Gambit, I don't think you can make the one pop up you had the cause for anything that isn't working right!
Haha, sorry
I guess I panicked a bit when I saw the pop-up. My old computer I had issues with when I was in college, it was connected to a huge network so I would often get infected. It wasn't until I downloaded Spybot search & destroy and some other anti-virus stuff did the problems stop. I still have bad memories from that experience that stick with me, even four years later.
1. The users who have 64 bit systems are telling me that it was common to see the *32 in the Task Manager. One person suggested that it/they might have been there but you only noticed it when you opened the Task Manager to stop a process.
Ok great, thanks a lot for the information. I google'd the problem when I first saw it, and I noticed some people saying it could be a virus. This is good information though.
2. If there is any program we used that didn't clean up, you can uninstall in Add/Remove Programs or use the following for most:
Download OTCleanIt by OldTimer and save it to your Desktop.
- Double click OTCleanIt.exe.
- Click the CleanUp! button.
- If you are prompted to Reboot during the cleanup, select Yes.
- The tool will delete itself once it finishes.
TFC would have been good to keep since it was one of the programs I recommended. The Eset scan will be in addons. you can leave it as it's user invoked, If you want to remove it:
Click on Tools> Manage add-ons> Highlight either Eset or Nod32> Disable.
I ran OTC again and nothing had cleaned up other than itself. I ended up keeping TFC because it is very useful. I disabled ESET as well, thank you.
3.
You will need to clarify this for me:
I do not see the Adobe Reader in your installed programs-or as a running process in the original logs- just get plus plus for the Flash which you have.There is no other Adobe program installed. If you just want the PDF Reader, you can visit this
Adobe Reader site and download the latest version.
Thank you. I fixed this. For some reason I only had Adobe Flash Player installed. The PDF was working not too long ago which is odd. I wonder if I removed it by accident? Either way, I have it back on. Thanks.
4. I would like to mention that you have an enormous number of processes running. You need to check what's on the machine, decide if you want it or need it and if you don't uninstall it. Don't put programs on Startup if you don't need them- and all you really need if the AV, firewall and touchpad for laptop. If you have Network Magic, there are 2 processes for that. Anything else can be started when you need it. Why have is start on boot, run in the background, use the system resources if you don't need it!
5. Companies pre-load a lot of junk a system before they ship them. Sony, on their VAIO, is one of the worse. Most users don't use most of these processes and most don't even know they have them. systems should always be but through some kind of check to remove what isn't needed or wanted. But it's up to you to check out what the processes are for.
This may be a really stupid question but how do I stop programs from running off startup? I never put any programs on startup and would definitely like to disable some (I didn't even know this was an option..). Is there somewhere you recommend that I can go to, to help me with what is safe to remove and what is not necessary? I would love to get rid of a lot of these programs, but i was always afraid of uninstalling/deactivating the wrong ones.
5. Now that you have a firewall, you have to tell it what you want to access the internet that is on your system. You do that by configuring the firewall. So look for the Comodo help. Most of what is outgoing can be stopped by either blocking or removing and keep in mind that everything you have auto-updating will connect to the internet several times a day looking for updates- good reason to stop all auto-update except for antivirus.:
This firewall is awesome. I really appreciate you referring this to me. I can tell it is very, very good and I may just have to get used to what programs are supposed to be outgoing. I will read up on this and try to teach myself how to use it properly.
See #5:
1. OOBEFcdRegistration.exe>> [RegistrationReminder] "c:\program files\sony\first experience\OOBEFcdRegistration.exe"
2. ThirdPartyAppMgr.exe>> C:\Program Files\Sony\SmartWi Connection Utility\ThirdPartyAppMgr.exe
3. PowerManager.exe>> C:\Program Files (x86)\Sony\SmartWi Connection Utility\PowerManager.exe
Will do thank you.
I just wanted to take time to once again, thank you for your time in assisting me on this. I guess I panicked when I saw the virus popup but I ended up getting a great firewall and an anti-virus thanks to you. You are extremely helpful and I can't believe that you take your free time to assist people like this, it is great.
I hope you don't mind but I referred your forum to a lot of friends of mine. A couple of them visited the site today, read the articles but have not posted yet.
Thanks so much. I look forward to seeing your reply. I am really clueless as to what is safe to remove/not needed so any help will be greatly appreciated. I'd like to make my computer run as fast and smooth (but safe of course) as it possibly can.
EDIT: Wanna know something interesting Bobbye? I click the IE shortcut which is pinned to my taskbar. Usually, IE would open in 64-bit. After that fake virus scan popped up, it was running in 32 bit (or so I think.. it could of just not been noticed by me, but I'm pretty sure it always ran in 64 bit..). I hit start-----> all programs then saw Internet Explorer (64 bit). I clicked that and IE is back running in 64 bit, but some other programs are still running in 32 bit. I pinned the 64 bit shortcut back to the task bar and deleted the other one. Could that fake virus scan have swapped my IE shortcuts? It is just strange because I don't see th epoint of that, lol. Anyway, just realized it and thought I'd share, hope that info can shed some light on something.
I'm in the process of reviewing the different processes but I really have no idea what to uninstall or disable b/c depending on what site I look, some say keep it, others say turn it off. Seems like some of these programs are considered "Bloatware". It sucks that Sony has to pre-download this junk.