 2004 23:42:32 +0100, "Noel Paton"
> > wrote:
>
> >
> >Reboot to Safe Mode and run CWShredder - to remove what variants of the
> >CoolWebSearch hijacker.
> >http://www.merijn.org/cwschronicles.html
> >
> >Use CWShredder, the removal tool:
> >http://www.merijn.org/files/cwshredder.zip
> >http://www.merijn.org/files/CWShredder.exe
> >http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads/tools/CWShredder.exe
> >http://www.zerosrealm.com/downloads/CWShredder.zip
>

[oops!!]

Harry,

Maybe this registry fix can do it:

http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/RepairTabs.reg
1) Restores the missing Tabs in IE (usually spyware related)
2) Unlocks the grayed-out Home Page section
3) Removes the Administrator message in Internet Options

Download, right click it and select merge. Reboot.

See if that helps.

Zee



"Harry" > wrote in message
s.com...
> Thanks for the reply Noel.
>
> I am not quite sure I understand however. From what I read about
> CWShredder, that is used to stop the CoolWebSearch from redirecting
> her to their sites. She is not being directed anywhere but her system
> will not allow these downloads.
>
> And if she is not able to do downloads how can she download
> CWShredder?
>
> Since I am not familiar with ME and she is a total novice we have a
> case of the blind leading the blind here. LOL In fact I wouldn't even
> know how to tell her to boot up in safe mode.
>
> Any further thoughts appreciated.
>
> Harry
>
>
> On Sat, 22 May 2004 23:42:32 +0100, "Noel Paton"
> > wrote:
>
> >
> >Reboot to Safe Mode and run CWShredder - to remove what variants of the
> >CoolWebSearch hijacker.
> >http://www.merijn.org/cwschronicles.html
> >
> >Use CWShredder, the removal tool:
> >http://www.merijn.org/files/cwshredder.zip
> >http://www.merijn.org/files/CWShredder.exe
> >http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads/tools/CWShredder.exe
> >http://www.zerosrealm.com/downloads/CWShredder.zip
>