Com-Pac Yacht Owners Association

My Dell Desktop is upcuffing again.

SYSTEM:
MicroSoftWindows XP, Professional. Version 2002. Service Pak 3

COMPUTER:
Intel [R], Pentium [R] 4CPU 3.20 GHz, 3.20GHz, 1.00 GB of Ram, Physical Address Extention

She'll run 20 to 40 minutes after START then a message box shows up on the monitor giving a 60 second count down to shut off.
You have to in a panic save whatever your working on or loose it. Explains some of my screwy posts on a non-editing site.

It will shut off-restart-run in about 3 minutes and 15 seconds by it's self for 20 to 40 minutes and repeat. Showing the message count down again...Here is the message I photographed off the monitor.



Any Ideas Thanks Skip.

Skip,

Sounds like malware to me. I did a quick Google search and found recommendations for Hitman Pro, downloadable free. Check it out here: http://download.cnet.com/Hitman-Pro-3/3000-2239_4-10895604.html

Major CAVEAT!! I work on both Mac and WinTel POS platforms, but am mostly a Mac guy. So I'm not recommending Hitman to you. Just passing along what I got from the Google.

Larry

Skip - if you have another machine at your disposal try Microsoft Knowledge Base and search for the DCOM Server Process Launcher.  I left the business at the time of Windows 2000 so I can't say I recognize the reference, but I would agree that it was likely some malware, or it may be your virus scan software.  Have you recently installed new virus scan software or any other software even simple downloads from the web?  You can go to the tray at the bottom right of your screen - find the virus scan (if you have one installed - shame on you if you don't) - right click it and you should be able to stop the service.  Reboot and double check that the service is still disabled and see what happens.  You know, old computers make excellent anchors!!!

Ron

From the Windows User Group Network:
http://help.wugnet.com/windows/DCOM-server-process-launcher-terminated-unexpectedly-ftopict633603.html

QuoteThere seem to be several ways to deal with this; here are 3:

Start -> Run -> type "services.msc" without quotations
Select "DCOM Server Process Launcher"
Right Click -> Properties
Change Startup type to Disabled
Click on Recovery Tab
Change all failures to Take No Action

OR:
When you see the timer, go to Start/Run, and type in "shutdown -a"
(without quotes) and hit enter. This should disable the timer.
Step 3 - Download HJT from http://www.merijn.org/files/hijackthis.zip
and post a log file as a reply in this forum, and an expert will look
over the log file for any malware and post instructions for how to
remove it.

OR:

Disable automatic restart on system failure (on SP2): Press F8 on
restart, and see the menu item to disable auto restart. Restart,
and when the STOP message appears, record information needed for
further troubleshooting.

AFTER YOU STOP THE DCOM FROM SHUTTING DOWN/RESTARTING, RUN A COMPLETE
(NOT the QUICK option) SCAN OF YOUR COMPUTER, AND ANY EXTERNAL HARD
DRIVES ATTACHED, USING MALWARBYTES. Make sure you also have something
like Norton Symantec or McAfee, or comparable, running to block any more
intrusions. Malwarbytes is a free anti-malware software; you'll have to
download.
Hope this helps.

Get a Mac

Skip-

5 tips...I've been in IT for 20 years. Been there, done that.


1.) Install "ccleaner".  Google it.  It's free.  Run it every day.  This cleans up your computer quite a bit. 
2.) Install "spybot seach and destroy".  Again google it..again it's free.  Run the scan (takes a long time) and then it will run in the background to protect again spyware inteh future.
3.) Boot up and don't open anything yet.  Go to the C:\windows folder in Windows Explorer.  Then find the prefetch folder.  Erase all files in this folder (highlight then press delete key). Reboot.  It may take a little longer on the first boot but should run better overall.
4.) Install AVG antivirus (the base version is free).  Tell it to scan every week after the first scan.  It will take a long time. And it will find things! Google AvG antivirus.
5.) Open msconfig.exe.  (click "start", then "run"..type "msconfig.exe" then press enter.  Click on the startup tab.  See all the programs? They will start when you boot up the PC.  Look for DCOM here.  Uncheck the box.  Click OK and OK to the warning. Then go to control panel, add remove programs and remove anything that says DCOM there (and anything that you don't remember installing).  If you're brave, you can uncheck other items in the list.  Write them down!  If something stops working (like your printer, a sound card or another program), Go back in and "check" what you "unchecked".  Do one at a time each day  or better yet each week when you boot up.   Say OK to the changes after boot up.  Some programs will run all the time and they don't have to (just slows your PC down).  You will find that you'll only need 2-4 items on there for everything to work well.  And you find that others do need to be there for certain things to work right (like sound, your printer,the right display format).  Just write down what you unchecked and when and recheck if something breaks. 

