removed software causing problems?
 

Hi guys, last night my mrs installed Shareaza on our win98 client. She decided she didnt like it (seems to use a *lot* of bandwidth) and tried to uninstall it.

Guess what? It didnt install properly (yay windows), so i went through and manually removed all references to it from files and registry. Reboot, comp runs fine.

However the network is now buggered. Pings are frequently timing out if the computers even see each other at all. I've removed all the ethernet adapters and protocols from the client and reinstalled them without effect.

Could this software have changed anything else somewhere that is causing this problem? Nothing's changed on the linuxbox.

Sorry if this should be in the software forum.

thanks

from the windows side you'll probably need to download and install some spyware/adware/scumware detectors/removers and run them. some of the best that come to mind are hijackthis, spybot search&destroy, and adaware. i'll provide links after my explanation. many of these file sharing packages also install some of the previously mentioned software. uninstalling the programs does not always get rid of the problem. here are some links that may help

http://www.spychecker.com/program/hijackthis.html

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

i'm not sure if this is the problem, but, it's likely, i've seen it before. hope that helps.
good luck.

I'll give this a try when i finish work, dont really want to have to wipe the HDD.

if none of the above suggestions seem to work, i'd reccomend uninstaliing all network componets from the win 98 side and reinstalling them from the cd. then reconfiguring the box, it'll be a lot of work, but, it's better than wiping and starting from scratch. if it's not as i guessed in my first post, probably the uninstall of the software, took something it shouldn't have, or you possibly got rid of something you need manually. in any event one these two suggestions should get you going.
good luck.

Coz this related directly to a Window$ problem, this thread will be moved to the General Forum..

I agree with PEACEDOG, giev Spybot a go and make sure you have an upto date antivirus system installed - if you don't have one then give AVG a go:
http://www.grisoft.com

Moved - Windows questions live in General.

Bit strange this problem. I installed Spybot as suggested, pretty cool program from what ive seen so far. Did a search with it and it came back with a few things, just tracking cookies etc though.

Next day i turn on client, seems to be working fine. i fire up mozilla on the linuxbox to do some more research (i practically live at this site now :P) and start copying some files over from the client through samba. Meanwhile Mrs Kola is playing with Zmud on the client.

Well, zmud broke and M$ threw up a bunch of critical errors like it does *sigh*, my file transfers stop with an error and mozilla completely shuts down.

Humph! After that, again the same story with the unstable network.

What would cause Mozilla to shut down like that? Im crossing fingers here that its not the linuxbox thats the problem, but how can i tell?
The client is running a fully updated Norton AV 2003 Prof. and cant find anything, so short of reinstalling windows I think its clean.

Seriously annoying...

i'd suggest running the rest of the spyware tools linked from my first post. usually one is not enough, some of the tools will find spyware/adware that others will not, and vice/versa. is the windows box the internet gateway? if it is, that would explain mozilla shutting down. most cetainly if the windows box had a network problem of any kind, would explain the file transfer problem.
good luck.

Kewl, i'll try the others when i get home, and no, the linuxbox is the gateway.

my only guess in that case w/respect to mozilla, is possibly the file transfer gone bad on the windows side, jammed the network w/traffic. short of that i haven't a clue. sorry.