[RESOLVED] Bothers PC Messed Up - Again

[Nix]

So my brother has been complaining of issues on his PC running WinMe.

Finally got hold of it and there's a list of things he's typed up.

I haven't got the list with me, but from memory some of them:

1. Logon box always comes up.
2. Office 2000 program icons are incorrect.
3. Can't open My Pictures
4. Can't make backup copy of Kodak Picture CD
5. Can't install Kodak EasyShare software
6. Can't open Internet explorer
7. Avast pops up a window at start stating that the required file is missing.
8. If a CD has pictures or videos on it, can't access it.
9. Shockwave does not work.

I started looking at it last night.

Downloaded TWEAKUI and rebuilt the Icons - fixed problem 2.

Tried using Copy Complete disc option in Nero and although it sat analysing for about a minute and found some errors it did copy the KodakCD - brother mustn't have waited long enough - fixed problem 4.

Tried IE and it opened, but I didn't try connecting anywhere so will need to try this later.

Started trying to work out what was going on with My Pictures without much luck so tried using TWEAKUI to bypass the login box.

Sometimes it worked and other times not so I was either clicking OK or CANCEL and then noticed that settings I had been changing were reverting and finally worked out that there is USER account set up under Control Panel > Users.

Started trying to remove it and kept getting prompted for a name when logging in which then resulted in a new account - went round and round in circles - gave up.

Decided to run Ad-Aware and got an error saying that it could not find the .EXE file because of missing Wininet.dll, so tried SpyBot with the same thing.

Tried search and search wouldn't work.

Since his machine is dual boot with Win2000 I manually located the .dll file on the Win2000 installation and copied to the required location in the WinMe installation.

Tried Ad-Aware again and it worked as did SpyBot.

Ad-Aware found 3 references to PSGuard and Spybot found nothing.

A few weeks back i spent 4 hours on the phone with my brother removing various Ad/Malware and from memory PSGuard was one of them.

Tried my pictures again and it worked as did the installation of Kodak EasyShare software - problems 3 and 5 fixed.

When we did the 4 hours work I got him to install Avast since he had no Antivirus running.

After it installed it ran some sort of scan and listed some files as infected, before I had a chance to advice him he clicked delete.

So now I'm wondering if the WININET.DLL was infected and deleted and thus what else could be gone ?

From what I did last night (5 hours work) the below are fixed (bold):
1. Logon box always comes up.
2. Office 2000 program icons are incorrect.
3. Can't open My Pictures
4. Can't make backup copy of Kodak Picture CD
5. Can't install Kodak EasyShare software
6. Can't open Internet explorer
7. Avast pops up a window at start stating that the required file is missing.
8. If a CD has pictures or videos on it, can't access it.
9. Shockwave does not work.

The login box seems associated with the User account - how do I get rid of it ? On my WinMe system if I click on the Users icon in Control Panel it starts a dialog about creating separate accounts where as my brothers list the account with his name. I need to get his system the same as mine.

Internet explorer - opens haven't tried connecting so maybe that was the issue.

Avast - this was $h!tting me so I uninstalled it and will reinstall when I fix the other issues.

CDs did seem to have a problem if you went My Computer and double click on the CD or right click and Open, but if you right click and explore or search seems fine - maybe the lens needs cleaning.

Shockwave did not even get too.

Needless to say as I started on this at about 11.00pm and finished at about 4.22am and then up at 6.47am I'm a bit 'slow' this morning.

I was thinking of doing an over install to get any missing system files back but don't want to reset any settings.

Any hints / ideas about any of the issues would be great.