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Help for a Novice ?
Heya. I'm having lots of trouble since adding SP2 and some of my applications won't work any. Windows Explorer gives me a Runtime Error 216 at 00002D80 and when I click to close it the address changes to 000055AA. I think it might be a Subseven/Backdoor Virus. But my AV software does'nt reconize it and its up to date.But since the add on of SP2 lots of other things have not worked well either. I can't use System Restore to get rid of SP2 and other ways either that I've tried. My main question is can I restart my comp and then hit the F2 key every 3 seconds until the Entering Setup message appears then press ALT + F2 to load the Factory defaults and then change the secondary drive 0 setting to Auto then change Legacy Support to Enabled then press the Alt + B7 and reboot. My main thinking I guess would be would this change my comp settings back to the way they were when I got my comp ? And also if I did that would it keep the stuff that came loaded on the comp like MS Office SB and the other software that was loaded when it came ? And just in case that did not work could I use my Reinstallation CD that came shipped to get it back to SP1 for the meantime. I have never tried to reinstall from the OEM CD on any comp so I don't know where or how to go about that if the first job would not work. Thanks for any help on this because I have been working on it to get it off and its not listed in ADD/REMOVE either. Thanks for any help. I have a Dimension 8250, Windows XP Pro, 512mb Ram, 120gb HD, 2.53 Pent. 4 CPU. I might need to reset my BIOS too as its at A03 now but I'm not for sure about that one. If anyone knows if any of these steps will work ok to get rid of SP2 for awhile please let me know. Thanks. Take care.
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Posted December 30th, 2004 21:00
Thanks JRosenfeld for the tips ya gave me. I'll have do some figuring out I guess but still thanks. OK I do have a CD burner for things. ( Adaptec Easy CD creator ) but can I use CD-R disks to restore some files if I get SP2 off or would I need to use a CD-RW disks to reinstall things ? Thanks for the help ya sent. Take care.266
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Posted January 1st, 2005 19:00
CDRs are in most/all cases the preferred media to do anything.266
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Posted January 2nd, 2005 04:00
Thanks Maxd for the info here. I did think it was ok do to it with the CDR's but I wanted to make sure of things before I started it so I did'nt mess the machine up no more. So after I thought about it I did wonder if the CDR's would write back to the comp. Thanks again for the help. Everyone in here seems nice for helping out with things witch of course is a good thing. Sooner or later something might happen that we just don't understand. Thanks for the help again. I still did'nt find my files to delete SP2 for some reason but I do have the $NtServicePackUnistall$ file under the C: drive so I'll see what that can do. Take care and thanks.266
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Posted January 2nd, 2005 15:00
In a small number of cases uninstalling SP2 has caused the need for a complete format and reinstall of XP; in this case you will lose evrything that's on your system. If you decide to uninstall SP2 I would (attempt to) set a restore point first to avoid further damage. If SR doesn't work turn it off, reboot and then turn it back on. It will work this time. Do an online AV scan and run an updated AdAware scan before you make the restore point.Set the restore point.Try these 4 ways to uninstall SP2, in order.266
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Posted January 2nd, 2005 16:00
Hi
If you feel it is a backdoor trojan than if you post your thread in the Virus/Spyware forum we can look into your problem.
Good luck,
Steve
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Posted January 3rd, 2005 04:00
Hi Steve. Thanks and I will get to that forum before I do anything to start the reinstall because I do think its some type of Backdoor/Subseven virus that was on here but also it was more problems after I did install SP2 so it may have been the cause of it but no other problems were happening at the time of the SP2 install except the Runtime Error 216 when I ran Explorer to find a file/folder search. Thanks for the help too and to all of ya thats helped. Yall are good at this so thanks for all the tips yall have gave me so far. Good info from everyone so I do appreciate it all from yall. Thanks.266
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Posted January 3rd, 2005 04:00
Thanks again Maxd. I'll follow the steps that you sent too. I'll go do it soon albeit I just got in from work but I'll do all the things you sent step by step probably first thing in the morning and see if things work good. Take care and thanks
JRosenfeld
2 Intern
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4383 Posts
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Posted December 30th, 2004 19:00
Changing the settings in BIOS (or setup, same thing) will not alter any files or installed software on the hard drive. . The BIOS settings essentially relate to the hardware in your PC not to the software. A wrong setting in BIOS might cause Windows not to interact properly with one or other hardware device, but other than that BIOS settings have no connection with the way Windows runs nor will changing BIOS settings change the working/nonworking of system restore or anything else in Windows that may be malfunctioning.
Unless you deleted the folder C:\WINDOWS\$NtServicePackUninstall$ or some related registry keys, SP2 should be listed in add/remove and you could remove it from there. Whether that would solve your problems is a different question.
If it does not appear there, the other ways of removing SP2 are given in
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=875350
If you have SP2 installed, you will not be able to use your XP SP1 CD to do a repair install (it will say that the version on your drive is later and refuse). If you want to try a repair install with that CD you do first have to uninstall SP2.
Your other options would be to do a clean install of XP SP1 and then install SP2 or to make a slipstreamed XP CD that includes SP2 and use that for a repair or for a clean install.
If you do a clean install, one early step is to reformat the drive: this deletes everything on it. Therefore before you do that, you should copy to CD or DVD (assuming that you have a CDR or DVDR drive) all your data files, favourites, email, addressbook etc. Then after reinstalling XP SP1 you would need to reinstall drivers for your hardware (starting with chipset drivers) then all other software and Windows updates (though for the latter you could just use the full SP2 setup that you can get on CD) and reset your internet and email accounts, etc..
If you want to make an SP2 slipstreamed CD, you could try Autostreamer (free)
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?s=b4b2dec6302e250fb2a0e390f4046bac&showtopic=223562
Again that assumes that you have a CD burner with appropriate software (Roxio or Nero for example). You would also need the full SP2 update package.
Repair install:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm#warning1
Clean install:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
or search in DellSupport for their instructions for the 8250.
However, before doing any of that, there are a few things that you might do to see if they help.
1. click start, run, type sfc /scannow click OK. [note space between c and /]. Let the system file checker run. This may take some time. If it finds corrupted or missing files It should look for replacement files in C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386 and other backup folders, but if it can't find what it wants it may ask for the XP CD and then complain that the CD is for an earlier version.
2. In My computer or Windows Explorer, right click on C drive icon, click properties, Tools tab, click the button check now in the error checking section. Check the box automatically fix file system errors. click OK. You'll get a message to restart your PC. Then Chckdsk will run on reboot and should replace any missing or corrupted files.
3. Do an on line virus scan, I suggest from here:
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
4. Check for malware and spyware, using Adaware SE, Spybot S&D, both free. Also run HijackThis and post the log on the virus removal forum.
For details on these apps see, for example
http://www.cjwd.demon.co.uk/compsafetyonline.html
Be sure to use their check for updates functions before scanning the PC.
Finally, you mention some apps don't work too well. For a comprehensive list of links relating to SP2 and issues with other software, see
http://jmfmvps.mvps.org/SP2.htm
Apaert from the particular issues mentioned there most problems with SP2 arise from not having cleaned up the PC thoroughly before installing it. Also installing SP2 from the full download *saved to disk) or from the freely available CD is more reliable than from an online install via Windows update.
Message Edited by JRosenfeld on 12-30-2004 09:26 PM