By the way, this is a "malware" program.  It got installed from either opening an email with the program in it, by opening a website you shouldn't have (tough to know what is good vs. bad), dumb luck or it was attached to a free program you may have installed. 
Between #1, 2 and 4 above you won't get them anymore. 

Warning about the antivirus program...they all make your PC run slower on all but the most modern systems.  If it runs slow now, I would just backup everything you want to save on another hard drive (or USB flash drive) and reformat the c drive and reinstall everything from scratch.  If you don't know how to do this, read up online before you do.  It's easy the second time, perhaps a little tricky the first.  I've had to do this more times than I care to recall...

Quote from: Salty19 on February 17, 2010, 04:28:33 PM
It got installed from either opening an email with the program in it, by opening a website you shouldn't have (tough to know what is good vs. bad), dumb luck or it was attached to a free program you may have installed.

Come on...we all know how it Really got installed  ;)

"Ask me no questions; I'll tell you no lies."

My neighbor pumped more life into this computer. Had to remove one of the two hard drives out of it.
I'll have to reload my favorites and pictures saved on this 'puter machine...that will take some doing. But at least she's up and running again.
And tonight is Oscar night.

skip.

Its not for everyone but installing Linux or a BSD varient such as FreeBSD is one way to make good use of some of the oldest hardware on the planet, or some of the newest.

See www.freebsd.org.  You can configure a computer as "dual boot" and try it out.  If you are using your computer for just email and web, install firefox from the ports collection and a mail client such as thunderbird or evolution.  I use nmh but most people would prefer a GUI.

FreeBSD is definitely more for people with programming experience, but with patience and a look at the handbook (online off the web page) it is not inpenatrable.  Plan to spend considerable time and its best to have someone that knows how to do this walk you through the install.

One of my computers running a recent version of FreeBSD (6.2) is 12 years old.  Another computer running FreeBSD is 15 years old, quite usable, and completely free of viruses.

Linux tends to be easier for non-programmers to install than FreeBSD.  Again, dual boot is possible so you could always go back if you miss your windows viruses.

Curtis

ps - We now return to our usual topic of sailing.

Thanks, Curtis.
   I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about but it sure sounds impressive. I always enjoy listening to people who know more than I do about a certain subject and I have no problem finding such company.
   Ask me anything about air-cooled VW's or dual carb sychronization on older British cars and I might be able to help out but, as they say, when it comes to computers, I know just enough to get myself into trouble. Too bad, I'm sure it's just another branch of mechanics that I could figure out if I had the right teacher.
Bob23
(ps: I'm also an amateur expert on time travel!)

OK.  Never mind.

CurtisV
I have never been a Mac guy so I couldn't say this as a fact but I understand the new Mac OS is derived from Linux.  I'd say that would be a smart move by Apple.

Ron

Great advice in many of the postings... I am also a "Mac guy" but I do use an old IBM computer for interfacing with the radio (need serial ports which in turn need PCMCIA cards, etc...). For over a decade (!!) I used a Toshiba Tecra 8000 but after many XP updates, a few months ago  it simply ran down to a crawl and I just "upgraded" to a used ThinkPad T60 (built like a tank!). Interestingly, For years I have been running the same "suite" of free software recommended by Salt19 (Ccleaner, SpyBot and the Free AVG) without ever having a glitch... So, all this to say that I heartily endorse his recommendations:

1.) Install "ccleaner".  Google it.  It's free.  Run it every day.  This cleans up your computer quite a bit. 
2.) Install "spybot seach and destroy".  Again google it..again it's free.  Run the scan (takes a long time) and then it will run in the background to protect again spyware inteh future.
3.) Boot up and don't open anything yet.  Go to the C:\windows folder in Windows Explorer.  Then find the prefetch folder.  Erase all files in this folder (highlight then press delete key). Reboot.  It may take a little longer on the first boot but should run better overall.
4.) Install AVG antivirus (the base version is free).  Tell it to scan every week after the first scan.  It will take a long time. And it will find things! Google AvG antivirus.

