Vista help needed

[Dr Jekell]

I have a work laptop from another store that they have screwed.

The machine will not fully start up & freezes when it is almost finished starting up.

It is not the startup files as I tried turning off half of them then the other. It starts up fine in safe mode but it crashes when in normal mode.

I have tried:

System restore
Last knowen good startup

And none of them worked. I am now trying to copy the files off before I wipe the computer & start again but I have to do it in safe mode with networking.

The computer is a compaq running Vista hairpull:) & it won't allow me to access the computer via the network.

Any help in A) fixing the origonal problem or B) Getting the computer to play nice on the network would be apperciated.

 

[PhantomPhoton]

Use a linux live CD like knoppix.
Go into BIOS and enable CD drive booting and set it to boot from CD first.
Everything else should be pretty simple. Copy the files you need to a USB stick and you should be good to go.
Of course the above suggestion does depend on how old the problem computer is, but hopefully this will work.

There are a couple uber windows people who hang around here too so they may be able to give you actual Vista advice. As for me I say uninstall that junk.

 

[Dr Jekell]

It is less than 6 Months old & this is the 4th time in two months that I am fixing it.

Unfortunately it is a work provided laptop (which may explain why they feel that they can abuse it & screw it up) so I am unable to "upgrade" it to XP or Linux.

 

[Sigman]

...so I am unable to "upgrade" it to XP or Linux.

Boot Linux from a live CD, you're NOT upgrading anything on the laptop - just using the Linux OS from the CD to copy the files you want. Maybe you already knew that? :thinking:

 

[Aluminous]

It is less than 6 Months old & this is the 4th time in two months that I am fixing it.

Good grief. Why the heck doesn't the company you work for have IT staff to take care of stuff like this for you? :shakehead There are way too many companies out there going without adequate IT support. This hurts the company and their employees by reducing productivity and increasing stress, and it makes it more difficult for IT people to get decent jobs.

 

[mechBgon]

It is less than 6 Months old & this is the 4th time in two months that I am fixing it.

Unfortunately it is a work provided laptop (which may explain why they feel that they can abuse it & screw it up) so I am unable to "upgrade" it to XP or Linux.

I strongly suggest that when you reinstall Windows this time, you set up an Administrator account, and a non-Administrator account, and only let the cretins use the non-Administrator account. Password-protect the Admin account and don't tell them the password. This is the cornerstone of a happy, carefree sysadmin experience

If your version is Vista Business or Vista Ultimate, I also suggest adding a Software Restriction Policy. This makes it nearly impossible for your non-Admin users to execute anything dangerous, even deliberately.

Those two steps will make a WinXP Pro or Vista Biz/Ultimate system a very tough nut to crack. If you can't do SRP, at least do non-Admin user accounts. If you can't do either one, then get Acronis TrueImage at Newegg.com and image the system to a segment of its own hard drive, and you'll be able to revert to a clean baseline image very quickly, probably under 1/2 hour, and without major hassles.

Here are some other security tips: http://www.mechbgon.com/build/security2.html

By the way, I agree with the others: stow the files on a USB drive. It sounds like you may have a malware infection, so in light of the fact that lots of malware now spreads itself by infecting USB drives and portable devices, I also suggest that you disable AutoPlay and use a non-Admin account on whatever computer you're transferring the files to.

If you'd like to be able to review what your users are doing on the system, the Home and Ultimate versions of Vista also feature Parental Controls, which can be used to track what sites they visit, what they do, etc. The users must be on non-Admin accounts for you to use Parental Controls. This will not make you popular :devil: but can be used to discourage irresponsible behavior. Regardless, if you follow the security tips I linked to, Vista will survive even wantonly-irresponsible behavior unscathed, as I've found when actively looking for malware-infested sites to report

From my malware-hunting experience, I also recommend you only use IE7, and not installing any other browsers. IE7 on Vista runs in Protected Mode, placing the browser in an extra-low-privilege mode for even more protection than just the non-Admin account provides. That's a proactive defense that isn't available with any other browser, although technically it could be done. Works great in real life, too

Lastly, if you'd like to make certain system preferences completely mandatory, such as browser zone security settings, drop me a PM for some help with Local Group Policy.

 

[Dr Jekell]

Admin & User accounts - On the list to do (they are not going to like it but tough)

Aluminous we are a group of 3 stores that does not have much need for IT staff, most of our tech is maintenance free & the ones we do have problems with the software gurus can connect over the internet to fix the problem or we have to send the equipment away for service (Mostly OEM stuff).

The problems that pop up with the normal computers come to me due to the fact that I have an affinity for IT & most of the problems are minor in nature (installing a printer, fixing network problems, etc).

Sigman I consider Vista a step down from XP.

PhantomPhoton I have tried linux live CD but it won't let me access the HD banghead: why do I feel like I am running in circles?)

 

[mechBgon]

See my expanded info above, regarding getting the files off the system (use a USB / flash drive, but account for the possibility that it may become infected in the process).

