Windows XP or McAfee problem?

It is McAfee, remove it. Use an alternative. You usually do not need all that protection McAfee offers if you are running a fully patched SP2 XP. There are several Free anti-virus softwares that are much better than McAfee.

http://shop.ca.com/STContent/Microsoft/Default.aspx?sc_lang=en-US   1 year Free

http://www.download.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10320142.html  Free forever

  http://www.download.com/Avast-Home-Edition/3000-2239_4-10602417.html?tag=lst-0-10  Free forever

 

McAfee can be very difficult to remove sometimes, so use this tool to help with that.

http://ts.mcafeehelp.com/faq3.asp?docid=408302

_PTAWIA is a part of your Kodak software program. 

As already mentioned, do yourself a huge favor and dump the heavily bloated McAfee..  Beached whales have been known to be much leaner....:smileyvery-happy:

 

And the other mysterious PTAWIA file is definitely a few leftover remnants of your Kodak EasyShare. Did you remove it correctly via the "add & remove programs" ?  If you did, then I don't know why it left some remnants behind....  You could always try the (free) CCleaner program; it will find old invalid files like that. I happen to like that particular program because it has never botched up anything in either of my Dimensions. Seems relatively safe; I would think you'd be safe to delete all old files it finds... You could always create a system restore point priot to deleting anything just in case if you want.

 

Going back to McAfee...  I subscribed to Virus Scan for three years, and I must admit I did like it when it was merely a virus scan program. But now they have taken a good antivirus program and created this huge, huge, bloated  "all in one"  Security Center thing that has everything under the sun bundled into it. AntiVirus... Spamblocker... Firewall...  Privacy Plus things... and who knows what else. What a shame... they ruined it...

 

A very good free one that you might consider is AVG antivirus. A much leaner antivirus, and it gets some darn good grades too. Usually highly recommended on various forums too.

For my firewall here I have the ole' workhorse Zone Alarm running here flawlessly.

 

Whatever you choose, you can zip over to the Gibson Research Shields's Up website and run their free port scanner to test the integrety of your computer.  When I scan mine here, it always comes up as "fully stealthed" so I'm quite happy with that. Of course in today's cyberland, one cannot be overly confident though..:smileywink:

Thank you very much Tommy!

 

As I stated previously, I am not so computer literate.  Downloading the new antivirus program you talked about sounds complicated.  Do you think I can handle it?  What would the exact web address be?  Does the new anti-virus also come with a firewall, or do you think that the Windows XP firewall is sufficient? 

Thanks again for your information!

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/avg-anti-virus-free/lng/us/tpl/v5

 

Hmm.. we're both alike; I'm not that computer literate neither:smileyvery-happy:

 

Here's the link for AVG free edition. It has always run flawless for me; no troubles at all. As far as a firewall, I use Zone Alarm (free too).  I don't have any experience with the built-in Windows Firewall, but I recall reading a few comments that it does work fine. Not sure how it compares to Zone Alarm.

 

If by chance you do wish to change to AVG, do a google search for the McAfee uninstaller.  I had a major, major problem in trying to remove all McAfee files.  I didn't run their uninstaller at first and I botched up the proper removal process. I finally got so tee'd off that I did a reinstall of Windows XP.

 

You might want to read up on the proper way to get rid of McAfee.  Believe me, it does imbed itself very deeply into the registry.  Maybe you might wish to read up on how to remove it before you actually do.......    At this typing, I don't have that uninstaller link.... maybe somebody will know where it is.  ( dinner time here, lol..   gotta go...)  ..

Windows built in firewall  is ok for incoming, but has no ability to block outgoing data like Zone Alarm has.

Yikes... I'm glad to know that...  I was under the impression that the Windows XP SP-2 firewall did block outgoing traffic.  But I never knew with certainty because I never used it. I use A slightly older version of Zone Alarm. (newest version gave me some minor issues...)

 

Thanks for mentioning that..... I learn something new every day..:smileyhappy:

 

Vista's firewall blocks some outgoing, but I am sure it does not stop anything microsoft wants to let out past the firewall.

Absolutely...   About five times a day, and single every day too.... my Zone Alarm pops up a prompt asking if I want to allow "Windows Genuine Advantage" to run.  It doesn't matter if I click yes or no; it will still come up again and again. And I already installed Microsoft's  Windows Update tool that scans your operating system for verification purposes. My XP Home operating system came pre-installed from Dell.... no piracy here, lol... 

Must be some kind of Microsoft "phone home" thing.:smileyvery-happy: