BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant

Subject: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Nemesis
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 06:17 PM

He-elp!
I knew it wasn't going to work - teenage house guest and within two hours he's stuffed me computer: gone on to some fecking Ring-tone download site that's downloaded a programme onto the computer that I now need to "download an online uninstall programme" for...and which kindly warns

"Removing n-CASE might remove or cripple software applications you like and use everyday."

and then "click here to download uninstaller"

Anyone techy-minded 'catter come across this site:
"http://www.n-case.com/ncaseaduninstall.html" and what happened when you clicked to "download installer"?

PS: the computer system is normally password protected, but I let his Mum on to set up a Hotmail account .... never, never turn your back on someone else's unhouse-trained kid (she said, bolting the stable door after the horse had bolted)
Nem
xx

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 06:21 PM

download spybot - just had success with similar crap

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: wysiwyg
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 06:21 PM

Can you do a rollback?????

If not, I'll volunteer ofr the knee-breaking squad!

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Jim McCallan
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 06:22 PM

Will 'Add/Remove Programs' not take it out?

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: s&r
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 06:36 PM

it really works - free (or voluntary donation)

stu

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Nemesis
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 06:50 PM

The Add and Delete programme .. it hacked that as well: "You have to go online to download Uninstaller"

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Jim McCallan
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 06:57 PM

Maybe if you downloaded and ran the uninstaller, and then ran Spybot, or another programme called AdAware, it would remove any registry entries that the uninstaller failed to.
A virus scan afterwards may not be a bad idea, neither.

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: s&r
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 06:58 PM

Don't download anything else from an untrustworthy site. They've stuffed you once, and they're looking for a chance to stuff you again.

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 07:09 PM

It sounds like one of the "download managers" used by many of the "music sharing" sites. Most likely all that will be disabled is the download program itself, but some of them bury themselves pretty deep, so Spybot would be a good choice for a "cleaner." Spybot alone will not generally remove the program - it's only intended to remove the spyware components contained in the program.

Nearly all the "music sharing" download sites that require you to use their own program to download stuff incorporate some pretty invasive "spyware," and programs like Spybot are designed to take the spyware out. (Taking just the spyware out does usually disable the download program - they design it that way so you'll have to re-load the program if you want more downloads, and they get to put the spyware back.) They put the scary warnings on to make you think you "have to" leave it on the machine.

In many cases, using their uninstall will take the "program" out, but will leave their spyware on the machine - so that they can continue to track your surfing (or worse). If you're dealing with one of those sites, using Spybot after you've uninstalled their program by any available method is strongly recommended.

If the program shows in the Program Manager "Add/Remove software" you can probably uninstall it using Program Manager, although there's no guarantee that you'll get everything - since they usually go to some lengths to hide the "junk" components. You'll have to decide whether to try their uninstall, and hope it does a complete removal of the program. After uninstall, use Spybot or one of the other good programs to make sure the tracking junk gets removed.

John

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 07:15 PM

If you do a web-search for "n-case removal" you'll find several sites given help on this, for example: n-case removal

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: mooman
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 07:20 PM

Dear Nemesis,

You can certainly try Spybot (which is free) but n-CASE is notoriously difficult to remove and I'm not sure Spybot yet fixes it.

One that will work if Spybot fails is Spy Sweeper (free). Another is Pest Patrol (not free I think). However, if you are confident....there are detailed removal instructions at this site.

Good luck and all the best!

Love

Richard

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Gypsy
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 08:34 PM

Sounds to me like the beastie owes you some ducats for a techie to come in and fix...........I wouldn't fight with it! Not when I didn't create the mess. Surprised that the mother unit hasn't already made the offer.........

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: okthen
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 03:52 AM

I found something similar in my "add/remove programmes", something called "Interstitial ad delivery by 180 search assistant" as it was a large file and I hadn't heard of it I decided to delete it, but got a message telling me to sign on to the internet. I was a bit wary of doing that, so I ran Spybot and hey presto it's gone! At least it appears to have gone.

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: s&r
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 04:31 AM

Any luck yet Nemesis?

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Nemesis
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 06:57 AM

Okthen .. that is exactly it!!! I downloaded Spybot at 1am this morning and tried to run it and it said "WS2_32.DLL" file was missing ..

Tech support (Research Machines) reckon to reload Windows ...

S&R will go back to SpyBot and see if downloading the Spybot upgrades might kick start/ find this missing file.

So, no luck yet Richard ... bloody bloody bloody Hell!!! It's conflicting the keyboard, the mouse, and trying to download stuff when I was typing Mudcat's URL to get here! (Just taken 10 minutes to type this :(

Just my luck the week I finally get a journalistic job breakthrough with the BBC and have umpteen print deadlines (like last Saturday) for folk club publicity ... feck feck feck feck feck feck ......

Kneecappers (or fingercrunchers) queue here to apply ....

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: s&r
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 08:41 AM

Good luck. The whole business cost me about twelve hours online. How about castration?

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 09:29 AM

will you be speaking to the parent of the boy?

Or would the kid even care about the trouble you have had? I've just found another thing that mildly annoys me, bad mannered thoughtless kids, maybe I'll add it to the thread

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: KateG
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 10:11 AM

Frankly, I would take the machine to your local gurus for a speedy fix and make the kid/mom pay -- no reason you should have to mess with this stuff and perhaps make things worse. You did not give the kid permission to play with your computer, you most certainly did not give it permission to download software...and your ability to earn a living is being compromised. It's called responsibility and accountability. No different than if the brat through a ball through your living room window. ....although I like the sound of castration, we don't need more kids like that :-)

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Bassic
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 10:54 AM

Try putting "WS2_32.DLL" into google. You will probably find it available as a free download somewhere. That should then let Spybot do its job. Good luck!

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: okthen
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 11:25 AM

Aha, ahahahahaha, I wonder if that's what got rid of Zonealarm, and winmx, and possibly Yahoo, there's been a lot of funny (peculiar) things going on just lately and I'd put it down to putting a new hard drive in and cleaning up the old one.
I'm going to try and reload that which I've lost and see if that works, it's a nasty little bugger wherever it came from, but I'm pretty sure your guests weren't 'round my house, maybe my kids were trying to download ringtones............ looks like a postmortem is called for.
Will keep an eye on this thread to see how things are going.

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 11:52 AM

Nemesis:

The other important thing to check (unless you're on Broadband)is that your "Dialler" software is still set as you want it.

When working for an ISP I found several occasions when downloading nasty files also recreated the dialler, with a number for an expensive dial-up (be it Porn or cross-border)
Depending on the platform you're using the dialler number can usually be found via Start>Control Panel>Network connections.
The fact that the connection still shows the correct ISP name does NOT mean that the number being dialled is theirs


Best of luck

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Nemesis
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 03:27 PM

TECH LOG: DAY 2

Well, I've spent all day backing up 5 years work - halfway there ..

Apparently, when they were trying to establish a Hotmail account all that happened were pop-ups kept popping up .. (denial in other words) ...

I'll try Google search Bassic ..

and I'll get onto my Server provider and talk me through checking the numbers Nigel .. thanks for that .. get onto it straight away now ..

Bloody bloody bloody hell .. should have been seeing a News Editor today (thank god, this week is not next week)

Many thanks everyone so far ... the guilty party has gone off to make a "homeless" application (literally) .. apparently computers don't do things like this in Spain . where they've just arrived from .. :(

Ho hum ..
Nem
x

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: mooman
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 04:24 PM

Dear Nems,

Bassic's right. You'll be able to download WS2_32.DLL for free (I done that myself) and that should enable Spybot to work.

Peace and good luck (with everything!)

Richard

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 05:31 PM

just as a matter of interest..*grin*

Registrant:
180Solutions, Inc. (NCASE7-DOM)
18702 N CREEK PKWY STE 200
BOTHELL, WA 98011-8019
US

Domain Name: N-CASE.COM

Administrative Contact:
180Solutions, Inc. (I16134-OR) [e-mail]
18702 N CREEK PKWY STE 200
BOTHELL, WA 98011-8019
US
425-402-4130 fax: [phone]

Technical Contact:
Todd, Daniel (WINEIYXOMI) [e-mail]
18702 N CREEK PKWY STE 200
BOTHELL, WA 98011-8019
US
425-402-4130 fax: [phone]

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Nemesis
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 05:40 PM

TECH LOG: DAY 2/ 12 HOURS
Great! :) That's where all send the invoices! And the bill for post-n-case traumatic distress syndrome? And the claim for loss of earnings etc ...

Okay .. I have downloaded WS2_32.dll and Spybot (with the missing WS2_32.dll file) .. however, I have yet to work out out to get Spybot to "find" the file: have extracted WS2_32.dll via WINZIP and have been waving it under Spybot's nose by dropping it into the folder .. Spybot is yet to bite.

Any thoughts, you wonderful people :)
Nem
x

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: okthen
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 05:45 PM

My system's still not back to normal but it's too late tonight.

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 05:55 PM

The dll should be in the WINDOWS/SYSTEM32 directory. You may have to register it: run regsvr32 C:/WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/WS2_32.dll

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: GUEST,Big John (where's my cookie)
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 08:45 PM

Use "System Restore" and reset your computer to a date preceding the dastardly act. If it does not have the desired effect you can "undo" the operation.

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 08:58 PM

On your home machine....you need to set-up multiple accesses/skins/accounts/interfaces....and backup.

In the course of a year probably a dozen different souls/visitors/guests access my machine.

There is "my area" (hidden) and "their area" (open)always use a key-stroke-capture and page-cache on the guest's accounts....

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 09:31 PM

Have you tried reinstalling your operating system to get everything back into sync again?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Amos
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 09:53 PM

Nem:

Consign your Windows machine for guest use and buy yourself a wee iMac.

Your life will bloom!

A

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 07:58 AM

Is SpyBot supposed to take bloody forever to install? We started it up last night and it's still not in properly now, over 12 hours later!

Oh, and pendant - it should be buggEry.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: mooman
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 08:20 AM

Pendant Liz! The mind boggles!

moo

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Nemesis
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 10:44 AM

TECH LOG: DAY 3 - in the Library Internet cafe.

Eating myself into a hypoglaecemic stupor with chocolate has not worked:

This morning the darling system was trying to reset internet connections to acess Belgian Porn sites or some such.

Problem is I'm operating WIN95 .. not supported by Spybot or Ad Aware ... have bought up the town's supply of floppies to back up Work docs etc .. .. there's no help for it .. I'm in the Library now .. will have to get everything off and reload (and upgrade to WIN98)

Perhaps, if I stop eating so much chocolate (after realising I couldn't even access my 300+ mailing group list addresses - to send as BCCs (except by typing in manually with brackets) - to publicise this Friday's guest act (heart-stoppingly, guaranteed fee) ... bloody 'ell ....

MInd blank .. spirit broken .. oops, that was the bathroom scales, broken ...

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Nemesis
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 10:52 AM

"I'm in the li-bar-y now"
Tech Log: DAy 3 - post hypoglaecemic (?) coma

Note to self: Eating pounds of chocolate does not make the problem go away.

This morning the darling system was trying to reset the internet connections to access Belgain porn sites everytime I turned the computer on.

Unfortunately, using WIN 95 - so, not supported by Ad AWare or Spybot.. there's no help for it and have bought up the town supply of floppies to download all the work and reload Windows (and upgrade to 98)

Eating chocolate after finding (on the Library internet access) I can't access 300+ mailing group addresses to publicise this week's club act (just a heart stopping, guaranteed fee).. sh*t!!!

Memo: stop eating chocolate ..

Mind blank .. spirit broken ... oops, bathroom scales broken..
Nem
x

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: mooman
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 10:59 AM

Easy on Nem!

Solving the n-CASE nonsense is just a little problem.

Not eating chocolate is a big problem.

Alas, Windows 95 might be a problem here although you could possibly try the "DIY" link I posted a while back.

Love

moo

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 11:10 AM

Eating myself into a hypoglaecemic stupor with chocolate has not worked


odd that, I find eating chocolate normally solves anything, eventually.

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Nemesis
Date: 05 Apr 04 - 07:39 PM

Well, I've been eating chocolate solidly for a week - a sc-Filk techy person has stripped out the computer of suspicious files, discovered 2 gig-bytes of extra whatever and still the bloody n-case files are cluttering up the desktop and lodged in Add/Remove - tomorrow: lorry load of Kit Kats and deinstalling Windows.

My liberal (sic) mindedness is being severely tested by the grunting, farting, belching perpetrator still occupying the living room sofa-bed ... hum hum

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: KateG
Date: 06 Apr 04 - 08:20 AM

I suggest that you hand said perpetrator your hoover, mop, broom, window squeegee, oven cleaner, silver polish and all other cleaning parephenalia and suggest that he/she/it do something constructive in recompense for your aggravation. Alternatively - or additionally - they could turn over your veggie garden for the new season (a task well suited to youngsters since requires brawn rather than brains. He/she/it and mama my deny responsibility for mucking up your 'puter, but you are putting them up (putting up with them?) and saving them how much a night over the cost of a local hostelry?

And before setting to work, he/she/it can go out and get you some proper chocolates. KitKats have their place, but they are not potent enough for traumas of this magnitude (like fighting fire with a teacup). For that you need the best and darkest chocolate money can buy (dark chocolate has far more of the compounds that make chocolate and effective mood lifter)...and for it to be really effective, the money should not be yours!

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: mooman
Date: 06 Apr 04 - 08:27 AM

Perhaps I should ship you a supply of Belgium's finest Nem...? As Kate said, it may be the only sure remedy!

moo

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: wysiwyg
Date: 06 Apr 04 - 09:22 AM

Well, just know that we're eating chocolate WITH you, just to keep you *company* dear!