Great stuff!

J.

Hi Joe-

No question if you are on the internet without these 3 forms of security, you're at risk.   

Recently built a new PC and it's a monster!  3.14gz Duo Core CPU overclocked to 3.7gz, 8 GB of fast ram, Gigabyte EP-GA45-UD3P motherboard (an overclocking dream of a board), HT Omega audio, Sapphire HD4890 graphics, two 1 TB server class drives running RAID 5, Antec P182 case (with 5 fans +graphics and CPU fans), ACER 23" monitor and Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.    Been building 'em since about 1998.

Nothing slows it down!  In flight simulator ten it runs 58 frames per second with all settings on max. Smooth as butta!

I've been tempted by MAC's.  Very few security concerns but I like the "access" to the file system for backups and tweakingl and I guess I've always been a windows guy except a brief stint using a Mac II years ago.

Salty19...

Wooohoooo! That is some mean machine...

Since you build them I guess you won't be tempted by a Mac, However, liking Windows should not be a deterrent... I am running Windows XP in a MacBook Pro using "Parallels". Both the Mac OS and Windows run concurrently in the same machine with the Windows Desktop showing up as - as the name suggests - a "Window"... Really neat!  And so far, all my WIndows applications seem to run without a glitch. I could have disposed of the Toshiba... except for the two serial ports (which in the Toshiba and ThinkPad I get using a StarTech PCMCIA card).

J.

When the time comes to get a laptop I may go the MAC route and use a virtual copy of Windows.  I've seen it in action as you have...very impressed.

Quote from: Potcake boy on March 09, 2010, 09:47:13 AM
CurtisV
I have never been a Mac guy so I couldn't say this as a fact but I understand the new Mac OS is derived from Linux.  I'd say that would be a smart move by Apple.

Ron

The kernel of the OS is closer in heritage to FreeBSD than any of the other BSD distribution.  BSD is Berkeley Software Distribution from University of California at Berkeley (UCB) which dates back to 1981 when it was a varient of AT&T's Unix.  Since then all of the AT&T code was replaced, as of BSD4.4.  The three major varients are NetBSD, which aims for portability across many platforms, FreeBSD, which initially aimed for a highly stable BSD on commodity Intel hardware (PCs) but has branched out to Sun, PowerPC, and other platforms, and OpenBSD, which focused on a very hight level of security.

The Linux kernel has an entirely different lineage.

Both BSD and Linux use "open source" utilities where the base utilities are derived from the Free Software Foundation GNU project at MIT, which dates back to the 1970s and is still alive and well.  This is probably what your MAC guy (and many MAC and PC people) mistook MAC OSX to be derived from Linux.  MAC OSX shares a lot in common with Linux and BSD, but to the extent it is derived from either, it is much closer to being a strain of BSD.  The biggest difference is Apple wrote their own windowing system which supports X-Windows applications where both Linux and BSD today use X-Windows as distributed by Xorg.  X-Windows originated at MIT and was long supported by MIT through an affiliated non-profit foundation (X Foundation I think).

Despite what the popular press would have you believe, neither Microsoft or Apple have contributed much in the way of innovation to the world of computer operating systems or networking.  In terms of kernel features such as virtual memory, demand page allocation, a modern fast, robust, and journaling file system, distributed file systems, security, windowing systems, Microsoft is still catching up to where the research world was with Unix and BSD more than a decade ago.  It is no secret that the Internet was exclusively a Unix and BSD network for almost a decade until Microsoft first supported TCP/IP.  MAC was also behind but not by as much.  A Xerox windowing system, a few research windowing systems including MIT X-Windows, and Sun Microsystem's commercial SunWindows all preceeded Apples first use of a windowing system on the first Macintosh computers.  When Apple tried to copyright it, a judge concluded that nothing about Apples windowing system was unique except the shape of the trash container and in a slap in the face to Apple awarded them copyright protection to nothing more than the trash can with a round lid for deleted files.  Audio and video conferencing was on the Internet via the mbone (Multicast Backbone) before Microsoft supported sound or video or networking at all.

