HELP! Antivirus nightmare!

nekokate · Post by **nekokate** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 2:13 pm

I desperately need the help of some tech geeks.

This is the cock-up I've brought upon myself, and my local computer shop wants £50 to fix it. I'd rather it be fixed for £0.

I've been using Panda antivirus and recently it expired and wanted me to pay for a new subscription. I didn't want to, so I bought AVG 8.0 instead.

I tried to uninstall Panda but it kept saying errors. So, stupidly, I went into the Panda folder in Program Files and deleted loads of crap. Now it's completely messed up and won't fix, install or uninstall at all, but it's still on the system.

The problem is that while the broken Panda is still on the system, my new AVG refuses to install, so basically I have no antivirus, and I spent money on the AVG one and can't use it.

Does anyone know how to totally get rid of Panda from my system? I've looked on various forums and people are saying that Panda is notoriously hard to get rid of, and now it's even worse because I've messed it up by deleting program files to break it.

I'm going insane now, because there's no way I'm paying someone £50 to fix it so that I can install a £40 software, cos then I'm down £90 just for being stupid!!!

luke · Post by **luke** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 2:34 pm

sorry neko i've no idea how to fix it, but if it came to it couldn't you just reinstall your computer - start from fresh? i know its a hassle, i've done it myself recently, but it'll save £50!

nekokate · Post by **nekokate** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 2:41 pm

That's a good idea, Luke!

Can you point me to a website or something that explains exactly how to reinstall Windows XP? I've never done that before but I would much rather mess about re-installing all my programs on a fresh copy of Windows than pay £50!!!!

luke · Post by **luke** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 2:51 pm

i'm not entirely sure, i installed onto a new drive and i don't use xp ... sorry, i'm sure someone will know though

just make sure you've got copies of all your stuff before doing anything! and it might be helpful to make a list of the programs you use so you know what to reinstall - every now and then i go to use a program and find i've not installed it yet. i've got a spare hard drive if you wanted it - its only 20gb but you could try the install on that keeping your stuff on your original drive

i also thought you can get undelete software that can recover stuff you've deleted - but if you was having trouble uninstalling panda in the first place i don't know if getting those files back would help much ...

good luck!

Post by **faceless** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 2:52 pm

try installing panda again - that should restore it back to what you had, that way you should be able to find a way round it...If you startup in safe mode (without network connection) it should allow you to get rid of it.

If you want to reinstall windows, you should be able to just put your XP disc in and do a fresh install. Ideally you'd want to adjust your boot sequence via the bios to try to boot from CD first. On most computers you can do this by keeping delete pressed as soon as you start the computer. If it's not delete, it should tell you which key.

When you're into the bios, go to boot sequence and set the cd to go first, that will make the setup a lot quicker. Remember to change the setting back to boot from IDE when you're all set up

nekokate · Post by **nekokate** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 3:19 pm

faceless wrote:When you're into the bios, go to boot sequence and set the cd to go first, that will make the setup a lot quicker. Remember to change the setting back to boot from IDE when you're all set up

OK, I'll do that. I have no idea what I'm doing, however, but I trust you completely

I'm currently in the process of going through all of the stuff on my C drive and copying it onto an external drive, making notes of where it needs to go when I put it back. Stuff like internet favourites and iTunes settings etc.

It's going to take me at least a week to get everything back to normal once I've done a clean install - this computer is packed and tweaked with all sorts of stuff and set up just the way I like it.

Oh, and as for re-installing Panda - I can't. I don't have the exe or the disc. It came with the PC and there's no backup disc that I can find. Bastards!

I'm pretty certain I'm going to have a fresh install adventure though, so it doesn't matter now

Post by **faceless** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 3:34 pm

if you look for the built-in files and settings transfer wizard that should save you a fair bit of time with email and favourites etc. I can't remember where it's located, but if you search windows help you'll get a link.

shillax · Post by **shillax** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 4:19 pm

Can't you do a rollback?

nekokate · Post by **nekokate** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 4:27 pm

I tried a system restore but it makes no difference.

I've fixed it now, anyway. I managed to dig out the original Panda disc and it was able to completely uninstall. Thank gawd for that!

shillax · Post by **shillax** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 4:35 pm

That's good that you fixed it. I use Total Uninstall when I want to get rid of a program. It not only uninstalls it, but it gets rid of all the other junk and reg keys etc too.

Total Uninstall

Make sure you tick NOT to auto update

nekokate · Post by **nekokate** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 5:21 pm

Cool. Thanks shillax

I have something called Perfect Uninstaller that I think is similar, but I've never had cause to use it yet.

I just have to learn not to fuck with things I know nothing about when it comes to computers, haha. It's never gone right whenever I've tried :p

major.tom · Post by **major.tom** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 4:41 am

I did a little write-up a while back about re-installing. It should be somewhere in the forums. The biggest thing is to keep your data backed up on another partition (preferably a different drive). You can also tell XP to use a different folder than the default one for you "My Documents". This is handy because then you can just re-format your c: drive without losing valuable data -- just programs, which you can reinstall.

If you do plan to re-install, back up your My Documents folder somewhere you won't lose them. Don't forget to copy any important program settings from you "c:\documents and settings\<userid>\application data\" folder. (eg. Firefox profile including bookmarks)

Did you know there's a free version of AVG?

nekokate · Post by **nekokate** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 1:24 pm

major.tom wrote:Did you know there's a free version of AVG?

Of course

I've been using that and was impressed, so I bought the full, bells and whistles version.