I'm not a "total" newb. I used to work IT myself. I'm out of touch and out of date on the more current issues though, and this one has me stumped.
I'm sure there is a connection in all of it, but I'm lost on where to start digging it out.


I run Firefox and IE on a Win XP Home OS on Dell Dimension machine.
Nortons/Symantec antivirus is my antiviral. I run live update everyday to protect the system.
I also run ad-aware every morning, for the same reason.
Together, these two pretty much did what I spent the money for them to do.

Until - XP Antivirus 2008 tried to load. Teen clicked cancel to tell it not to load, it loaded anway.
Nortons claimed to catch it and delete it, requesting a reboot. The reboot triggers a new scan, which again caught the same thing.
I started searching tech forums. Discovered this is a VERY large pain in the tush.
I tried going into safemode to install my safe checkpoint snap from just 2 days before, but my system restore came back saying it couldn't restore. No explanation for why. All checkpoints prior to that had vanished. Including my manufacturer default restore.

During all of this flash worked normally on both browsers. The only real issue I had was what you normally expect from the XP Antivirus nonsense.

I finally found instructions that suggested stopping some processes, then letting Norton's try to swipe it, did this, it seemed to be gone, everything seemed fine.
I did reboot the machine at that time, so it seems that anything that only activates at reboot would have revealed at that point in time.

---
The next morning the system update wanted to install the newest service packs of IE. I said okay.
It wanted to install the newest update on Adobe Flash Player. Again, I said okay.

The next morning, flash lost all sound.

I checked volume controls on everything.
Java was enabled.
Active x was enabled.

Adobe suggested removing prior versions, making sure to get it all, and then to download from their site and reinstall. I tried this.
It said it installed perfectly, but both IE and Firefox lost all multi media stream from places like Youtube.

A helpful friend was just positive there was a hidden malware, and insisted on installing Spybot.
Spybot instantly locked me out of IE/Tools/Options, telling me that I needed adminisitrator permission. I am the admin.
I contacted spybot about that issue, and they were ZERO help. (Unclick the tweak-host lock and resident sd doesn't unlock it.)
About this same time my wallpaper vanished.
I reinstalled my wallpaper, unclicked the locked areas on Spybot, rebooted, and the problem remained.
We tried the undo feature on Spybot, but it said the zip file was invalid. Then acted like it had restored everything, according to its logs of what was or was not protected, but didn't undo anything.
Uninstalling Spybot doesn't solve that either.
I finally found a work around for the locked toolbar from a Tech-Magzine article that recommend getting into IE Options via control panal. The IE toolbar stayed locked, but I could edit my IE options, and that was all I cared about.

This left me with the Flash Sound issue again.
I did some research on that, trying, literally, 15 different solutions.
I looked for what was and was not enabled.
Wavemapper was not in the reg, so I entered it. Per instructions from 15 different tech sites. (Which all said that would solve the issue, all using the same value.)
I made sure that addons were properly enabled and sound devices were started.
I checked volume controls on individual things.
I discovered shockwave was gone, and put it back in and enabled.
I made sure it was looking at my sound card.
I made sure it was set to my speakers.
I ran the k-lite codecs fixes.
I even had windows auto update drivers.

As soon as I close Firefox or IE, Flash Player vanishes again, and I have to re-uninstall it, clear the temp files and reinstall it to get video back.
I have yet to get sound back.

I really would rather toss the whole system than do a reformat on it.
I know there has to be a simple answer to this that I am missing.

I have this feeling that we never really got rid of the XP antivirus. I got a strange "Your system is vulnerable You should install protection" note this morning, that is certainly not from Norton's or Ad-Aware. I also get a really strange blue screen that LOOKS like a diagnostic screen telling me windows needs to shut down because of a "bad driver". However - if I hit "esc" it runs normally except for the flash player issue. If I ignore it, it WILL reboot the machine.


The XP Antivirus is certainly a major possible issue, but on site after site after site I see that IE SP2 and 3 and Adobe Flash 9 hate one another.

This post has been edited by TexasSky: Aug 15 2008, 10:21 AM