The modern Internet was "we" know it, where "we" is the computer science research community officially dates back to 1986 when the NSFnet (National Science Foundation) replaced the ARPAnet (run by Darpa, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Adminstration) for most university research use.  The WWW along with embedded multimedia dates back to at least 1992 and came from CERN in Geneva Switzerland and was originally used by the high energe physics research community but even then they knew it would be more generally useful.  The first web browser to support Windows (3.11) and MAC OSX was Mosaic, written at UIUC (University of Illinious, Urbain Champaign [spelling?]) and neither wrote a web browser for many years to follow.

Back in the 1980s a common analogy was Unix was like a motorcycle, MSDOS a kids bicycle with training wheels and Apple a tricycle.  You needed more skill to operate the motorcycle and some people found them all out scary but you weren't going to go very fast or very far on the other two.

I'm way off topic again.  :-)

Curtis

Hey Bill Gates stole DOS, why can't Apple steal BSD?  :)

Quote from: Salty19 on March 11, 2010, 12:41:39 PM
Hey Bill Gates stole DOS, why can't Apple steal BSD?  :)

BSD users are delighted that Apple went from their own OS in OS9 to a BSD based OS in OSX.

In the very late 1990s a bug was found (not by Microsoft) in NT.  The bug was in a timer used by all of the drivers that counted time in msec since boot up in a 32 bit integer and caused drivers to hang or crash when it rolled over.  The timer rolled over in 49 days (I think).  It was determined that that bug was in all versions of NT for nearly a decade.  The joke was that no NT system had ever stayed up for more than 7 days so no one ever noticed.

This too belongs in "off topic".

A bug in Microsoft NT...Blasphemy!   Heck, I had a copy installed 8 days straight once.  Then the power was restored and she ran a whole 3 days before the famous BSOD. Truly the worst piece of software garbage since...well...ever!

So I take it you're in IT? I'm in telecom engineering myself...used to work for UUNET too..

Quote from: Salty19 on March 11, 2010, 11:35:40 PM

So I take it you're in IT? I'm in telecom engineering myself...used to work for UUNET too..

Not really IT, but I did work for UUNET.  Been more on the software side of making routers work though for a time I was in network architecture.

Curtis

And the UUNET legacy continues....odd how most people have no clue who they are/were yet their influence changed the face of the internet as business and the consumer knows it today.     Were you working out of VA?

OK after my neighbor got my machine up and running again, by taking out one of the two hard drives, all my favorites are still listed but usually I need to re find the page on the web and re add the page to my favorites. The message reads:

Innernet Shortcut Problem.
The Target "" of this Internet Shortcut is not valid. Go to the Internet Shortcut property sheet and make sure the target is correct.

So? Any ideas? I have been looking up Internet Shortcut on Goggle and still find no answers. " Internet Shortcut property sheet ".
What and where is it. What do you do with it providing I actually find it.

Thank You. skip.

Quote from: Salty19 on March 12, 2010, 12:25:40 AM
And the UUNET legacy continues....odd how most people have no clue who they are/were yet their influence changed the face of the internet as business and the consumer knows it today.     Were you working out of VA?

ANS was bought from AOL and merged with UUNET and that's how I ended up in UUNET.  ANS had at least as much if not more influence on the early Internet having run the T1-NSFNET in its later years and run the T3-NSFNET for the duration of its existance (1992-1995).  I lived in CT and worked from home and only went to VA for meetings now and then.

Did you work for UUNET out of VA?

Curtis

Curt-  No I've always worked in OH, but like you have been to the VA campus a few times.   I came from the Compuserve Network Services side of the house back in '98.