DELETING THE FOLLOWING VIRUS FILE

Q: My Norton Internet Virus detected Backdoor.Trojan. The object file has the following address:c:\WINDOWS\System32\scrsvc.exe. I could not find any removal tool. I would like to know whether the deletion of the file will affect the normal working of my PC. Also, please suggest if there is any removal tool specifically for this Trojan horse.

A: This file scrsvc.exe does not seem to be a system file and you may delete it. But first, install and run anti-spyware tools. Ad aware SE Personal Edition 1.06 can be downloaded from http://www.download.com/3000-8022-10045910.html and spybot - Search & Destroy 1.4 is available at http://www.download.com/3000-8022-10122137.html. Check whether this detects the Backdoor.Trojan scrsvc.exe and delete the file.

If not, you can perform an online Trojan scan at the following URL- http://www.windowsecurity.com/trojanscan/ by clicking the “Scan my computer for Trojans” button. Then click yes for the Security Warning dialog box component to run. This will scan your system for Trojans.




If your problem is still unresolved, you can try directly deleting the scrsvc.exe file.

If you are unable to delete, restart into safe mode (press F8 key) and delete this file. Also, check and delete unwanted search engine site address entries in the hosts file (located in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\).

In windows NT/2000/XP/2003, you will also need to edit the following registry entry. The removal of this entry is optional in windows 95/98/Me. To delete registry entries, click start – run – type regedit. This will bring up the registry editor.

Before you edit the registry, you should make a backup. On the Registry menu, click “Export Registry File”. In the Export range frame below, click All, then save your registry as Backup.

Next locate the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE entry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and on the right pane, check for scrsvc, scrsvc.exe entries and delete it if it exists. Close the registry editor. For more info, refer the following URL: http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/analyses/trojagentds.html

INSTANT MESSAGING PROGRAMS

Q: I have a LAN network without access to the Internet. But the e-mail facility is available within the LAN. I am looking for Instant Messaging software that can be used in the LAN, without residing in the server.

Can I have an Instant Messaging service (freely downloadable) without the help of a server.

The program was to be loaded in the user terminal and could be used to send instant text messages to all users connected to the LAN (not Internet). Please tell me how I go about it.

A: Nowadays, lot of third-party instant Messaging software is available as freeware. One such freeware utility that you can use is QuickMessenger. Operating systems: Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003 support it. It can be downloaded from this URL: http://www.snapfiles.com/get/quickmessenger.html

QuickMessenger is simple tool that provides an enhanced interface for Windows Messenger and allows you to send text messages from one computer to the other or to a group of computers (on the LAN). It uses the windows ‘net send’ command. You can thus send messages to anyone, even if they don’t have QuickMessenger.

Its added features allow you to add a signature to the message and make use of predefined messages. So you do not have to type common messages over and over again. You can get a list of other freeware utilities from the following URL: http://www.nonags.com/nonags/conflan.html

RECOVERING *.CHK FILES

Q: I recently formatted the Windows Operating System on my PC.

Now, when I boot Windows 98, my screen displays messages of errors in various folders. It says such folders will be converted to the ‘FILE00.CHK’ for later use.

There were three folders and they were converted to a number of ‘FILE*.CKK’ files of different sizes. How can I get back those folders?

I had run a recovery tool but it did not display these folder names. Please suggest a solution.

A: File*.chk files are scraps discovered and recovered by scandisk in Windows 98.

When a machine doesn’t close down properly, some files get lost and the machine saves these files as file000.chk files and these are numbered 0001, 0002, etc.

If you have not lost any data, all these chk files can be deleted. But if you have lost data, you will want to examine the chk files to see if the data you want is in there. You can try to open them with Notepad to get basic information.

To recover data in ck files, you can try the following utilities.

UnCHK – HTTP://WWW.ERICPHELPS.COM/uncheck/unchk3.zip

FileCHK – http://www.ericphelps.com/uncheck/FileCHK.ZIP

CHK-Mate 1.0 – http://www.majorgeeks.com/CHK-Mate_d4110.html

REPORTING OF ERROR

Microsoft Windows's error reporting can be disabled by going to My Computer --> (right click) Properties --> Advanced --> Error reporting and clicking on Disable error reporting. The error reporting can be quite annoying at times as most of the errors are very minor and do not require any report to be sent.

However, it is advisable to check the "Notify me when critical errors occur" box.

MEDIA PLAYER TROUBLES

Q: I have a new assembled PC with the configuration: Inter ( R) P4-3.0 GHz, D 915 GAV mother board, 80 GB Hard Disk, 512 MB DDR RAM running on Windows XP professional.

The prob I’m facing is that whenever I open a video file through Media Player from the CD or from the hard disk (video file copied from the CD to the disk), the media player gets slow on the picture. The audio quality too is not upto the mark...