Out of curiosity, what do you think is a downgrade about Vista? I have a Vista / XP dual-boot setup and I don't even know when I last bothered using the WinXP half of it. XP is less secure, for one thing, and you might've noticed I have a strong interest in security

 

[Lit Up]

PhantomPhoton I have tried linux live CD but it won't let me access the HD banghead: why do I feel like I am running in circles?)

That's odd. What is it saying?

 

[Dr Jekell]

mechBgon - mostly it is the DRM implementation & having to confirm changes multiple times. I like to work efficiently and it slows me down. There is a balance between ease of use & security, I find vista to be too far over into the security side.

Lit Up - I have just got home from work so I will boot it up later & find the exact error message but I believe that I couldn't mount the disk.

 

[sawlight]

Vista sucks!! I didn't much like XP after '95 but got to whee I could make it work fo me.
Vista is a total resource hog, and I don't find it anymore secure than XP, just more tedious. It asks me for every trivial operation.
To the OP's question: You have a virus of some sort. Get a copy of some sort of spyware and anti virus software and see if it will let you run it in safe mode. Most likely wont happen.
I've beendown this road with Vista already, I got stupid and surfed "Naked" when I first got it because "it's so much more secure than XP!"
I had to reformat the hard drive. Sorry.

 

[Aluminous]

having to confirm changes multiple times. I like to work efficiently and it slows me down.

FWIW, you can reconfigure Vista to avoid the extra confirmation prompts. http://www.maximumpcguides.com/disabling-user-account-control-uac-in-windows-vista/

 

[mechBgon]

FWIW, you can reconfigure Vista to avoid the extra confirmation prompts. http://www.maximumpcguides.com/disabling-user-account-control-uac-in-windows-vista/

Bad idea, in my opinion. The people who think Vista's UAC prompts are annoying, are the people who've never run any prior version of Windows securely, and don't like their first actual taste of secure-by-default Windows. If you try to run Win2000 or WinXP as a non-Admin, and either do Fast User Switching or use RunAs to elevate specific stuff to Admin level as needed, then you'll be much more secure than default. But you'll also quickly realize that Vista's UAC system is a cakewalk by comparison

Vista is a total resource hog, and I don't find it anymore secure than XP, just more tedious. It asks me for every trivial operation.

If Vista is asking you about every trivial operation, one common cause is that you need to address some lingering file-system permissions issues, once and for all. For example, if you have a storage drive that's a "child" of any other Windows installation, in the NTFS file-system format, you can expect to be plagued by those prompts until you actually give your Users group the necessary security/permissions in Vista. If you need help with any of that, drop me a PM

As for Vista being more secure than XP, there's no question that it is. Symantec tested about 2000 malware samples on Vista, and found that about 95% of the samples (which work on WinXP) could not run, or could not survive a reboot, on Vista. Microsoft finds that Vista is about 2 1/2 times less likely to have malware than WinXP Service Pack 2, based on their MSRT data. I could add a lot more info on this topic, but I'll stop there before everyones' eyes glaze over

For those who'd rather stick with WinXP (or even Win2000), you can still secure it pretty well using non-Admin accounts and the other tips I suggested. Don't place excessive reliance on security software these days, start using the security features of Windows itself, avoid risky behavior, and keep all your software updated (Secunia PSI is great for home users who want to check their software).

 

[Lit Up]

Lit Up - I have just got home from work so I will boot it up later & find the exact error message but I believe that I couldn't mount the disk.

Ok. See if you can access the area on your distro that displays what drives you have and then right click on the drive you want and see if there's a mount option in the drop down menu.
I don't know what distro you're using but if it continues to give you trouble, try making a new Live CD with PCLinuxOS distro. It's a good one. Just stay out of System->Configuration. There's a Control Center in there with several options. One option is to set up, resize or format drives. You won't need to mess around in Control Center to move/save your files.

There's also an issue sometimes that a given distro will read a NTFS partition but not write to it. With PCLinuxOS' Live CD, I usually drag and drop to another drive if possible. If not, then I let it load to the desktop screen, remove the live CD so I can use the tray for burning, then use K3B burning program to burn the files needing to be saved to a CD/DVD.

http://www.pclinuxos.com/

 

[eluminator]

Did you have networking working previously?

 

[Dr Jekell]

eluminator - networking was working previously when the laptop left me as that is how we access the internet at our stores, but now that they have screwed around with it, it won't start up completely & when you try to use a network to access the laptop in safe mode you can't turn file sharing on because you need to be in full mode.

Lit Up - I tried to use the mount option but it won't allow me to.

I am currently using Ubuntu 6.06 LTS.

When I try to mount the drive I get:

Unable to mount the selected volume

Under more details -

error: device /dev/sda1 is not removable
error: could not execute prompt

 

[eluminator]

it won't start up completely & when you try to use a network to access the laptop in safe mode you can't turn file sharing on because you need to be in full mode.

How do you turn on file sharing?

I disable simple file sharing. I then right click on a folder or partition and click on sharing. Then create a new share if it doesn't have one except for the system share. I can do that in safe mode.

Whoops, I just thought of something. I have XP not vista. Maybe you should forget this post.