Browsers won't work.....HEEEEEELP!

[TwinOaks]

Hi,

Currently I'm having a problem on my laptop (no not this one) where I can't open browsers- IE8 or FF. Task manager shows that they are working/open, but there is no window open with them in it. Example: From the desktop, I double click FF icon, get the hourglass, then nothing. Re-selecting it brings up "....is already running...."

FF won't do anything, and IE8 opens a window and just thinks.

I ran CC cleaner in the standard clean up mode and I think it nuked everything, including most of my AVG and Spybot because trying to open them gets me a "path not found" error message.

So do I need to just reinstall the programs and overwrite everything with clean versions, or am I at the more drastic 'wipe and reload'?

[dickf]

Hi,

Currently I'm having a problem on my laptop (no not this one) where I can't open browsers- IE8 or FF. Task manager shows that they are working/open, but there is no window open with them in it. Example: From the desktop, I double click FF icon, get the hourglass, then nothing. Re-selecting it brings up "....is already running...."

FF won't do anything, and IE8 opens a window and just thinks.

I ran CC cleaner in the standard clean up mode and I think it nuked everything, including most of my AVG and Spybot because trying to open them gets me a "path not found" error message.

So do I need to just reinstall the programs and overwrite everything with clean versions, or am I at the more drastic 'wipe and reload'?

What happens if you kill the process in Task Mgr and restart Firefox? You could have a corrupt profile file, which is no biggie.

[TwinOaks]

killed it in TM, uninstalled it via CP, reinstalled new, clean version downloaded to flash drive on a diff. computer, same thing. Did the same to Spybot, and I can't run the programs because I "don't have permission"......WTH? I AM the system admin.......at least I thought I was!

[TwinOaks]

Now I've lost the start menu and the bar across the bottom of the screen.

And I don't have any permission to run the anti virus/malware software, and apparently no longer have a 'windows installer

Any idea of what to do next?

[Johanna]

You have malware. Download "combofix"from cNet and run it. Follow the prompts. If it doesn't improve, PM me for a telephone number for a friend of mine who happens to be a MS MVP specializing in malware. He can prob remote if you can get combofix to run.

Johanna

[mooshi]

Go to www.download.com and get Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. I use the free version and it works awesome!

Mooshi