A little help, por favor

RadioFan · Post by **RadioFan** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 7:15 am

Last night my gf's 14-year-old son tried to put a picture up on the desktop of our PC. The picture came in a PM from another message board, and it had some kind of fucking virus on it.

After he put it on the desktop the picture took over about 1/3 of the desktop and we couldn't get rid of it. My gf said it had the filename of "Wild Tangant" or something. It was one of those anime pictures. She also said the program name started *.jar.

She got help from a tech forum on Yahoo chat last night.

We've got the virus taken care of (we think), at least AVG seems to have taken care of it ... it doesn't show up on scans anymore.

But my icons on my desktop are still messed up. Before, we had it so that the name of the icon/description was transparent, rather than it being a block of color, like those on the right in this photo:

The way we had it before was like icon in this shot:

I've been trying every setting I can think of and I can't figure out how to get the icons back the way they were before -- transparent descriptions, without the blocks of color. I can change the color of the icon description blocks, but I can't seem to make them transparent, so that they icons blend in with the desktop background. Any suggestions?

Should I run more anti-virus software?

We're running WindowsXP Professional.

Btw, I sent a message to the admin of that message board where this photo came from. It's a phpBB board as well. The photo was apparently from a Photobucket account, as well.

PrimeX · Post by **PrimeX** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 7:23 am

If you restore from a day previous to the day you deleted the stuff, it should come back, right? I'm not a computer guy but you seemed desperate. Any port in a storm, right?

Boom goes the dynamite?

DiT · Post by **DiT** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 8:06 am

Control Panel>System>Advanced>Performance>Settings>Visual Effects
see if something there helps.
also,if anything started with.jar it was a java file which can and will give you a virus.

RadioFan · Post by **RadioFan** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 4:36 pm

diT wrote:Control Panel>System>Advanced>Performance>Settings>Visual Effects
see if something there helps.
also,if anything started with.jar it was a java file which can and will give you a virus.

Tried it Dave ... no luck. Everything was already checked, and the options that looked like they might solve the problem didn't, after I unchecked them. The machine seems to be working fine, except for this. It's not a huge deal ... just annoying.

Do I need to get another anti-virus program to make sure I got rid of it?

Mister Bushice · Post by **Mister Bushice** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 5:12 pm

Yes, there's a program called "Teen Blocker" It prevents idiot teenagers from downloading.

To install it, simply open the administrators account, change the password, delete all other desktops, and never let said teen use the computer for internet access unsupervised again. :)

Unfortunately, RF, there are some things about XP that if a restore point doesn't take care of it, you are in for a long process. Some viruses alter complete system files but because those files are not infected, just changed, it's very very hard to find them with any virus program.

Perhaps you could reinstall XP? It would overwrite the old files and might solve the problem.

get some instructions on that, though before doing.

RadioFan · Post by **RadioFan** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 5:19 pm

Mister Bushice wrote:Yes, there's a program called "Teen Blocker" It prevents idiot teenagers from downloading.

To install it, simply open the administrators account, change the password, delete all other desktops, and never let said teen use the computer for internet access unsupervised again. :)

That program was launched immediately. :wink:

We have both a PC and an older Mac here. He's now relegated to the older Mac.

She's got some of her Yahoo chat tech gurus checking into this as well.

We'll reinstall if other problems pop up, and as a last resort.

DiT · Post by **DiT** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 10:14 pm

RadioFan wrote:
diT wrote:Control Panel>System>Advanced>Performance>Settings>Visual Effects
see if something there helps.
also,if anything started with.jar it was a java file which can and will give you a virus.
Tried it Dave ... no luck. Everything was already checked, and the options that looked like they might solve the problem didn't, after I unchecked them. The machine seems to be working fine, except for this. It's not a huge deal ... just annoying.

Do I need to get another anti-virus program to make sure I got rid of it?

still nadda prob.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/down ... rtoys.mspx

nifty apps that allows tweaking of various XP settings.
Tweak UI is prolly the one you want.

RadioFan · Post by **RadioFan** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 1:28 am

PrimeX wrote:Boom goes the dynamite?

DOH!

Either that was it, or DiT's little power tool did the trick. I downloaded the power tool, made some adjustments, then did a restore.

Got it! BOOM

Thanks guys.

I

you all and stuff.

Sincerely,

RF

Mac user of 10 years and PC protege with my imaginary friends helping.

DiT · Post by **DiT** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 3:24 am

RadioFan wrote:
PrimeX wrote:Boom goes the dynamite?
DOH!

Either that was it, or DiT's little power tool did the trick. I downloaded the power tool, made some adjustments, then did a restore.

Got it! BOOM

Thanks guys.

I you all and stuff.

Sincerely,

RF

Mac user of 10 years and PC protege with my imaginary friends helping.

it was prolly the system restore.
make sure that bad boy is set to make a backup everyday.
you don't know how simple it is to get something back with a click click and rebooting vs.hours/days/weeks troubleshooting.

RadioFan · Post by **RadioFan** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 5:18 am

diT wrote:it was prolly the system restore.

Either way, I'm still going to make it a point to buy you a beer soon, damn it!

The DiT-RF OU watch party is on the schedule this year. :twisted: