For the last few months I have migrated over to Google Chrome to be my default web browser. It was all working fine till one day last week, chrome refused to load any website. As a typical user of Windows system, I uninstalled chrome and reinstalled the same, sadly that step did not help (of course I repeated this step multiple times hoping it will work at some point). Around the same time I noticed that the other browsers like Firefox and IE had started to work with diminished capacity. When I say diminished capacity I mean, I do a google search and click on the results I would be redirected to a malware website and pop ups come up every now and then.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that the system has been infected by a malware or some such virus. So, I un-installed the AVG free antivirus (which I had been hoping will save me money) and installed the Norton Internet Security 2010. After doing a complete system scan with Norton I was surprised to see that no virus was found. Next step I ran the Malwarebytes to detect any malware infections, still no luck. One good thing that came out of installing Norton was that the other browsers started to work better (read less redirection to malware and less popup) but Chrome still did not budge.
After doing some Google search I found that the registry settings may have been modified by a virus or a malware and websites suggested registry fix options and alternate browsers. I tried a couple of free registry fix softwares and that didn't fix the problem either.
As a last resort I booted the system with windows installer CD and asked it to repair the system. It took a whole hour and a few reboots and a ton of Microsoft updates later chrome started to work fine and firefox was back up too but another problem showed up and IE refused to load.
As a last resort I booted the system with windows installer CD and asked it to repair the system. It took a whole hour and a few reboots and a ton of Microsoft updates later chrome started to work fine and firefox was back up too but another problem showed up and IE refused to load.
Last step was to make IE work and for this I had to uninstall the previous installations of IE using the alternative steps described and then download and do a fresh installation of IE8. After all this IE started to work but with disclaimer "IE is running with add-ons disabled". Again after consulting Dr. Google, I had to install and un-install Google toolbar and again re-install the same to get rid of the disclaimer.
The post looks like an ad for Norton or scare people away from windows towards Mac or Linux but that is not my intent. My intent is to say that registry fix softwares alone might not fix all the problems. There probably was an easy way like system restore to an earlier date but I was concerned that the restore may screw up my installations of Norton and other softwares.
2 comments:
Kind of why I feel Windows should be reinstalled every few months. Back up everything to an external HDD and start from scratch. :)
You have given me a perfect opportunity to say "Use Linux", but I'll resist. I find it generally useful to reinstall my OS once in a while. I can shed a lot of flab from the machine and fix minor ailments too. Of course, Linux distros ship every 6 months and that gives another reason to reinstall :-)
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