Any Exorcists in the house? My computer must die!

[MarkC]

Just when I thought my creature was going to live and do my bidding....
Norton AntiVirus started giving me messages when I tried to run Live Update that said 'Cannot Create Callback Object." So I went to the website and printed the directions for the remedy. Doing the registry edit thing had no effect, so I uninstalled the whole thing, reinstalled it and ran the updates. Everything fine...until, I ran Live Update again, and the same message appears. So it seems that if I want to update the antivirus definitions, I have to go through the whole uninstall/reinstall crap.
An alleged friend told me I must have some snakey, well-hidden spyware or virus in there somewhere that is making changes to the program.
Anyone have any ideas?

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

There's several spyware programs and a few viruses that disable Norton, McAfee as part of their routine. Free suggestion: Download Ad-Aware and run it. If you can grab an updated definition file, reboot into safe mode, and perform a full system scan.

Do the same with SpyBot as well. It's an easy start, and it's free.

Good luck.

 

[MarkC]

Thanks, I've already got both AdAware and Spybot, they find nothing. I also run ZoneAlarm. I remember one time recently, I started the computer and went online with the firewall turned off and Norton off too for a brief moment, and as Norton was starting some weird screen popped up and a little monster gave me the finger. Nothing happened after, so I didn't think about it.

 

[ebaker]

Did you load any new software, firewall, or do a windows update? If you run XP can you do a system restore?

 

[Hirev]

Norton in the past has been hacked by viruses. It almost sounds like you have a virus. You might try to get and run Stinger. If you can load Stinger on a CD from another computer before loading it onto your infected computer. Don't if you are to late or not. You might also try the same with AV, AVG free edition. Have you installed MS up dates?

 

[highwayatty]

I use Norton's myself. Adaware and Spybot are both very good as well. I also use a program called "Trojan Remover" that runs every time I boot up. It finds undesirable things from time to time, and removes them. There is a free trial period, you might want to give it a try if you haven't already. Good luck. I sympathize with your frustration.

 

[eljefino]

Also try free AVG antivirus from http://www.grisoft.com works for me.

 

[michaelc80]

What version of NAV do you have? If it's an older version there is an update available for the Live Update engine. If it's 2003 or earlier Symantec has a removal tool that you may need to run in order to completely uninstall NAV (RNAV2003). A search will find the tool as well as the update for the Live Update engine.

Do you have Windows XP? If so you might be able to do a system restore and roll it back to a point before you had issues.

You can also run an online virus scan on many AV vendor websites as well as download trial versions of alternative AV software (Kaspersky is my favorite and consistantly ranks at the top). If you decide to try a different product make sure you uninstall NAV. You don't want to run more than one AV program on your pc

 

[MarkC]

My OS is ME, and NAV is 2002. Old and nasty, but it's been working, sort of.

 

[John K]

ME is one of the more troubled OS out there. I had it for a while, was running Norton and it hung on a liveupdate. Got into a loop where I couldn't get it back, uninstalled Norton and got McAffee but couldn't get it going because it detected Norton still on the system even though I had uninstalled it! Grrr. Finally bit the bullet, upgraded to XP, ran spy bot, Registry Mechanic, etc. I now use AVG for antivirus, only run Microsoft Expoder only for Windows updates(since MS in their infinite wisdom refuse to let you use any other browser on their site

), use Firefox and Thunderbird and the computer is much more stable and haven't had any other issues for about 6 months now.

 

[MarkC]

So I ran Stinger, and it found nothing.
I've tried AVG and didn't like it.
My Norton definitions are current for the moment, but I need to solve this soon, to update them. Or else I can always uninstall and reinstall, but what a pain.
I'll try Kaspersky first.

 

[SlowPoke]

try Trendmicro's Housecall... it's a web-based virus and spyware scan

Housecall

 

[MarkC]

Thanks, tried that, but it won't run on Firefox.

 

[Propflux01]

try this:....Fire up your Ad-aware. go to CONFIGURE. THis is the little cog-wheel looking thing at teh top. open it, go to SCANNING. put a check box in the "scan within archives". On the MEMORY AND REGISTRY portion, on the same page, make sure all the boxes are checked. Clicky on PROCEED. On the start page portion of it, click "start". Before clickying "NEXT", make sure the button labled "USE CUSTOM SCANNING OPTIONS" is checked. Clicky NEXT. You will be really suprised how much extra crap is there now.......

 

[1 FMF]

like they say, if you want to play you got to pay. I've run into issues at home recently with one of 4 computers, 1.7ghz which was upgraded to Windows XP Professional from ME, 2000, 98, 95. Real sloppy setup from Microsoft that way, many little unexplainable quirks. I have a new dell, not that I'm recommending a new computer nor dell, which came with XP home and has been solid.
Also recently bought a firewalled router (netgear FR114P $80 newegg) per recommendation of security guys at work- not IT weenies but gov't type security who know their stuff. Had many problems with the 1.7ghz computer being stable when running off the router vs. the dsl modem directly. My old 400mhz running win98 ran fine even, so solution there since it was wife's computer was to get brand new one, with XP home. Been utopia since.

Norton, especially the older versions, are hacked. Norton is one of the biggest anti-virus & internet security programs out there, as a result it gets the most attention and it being hacked is not uncommon, actually quite common especially older versions!
Unless you like to spend hours tinkering and risk data loss, ID theft, etc. my suggestion is to back up on cd data you want, then low-level format your hard drive to blank it and spend $200 on a complete and legal XP Home edition to install cleanly.
From there, either get the latest norton internet secuirty and set it up properly, or get a firewalled router with NAT which you can then use with windows firewall.
The firewalled router is the way to go, Norton IS expensive since it's per year and is annoying and complicated at times but the nice feature of Norton (internet security) is it can alert you to connections leaving your computer (versus incoming) and will allow you to protect yourself completely. Just a virus scanning program is definitely a good idea, but having the firewall is more of a frontline protection and more valuable in the short term I think. Before loading your old data to the new system, virus scan it with the latest antivirus version otherwise you risk all the effort thus far. If you web surf cleanly, like only bitog, then a firewalled router and plain AV program will be good, but if you share files or surf questionable sites or use bearshare, kazaa, or other *free* software then you will need something like internet security along with spybot and adaware to protect against spyware and malware since you are installing it.

I have a few friends who come to me with computer problems, and from experience if it isn't running windows XP it's not worth it these days. Earlier versions are too unstable and require too much work to protect and keep stable, unless of course you want to forego and internet connection.

 

[MarkC]

I appreciate all the help.
I'm not going to spend any money on this thing. It was given to me by a friend, as was a bigger hard drive, and other stuff. My total investment is the $9.95/month for dial-up. So I can't complain too much.
Currently, everything is working again.
I uninstalled and reinstalled NAV and things are cool.