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: okthen
Date: 06 Apr 04 - 01:43 PM

I've been popping back to this thread now and then to see how you were getting on and at times sympathising with your continuing troubles and occasionally feeling a little superior (I get so little chance) as I managed to get rid of my similar problem.......... that was untill I decided to check it hadn't snuck back in, it had. So I'm back to square one, I did, however, do a google search for 180 search asssistant and will be trying their remedies soon. (Note that this thread came up in the search).
Hope you get this fixed, will check to see your progress, and vow never to feel superior again.

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: Nemesis
Date: 06 Apr 04 - 05:02 PM

Okay, 48 hours before BBC work committment - 72 hours past getting press review of club night in paper; umpteen musicians thinking they're not playing at a festival and 100s of people screaming they've missed their regional music E-newsletter .. grunting and farting still going on ,..... have directed aforementioned to large woodpile at end of garden, and fence paint and fences - no luck yet ... feck feck feck .. have asked corner shop to lay in dark chocolate for this weekend...and this damn keyboard is hell to type on!!!

Night mare of highest convoluted magnitude - life and career collapsing as we speak - washing up piling up in direct proportion.

This keyboard (windows system conflict is appalling so can't type more right now .. will try and get out some emails and save life on "this" planet as I know it!!)

Nem
xx

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: steve in ottawa
Date: 06 Apr 04 - 05:41 PM

Backups are like car insurrance: they're pretty damn important.

I recommend Acronis (True Image 7.0) Backup Program.
http://www.acronis.com
US$50.
Very simple to learn.
About 22 MB, you can download it on-line (if you have a credit card). It'll run in the background just fine while you chat on Mudcat. If you only have one disk, you can ask it to set aside a section of your disk as an unreachable special backup zone (in Linux format, I think) which Windows viruses will have a very hard time attacking. It only saves full disk-partition images, but you don't have to restore full partitions (to restore only selected files, you can load any full backup or incremental backup as a disk image and then simply copy the files you want from the selected backup -- that's the sort of thing to do when someone has messed up your system: crawl through your incremental backups until you find the one without the bad program, then restore that entire disk image (to get the system files just right), then restore any subsequent data files you want from subsequent incremental disk images.) I've restored my system twice and my dad's system about a dozen times with this program, without any problems.

More cheaply, if you only have Windows98, you can effectively backup your system with XXCopy to back up files, and LFN (long file names) Tools
to restore your long file names from within DOS. After Windows98, simply re-copying the files into place isn't enough to restore your system.

Never keep your backups on the same disk partition where the originals are stored (Acronis won't allow you to - you must create its backup zone if you have no "D" drive). Preferably, keep them on a different disk. Best of all, move copies to another site occasionally.

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: wysiwyg
Date: 06 Apr 04 - 09:01 PM

I run all my PR email announcements off a Hotmail account, keep the addys there too, as well as a text backup of the addys on the HD. For one essential mail list, someone offsite also keeps a text copy AND has the email password to send things when I can't for any reason. PR is more important that data, IMO.

But sometimes.... you just have to take the slacktime generated by a disaster, sit in the ditch laughing like a loon, and see what new path you may be aimed for when the dust clears.

And that can be a VERY good thing.

If all else fails, toss the live HD in the bathtub when fartyboy is in there having a nice long soak. It will resolve just about everything, and you can count on us to send you any chocolate we don't consume ourselves.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: s&r
Date: 07 Apr 04 - 04:09 AM

Don't blame your guest for the trouble though - blame the weirdos that produce these invasive programs.

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: KateG
Date: 07 Apr 04 - 07:16 AM

s&r is right...to a point. But I still think you should set fartyboy to supplying you with chocolate and cleaning the house. What's the use of kids if you can't put them to work...at least that was my mom's theory.

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: GUEST,KB
Date: 07 Apr 04 - 08:26 AM

Have been having problems with rediculously slow internet access from home. Downloaded Adaware and Spybot & ran them (in that order) - now it flies along just like new. They are great - assuming you have a compatible operating system.
Spybot downloaded & installed with no great delay - dunno what's wrong with yours Liz! Is it OK now?
Nemesis - I hope your system is sorted soon. Sounds like hell! - I found alcohol quite a useful tonic when wrestling with my machine, though had a small amount of chocolate grudgingly spared from Om's easter egg. AND getting rid of Omlit for an hour or two... Enthusiastic 13yr old "in yer face" is not conducive to concentration.

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Apr 04 - 09:42 AM

Perhaps fartyboy would enjoy this Mudcat Classic:

KITTY LITTER CAKE

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: TECH: buggary bastards rant
From: mooman
Date: 07 Apr 04 - 10:59 AM

Or to give this thread an additional musical twist, how about some of:

Utah Phillips's Moose Turd Pie?

Peace

moo