Why is this happening despite my using 512 RAM? Please give me a solution.

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A: There seems to be some problem with your multimedia device. Check whether you have installed the correct driver for your video/audio device.

You can see these details by right-clicking on My Computer and selecting Manage, then clicking on Device Manager.

You will see a list of installed devices. Devices with problems will be marked either in red or yellow. You need to look at Video Adapter and Sound Devices, you should have the drivers along with your Motherboard CD.

Also, see that you install the Motherboard INF updates from the Motherboard CD. Memory is not of any concern here.

HITCH IN CONNECTION

Q: Whenever I connect to the Internet using Windows 2000, Windows keeps popping up with the message:

“Messenger service Message from system to alert Windows registry appears to be infected. Please visit www.e-registry and download.” Is this because of a virus?

A: To work around this issue, you will have to disable the Messenger Service. To do this, please click Start à Run à type “services.msc”. This will bring up the services window. On the right pane, scroll down and double click Messenger. In the Startup type list, click Disabled. Under “service status” click the stop button. This will stop this service. Now click Ok.

The perfect solution is installing a third-party firewall product that blocks inbound NetBIOS and UDP broadcast traffic. You get the list of other firewall at this URL: http://www.snapfiles.com/downloadfind.php?action=s&st=personal+firewall

Make sure you have installed Windows 2000 SP4 and all critical windows updates. Also, keep the virus definition files of y9ur anti-virus updated.

For detailed information, visit the Microsoft knowledge base article, at http://support.microsoft.com/?id=330904

Switching Networks

Q: I am using a laptop and windows XP home edition. I have a DSL connection for my office use. At home, I have a broadband line.

Currently, when I need to connect to these respective networks, I open ‘my network places’, view network connections, select ‘LAN or high-speed Internet, ‘got to its properties and change the settings for the Internet protocol (TCP/IP) as specified by the service providers, I find this very cumbersome.

Is there a simpler way to switch networks? Please advise me the solution.

A: You can easily switch between networks by using third party tools. Netsetman 2.0 is one such freeware that you can use to quickly switch between five different pre-configured network settings.

The size is 853 KB and it can be installed in Windows 2000 and XP operating systems. You can download it from the following URL: http://www.iljaherlein.de/netsetman/stats/getfile.php?id=1 .

Another useful option that you can enable is ‘Start with window’ which is placed in the information button.

So, once you logon to your system, the Netsetman window appears. Just select the required profile (tab) and click Activate button.

To check your current network settings, click Start à Run à type cmd and click Ok. This will bring up the command prompt. Type “ipconfig/all” which will provide the current network settings – such as IP, subnet, Default Gateway, DNS, etc.

COMPUTERS - TROUBLE SHOOTING 1

Q: Every time I run Adware, Spybot or Norton Anti Virus, my CPU usage goes up to 100 percent. It then becomes near impossible for me to log on to web sites. My operating system is Windows XP and I am using a Compaq (nx 9010) laptop with hard disk of 40 GB and 256 MB RAM. Also, I want to upgrade the system to 512 MB RAM.

Would that be all right or would I need to increase it to 1 GB? Please give your suggestions.

A: When you have a CPU crunch, adding more RAM to your system is not going to increase your processing power.

When you have high CPU usage, it means your system needs more processing power or there is some bottleneck which takes up more processing power off your system. You need to identify where these bottlenecks are and find a solution for them. The question of increasing RAM will only help when you run applications that use up a lot of memory.

If you press Ctrl+Shift+Esc, it will bring up the task manager where you can see the CPU usage and Memory used by running applications.

In the task manager, click on the Performance tab. At the bottom under ‘Physical Memory’, you will find Total and Available memory. Normal Physical memory and Page File Memory usage will be 70 % and 40% respectively.

If your application is using up more memory only then you need to think of upgrading your memory capacity.

In your case, the applications you have mentioned are Disk Scanners. They hang up and have trouble when they read large volumes of data or when there is problem reading from the disk. So you would need to see if your system has too much data to scan.

A normal Win XP installation with general application will take up around 5 GB of disk space. Clean up your temporary files and unwanted files from the system using the Disk Cleanup utility, which you can access at Start -> Programs -> Accessory -> System Tools.

Also, ensure that you have installed the Chip Set INF updates for your motherboard, which you should find in the Motherboard CD. If you had changed any settings in the BIOS related to clock speed and the like, try reverting the BIOS setting to Defaults.

Finally, 256 MB RAM is a good figure for a normal PC and 512 MB RAM is more than sufficient but 1 GB is not useful unless you have memory-intensive software for instance, graphic applications like Maya utilized applications.