Shoutbox

ok guys, this is getting ridiculous. my computer seems to be dying. unbelievable amount of lag going on. i can hardly do anything. i'm in desperation mode now. i found my hosts file and opened it with notepad. here's what i found:

# Copyright 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host
127.0.0.1       localhost


i don't see any web pages or anything in there...

i was going through kevin's list of free online sites to clean up my computer. they weren't working too well, most of em were unavailable. i was able to download bitdefender, though. it started scanning automatically, while i had a different scan going. things were going well when my computer just sort of froze up. and ever since then, i've been having MAJOR issues. i tried uninstalling it and some weird things happened. now it's not on my list of programs but it IS still on my computer. when i go to programs/bitdefender/modify, repair, or uninstall, it starts to do something and then says that it can't modify it because it's not installed. i KNOW it's at least partly installed because it runs at startup! this is so bad... can we save my computer??

i suppose i should try to save as much information as i can before reformatting, eh? i'll lose everything?

well, i was in 'safe mode with networking' and browsing around. it was the only way i could use the computer without unbelievable lag. when i scanned with this site: http://www.klitetools.com/comments.php?id=2088&ca...t=Dr.Web+CureIT%21
it found SOMETHING and i got rid of it. i also did some of the things on this site: http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/ven...ta/w32.chod.d.html like the things it tells you to do in the registry. i deleted some of the stuff in there. it wasn't all accurate, but i did as much as possible. when i rebooted in normal mode, much to my surprise, things ran smoothly! so i don't know if it's really GONE, but i like the way things are running now. i still can't open the sites that were listed previously. they aren't in my hosts file, so i don't know why i can't go to them. if anyone has any other suggestions on how to unblock those, that'd be great.

anyway, thanks for the help everyone

it's completely empty now, but i still can't open those web pages... should i just say 'oh well'? or is there gonna be a solution that doesn't involve formatting the computer?