Hello folks - I'm sorry to announce that for the next week I will not be online for very much. I have been consigned to using my laptop and cannot use it very frequently because of the increased risk of my presence on this site being discovered by my family. The reason for this is that on the 23rd of August I ended up doing something very stupid to my computer which has resulted in it becoming unsafe for me to use with either of the operating systems I have installed on it (Microsoft Windows XP and Linux Xandros Desktop 4), and now XP cannot stay running for more than 15 minutes without it crashing (though the functionality of Linux remains a question to me as I have not used it since about a week before this took place).

Well, here's what happened. And beware - this is a long post.

After recently downloading a service pack for Office 2003, I decided to run a game which I had recently installed from an installer application I borrowed from my father's computer, Monopoly 3. However, when it came to activating it, the program did not seem to be able to communicate with the server, the reason being that my security settings for Internet Explorer were set too high. I'd had it set to Medium-High and it didn't allow me to go below Medium, but it turns out that in order for the software package to be able to communicate and allow activation I had to disable most of my system's security options just so it wouldn't crash. I thought that this would be the end of it and that I'd be able to use the game afterwards. How wrong I was.

As an added insult, the program asked me for a serial code, which only my father has access to, and after asking him about it the previous week he said that he didn't know if he still had the code he was sent by e-mail to activate the game after buying it from trygames.com a few years back. I'd also wanted to transfer the program from his old computer to his new one, where I'd not been able to activate it owing to it not being connected to the Internet.

At that point I grew very impatient and started to look on Google for an activation crack for it, completely forgetting to put my security settings back to what they were before. When the page of results came up, I clicked on one of the links shown on the first page and, after installing WinRar (an encryption utility), downloaded three separate files which I used WinRar to open and extract. I hoped that this would alleviate my problem and get me going as I did before, but this is where things really took a turn for the worse.

Shortly afterwards I tried to open the Keygen programs, but for some reason these wouldn't open. I then ran the installer for the Office 2003 Service Pack. But while it completed successfully, it also secretly installed an AntiVirus system built by Microsoft despite me already having one installed, which modified my desktop to an image displaying an error message and disabled my ability to change the desktop background. Yet another company that Microsoft has bought the technology from, put out of business and then tried to release as their own. I'd then foolishly decided to run it, and to my horror it picked up more than 150 different threats (which included a number of rootkits which would track my every move), many of which being marked as 'Critical'.

Try as I might to use it to eliminate them, it then presents me with a message that states that it simply will not do anything to fix problems unless I provide a serial number, which I didn't have and was unwilling to pay for. Disgruntled, I then shut the AntiVirus down and tried to run its uninstaller, which crashed with an error message stating that it has encountered a fault and has to shut down as soon as I clicked on it. Now enraged, I accessed my hard drive and vehemently deleted the folder containing it and all of the files it required and then ran another full system scan using the AntiVirus I had before, PCTools AntiVirus.

It picked up some of the threats, but a quarter of the way through the scan my computer crashed with an error message on a blue screen, which did not stay on-screen long enough for me to note down the information it stated. After this it rebooted itself, briefly showing the light blue screen visible before it asks you to log in, but I'd noticed it covered a smaller area than usual. But little more than a few seconds had passed before a blue screen message covered the screen, showing a different error this time.

I decided to restart it again, and this time it successfully started. But I could tell something was not right with it because the Windows XP Security Center reported that Automatic Updates had been turned off without me having actually turned them off, and the About Windows window had opened up, again with no intervention from me. Browser windows even opened up on their own when I tried to surf online whether I used IE or Firefox, and to add insult to injury I found that there were no restore points available in System Restore I could return to. Unbelievably, the Windows AntiVirus had actually reinstalled itself, which means now I can't remove it from my system. At this I tried again to run a virus scan. This time, however, it had not even reached ten percent through when my system crashed to a blue screen. It then began rebooting itself again, repeatedly doing this and showing a different message with each restart. After twelve different errors had appeared, I shut it down. Despite catching some of the errors and STOP codes, I made the mistake of failing to note them down, although a few which came up included IRQ_LESS_OR_NOT_EQUAL and KERNAL_STACK_INPAGE_FAULT amongst many others, including one describing a memory addressing error. An hour later I booted it up again and left it, and after about fifteen minutes it crashed to a blue screen again.

The rootkits and dodgy sets of instructions in control of both of my installed web browsers which I have yet to detect mean that I can't surf this site from that machine safely, even with Linux, and backing up everything is gonna be very risky because of the numerous viruses on the hard drive. Until I sort it all out it means that roleplaying and uploading poetry will likely be put on hold or be very slow, so I heartily apologise to those who I am currently roleplaying with and for those expecting more material from me. Until my system's fully functional again, take care of yourselves, and hey - enjoy your meals.

Signing out of this grand holding cell until further notice - Passion_25.

Damn that [u]sucks[/u] passion.It allmost sounds like what happen to me before i joind Eka's i had to use McAfee securityCenter to back up and runing,i hope you get your computer fixed soon.

man that sucks, i feel for ya...i fucked up one of my comps like that...except i downloaded, things....*slaps forehead* i regret doing! good luck man...by the time you read this though...i wont be on probably so i will talk to you whenever then. hope things are better...

~DM

I will bet one (1) live meal, that the programs you have had installed are:
WinAntiVirus2008
WinAntiVirus2009
VistaAntivirus

Or something similar.

ALL ARE FAKE!

Not a single one of those programs you have installed was released, or in any way affiliated with M$
They are in fact programs designed to make you THINK they are M$ products, in an effort to get you to purchase them. At which point your credit card would be mysteriously emptied.
The crashing bluescreen isnt. It is in fact a screensaver that tries to make you THINK it has bluescreened. It will go away if you hit the spacebar.

The machine needs wiped, i am sorry to say. Usually it is possible to remove that level of infection, but the machine seems to heavily compromised to be trusted any more. Wipe, reload, and start afresh with a clean install of windows.

Linux has NOT been affected, it is immune to the threats you have described.

Moral of the story: DONT DOWNLOAD CRACKS.

If you need help, contact a local PC shop. I work in a PC shop myself, and have fixed machines with THE EXACT SYMPTOMS YOU HAVE DESCRIBED, on over forty (40) machines in the last two weeks.