Hi folks.Got a problem with a trojan horse that has invaded my home computer and replaces my homepage with a nasty porn site.It is
mk@MSITStore:C:\WINDOWS\start.chm:/start.html.
Anybody know how to get rid of it.I have AntiVir installed but have received an email from aon.com telling me that a file called
your_product.pif
is uncleanable.The virus is WORM_NETSKY.D
Any ideas?

Tony, don't know whether it's this simple, but have you tried Tools, Internet options, General where you can set up your home page.

Don't know about the virus but I use Norton Internet Security which cleans up - you can get some very cheap copies on e-bay, some are 2003 which is the one I use, it seems to update to the current version as well.

edit, have a look at

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.netsky.d@mm.html

Tells you all about it, and how to get rid of it I believe.

Seymour,thanks,but its not that simple.When I correct it and close computer,its back again when the computer is opened,it attacks your start programme I think,hence the html.

Tony, have a look at my edited post above, there is a way using Symantec's instructions, but it looks tricky to me.

I have a little problem - I've just bought myself a Palm Tungsten PDA (don't know how I lived without it now having only had it a week!).

When I synchronise the PC with the Palm I get a message saying

"The setup on the handheld could not be updated because the PC does not have a hostname or IP address."

How do I give my PC a hostname?

Thanks,Seymour,I've used symantec before with excellent results.Will check it out.

Seymour Clearly
I found this on the web not sure if it will help
M

"Click on the hotsync icon in the system tray (by the clock on your PC desktop). Then uncheck network."

Thanks M, will try it out.

Edit, worked a treat! Thanks Martini.

Why don't they put this stuff in the manual! (Maybe they did and I missed it).

tony, sounds like a hijack as well as a virus. If you havnt already install, update and run adaware , clean all spyware from your PC. (if you have Spybot S&D already that will do the same job, I use both). I am not sure which hijack you have but the commonest is coolwebsearch. A few posts up from here their are links to adaware and spybot and also probably some other info about hijacks.

If that does not solve the problem, please post again here and I will post some more details.

Do you also have any new sites in your favorites list (bookmarks) and have you noticed any slowdown of your web browser? If you need to post back please post the site that your browser homepage is getting set to.

What application do I need to play an MPEg-4 file on my PC? This is a video clip I recorded on my Sony Ericcson P900 but can't play it on my Windows XP laptop. I have got real one and Windows Media player and they do nothing - I have tried using Apple Quicktime but can't get it to install properly.

Thanks

Thanks Spaceman.It is not coolwebsearch but is entirely similar,though harder to clean(I got rid of coolwebsearch before,thanks to some kind poster on another site).It is MSITStore,see my post 1599 for the full html.Will search back for adaware and spybot.

tony, have a look here http://www.spywareinfo.com/forums/index.php?act=Search&CODE=show&searchid=59f20ed2ac79aa86314dab7330852197&search_in=posts&result_type=topics&highlite=msitstore

Does anybody have any thoughts or recommendations on hard drives. My Maxtor diamondmax is again making death rattle type noises, it is only 18 months old. The previous resident only managed 18 months or so as well!

My motherboard can use Sata drives, are they more reliable? Looking to replace before it lets me down entirely. The Western Digital Caviar on my other machine seems a lot quieter although it doesn't get the abuse like the Maxtor.

I have always had Western Digital and never had a single problem.

Croc-ref D-LINK where can I get and how much ?
Thanks in advance.

ep

2abbey,
sata wont be more reliable as far as the build is concerned there is nothing new about the construction, I believe that manufacturers will offer sata and ide versions of drives using the same construction, there is one area where I personally think they may be slightly more reliable discussed below. However at the moment Sata doesn't offer much over ide/ata as it is still more expensive and disk performance is not a limiting factor for most PC's , I think this will change soon when the prices drop a bit and I would not be surprised to see them dominant in about 18 months.

I have also used WD drives and until recently I hadn't had one fail, the drive I have in my main PC which is a SFF Shuttle is starting to get noisy, I will replace it soon before it fails, Although it has worked very hard and is normally switched on for 24 hours a day I think the fact that it is running in a hotter environment than is ideal may have hastened its demise. This is one minor area where sata drives could be worth having, as they have very slim connection cables which mean that the PC insides can be kept cooler with better airflow. I have a feeling that high performance PCs which produce a lot of heat my be one of the reasons why disk drive failures do not seem to be uncommon, I don't have any hard facts to prove this but I have noticed that many PC's run much hotter than they did a couple of years ago.

My advice on which drives to buy? make sure you keep good backups of important data and then buy well known brand named drives and keep one as a spare, they are so cheap now that its not a big deal to replace a drive. WD are very good but most of the known brands you can find somewhere like http://www.ebuyer.co.uk are fine for most users.

I am a long term fan of IBM for disk drives as they have been very active in pushing DD technology forward but I have had several of their recent drives fail and a quick google search will show that I am not the only one. So for now I would not use IBM.

Can anybody direct me to a place where I can update my Java to the latest version? I am not sure if I have Sun or a different brand - I have been told to upgrade as some streaming services are not working.

Thanks.

if you look at the help pages, go to the FAQ and scroll down there is a link there somewhere...

http://java.sun.com/webapps/getjava/BrowserRedirect?locale=en&host=www.java.com:80

try there...

Thanks Tullett. Did I speak to you the other day when I had a hangover?