O.T. Computer help!

Two things I need help on. Anyone know why IE would take you to a site called: http://www.internet-optimizer.com/Help/NavigationError/

everytime it has a bit of a problem? This is not on my computer. My mother's computer does this. I suspect some one clicked on one of those pop up ads that says "Your Inrter net connection is not optimized do you want to do it now?" and they clicked on it. Apparently the internet connection now runs to this site everytime there is a problem. She has windows ME. It may also be running everything through this site as the whole system operates very slowly. How do I undo this?

Second question:

Anyone know how to lock a hard drive so new programs cannot be installed by anyone other than the authroized user running windows ME???? My nephew has a bad habit of visitng tastless sites that he shouldn't be and installing things that are porn related on a computer that is not his. My mother is not computer savy, so she never sees that they have been in stalled. Any way to prevent the creation of ne dial up adapters? He sets up his own to by pass her password.

Sounds like he needs a trip to the wood shed.

You might want to try Ad aware.

<a href="http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/" target="_blank">http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/</a>

This will scan your Mom's puter & get rid of any spyware type issues. The web site might have made changes to the registry that ad aware can't remove - but it's free & I find it very helpful.

I don't have a lot of experience with ME - but XP has much better systems for dealing wiht this kind of stuff.

I assume that you already have deleted temp files, scandisk, defrag, etc...

The problem - other than your nephew - is that your Mom's not puter savvy so you can only do so much to keep him out of those sites - without making it so your Mom can't use it easily.

A low tech solution might be to print out a few of the pages he's been visiting & show them to his mom :-}

Sorry I couldn't help more - good luck.

Hi Lee.

Windows ME is THE worst release of windows M/S has ever put out. Run, do not walk, to your software store and get Windows XP home edition. I had ME on my wife's machine and it was always having problems. I installed XP and all the problems quit!

Windows 9X and ME have just about NO security. I suggest a 2x4 up along side of the head as a prophylactic measure:mad:

Quote:

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Originally posted by Tom Sweeney
You might want to try Ad aware.

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Ad-Aware is a troubled product...and the company left their users practically naked for over nine months recently with no updates. You might want to look into alternatives, such as Pest Patrol. I've found the latter to be far more functional than Ad-Aware.

First response:

The navigation error URL is stored in the registry. Depending on your OS/browser version, it is located in different keys.

Before taking the easy approach (editing the windows registry), try Add/Remove programs to see if the Internet optimizer software properly registered itself when it was installed.

Second response:

Windows 2000 has the security features you're looking for--the administrator can be set up as the only user who may install software.
In addition, software can be made inaccessible to specific users.


For the benefit of the audience, I've purposely omitted technical details. If you need them, I'll gladly blab on.

Hope this puts you on the right track,

_Aaron_

My son found the "Internet Optimizer" listed at a site for known parasites. It also gave instructions for removal. I printed them out so I can try them the next time I go out to my Mother's house.

The link is:





Thanks everyone for the assistance.

look for a program called Bess it will stop all that

Based upon comments over on WC, I picked up a copy of spybot. It is surprising how much "junk" it detected on what I thought was a relatively well maintained system. The web-page is:

http://security.kolla.de/

Your right I just tried Spybot it got rid of bunch of junk.