Help Neede With XP "User" Profiles!
 

I have know idea where else to ask this, so if some out there knows of a better place feel free to tell me! I just want some help!

Long story short, my PC is spamming itself with new "user profiles" & I would like to find a way to get rid of them. I am the sole owner/user of this computer, yet under my C:\Documents & Settings folder I have (currently) 5 friggen "profiles' listed!

- All Users
- All Users.WINDOWS
-Default User
-Default User.WINDOWS
-Owner

The 2 "Default" ones were spawned after I deleted another redundant profile. I can't delete the "Windows" ones because XP claims it won't work without it, but I sure as heck don't need 2 of the bloody things!!

(My sister has almost the same PC & only has the Owner & All User folders. )

They really freaky thing is that under my Controll Panel > User Accounts, there are only 2: Zirconia Wolf (Computer Administrater) & a Guest account which is currently turned off.

If anyone has any ideas about what's going on or even where else I can ask this, I'm all ears!

***EDITED 10/05/07 ***

The reason this is a problem is that uninstalling/re-installing things (games or whatever) is now not an option, as pieces of programs are being "hidden" in all the different "profile" folders. Doing a "clean install" of most anything is almost impossible for me right now.

Hmm... I see 5 folders under C:\Documents and Settings

Administrator
All Users
Default User (hidden)
LocalService (hidden)
NetworkService (hidden)

Beyond that, I'm clueless.

ZW, the .windows user profiles worry me.

What is your anti-virus, and is it up to date?
Personally, Avast AV is the "duck's guts". Google search.
Free for home use, just download, install and register.

Check your network traffic, check your ISP logs, you might have been hit with a trojan.

Are duck's guts a good thing? :thinking:

The "ducks guts" eh? I'm guessing that's a good thing!

As for my AniVirus protection, I am currently using Norton. I switched to it after a very annoying year with Panda & that Macafee (or however you spell it) thing is forever banned from 100 miles of any PC I will ever own because of a family members personal (very expensive) expiriance. (I feel the same way about IE 7, but that's a rant for another thread!)

Norton claims it is all up to date, allthough I have it "leashed" somewhat in that I don't allow it to update itself constantly (I don't like things getting installed on my PC without my knowing about it) & require it to check in with me first. Last update was about a week ago I belive. Last scan claimes no viruses, but maybe I should try Avast?

I only stumbled onto this folder spawning after I stupidly installed Zoo Tycoon 2 (don't laugh; ZT1 was/is alot of fun) & wanted to do a wipe/re-install. The re-install didn't seem "clean" (the short-cut icon was for an EP I had not yet re-installed) so I went digging & that's when I discoved those funky extra folders. Apparently fragments of things I thought I had un-installed are happily hidding out in an "extra" folder.

I'm afraid this might be a "Trip To The Local Repair Shop" thing, but it would still be nice to know when/why/how this happened in the first place!

Norton? :asking06: EEk.

Umm. Sounds like trouble in the Beehive to me. The dreaded registry.

AvastAV and Spybot S&D. Between them, not much can get through. Both free to download and use for personal use. Spybot even protects the Windows registry from being written to without your permission. That is good.

On Norton by Symantic.
Remember, the "Storm Warning" virus threat is still alive, and the most flourishing out in the wild world today. www.zdnet.com/news/security
A variant the "Yellow Storm", was deliberately designed to attack only to attack and disable Norton AV.
Norton by Symantic, whose corporate colours are? You guessed it, YELLOW.

I'm not saying you've been hit, but better safe than sorry.
It does sound more like a really dud un-installation has screwed your registry up.

That is a bad thing. That scares me much more than a virus.:zipped:

I a big fan of the "better safe than sorry" mantra!

In addition to Norton I have LavaSoft's Ad-Aware SE Personal (free) ad-ware remover thingy, which I run once a week (just before Norton does it's weekly full system scan) to remove all the friggen cookies & whatnot that I pick up after a weeks worth of web surfing.

Think I will give Avast & Spybot a go before I throw myself on the repair guy's mercey, since it's the cheaper route to go first! (Never hurts to have mutiple virus/spyware protection anyway! )

So Norton has been singled out by the hacker/virus crowd right now, eh? I'm NOT trading it in (Macafe can go to heck) so maybe giving it an Avast buddy will- at the very least- prevent future problems...untill some turkey creates a virus that attacks both Avast & Norton, that is! (When I find that guy, I will be sending him any repair bills I encur...after which I plan to beat him with a very large stick. )

I had best get going to the Avast & Spybot sites right now...

Hmmm... for what it's worth, I've used Norton Antivirus for years with zero problems other than its bad habit of removing cookies that I want to keep.

ZW, it is not a good idea to have more than one AV suite installed at the one time.

Like a very strong "DON'T DO IT", type of urgent warning. Please don't do it.

If you want, you can borrow one of my sticks. An Aboriginal war club called a "Nulla Nulla". Made from "Mulga" tree roots. Our Aussie hard woods are very hard.
One of my personal favourites is a tree we call the Iron Bark, it can kill an axe. Nice hard wood. If you can get through the damned bark.
Even our softwood pines can break a carpenters heart. You have to drill a hole to drive a nail into Aussie pine, and that is a "soft" wood.
If you need a big stick, I can send you one.

Really? :asking06:

I've heard alot of people have more than one AV suite installed as a matter of routine. Hmmmm...

Of course I didn't get a chance to read your caution post before adding both Avast & Spybot to my PC. No BFBVFS as of yet, but I found it quite interesting that Spybot S&D found several things AdAware has never uncovered, mostly in IE/Windows files.

Maybe if I alternate between Norton & Avast (turn one off/ the other on) things will be ok? Or maybe I should ask one of the people who posts about running 2 different AV programs exactly how they do so...

I like the sound of the Iron Bark wood. Sounds like the perfect thing to beat Spammers, Trolls & Virus Makers, in my humble opinion. The only sticks I have laying around are made of Diamond Willow, which is a beautifull (but only semi-strong) wood.

If I ever determine that a "person" is responsible for my PC problems (other than me) & manage to find them, I will take you up on your stick loaning offer!

Apparently, they can get under each others skin and do bad things to windoze. Ha, as if windoze needed any help for that.

(Actually, XP SP2 Pro Corporate is the version I run, and truth be told, it is the best MS have produced. And I started with a 286 on DOS 6,22 with Win 3 running on top).

Spybot, is very good, and my tech friend went from NOD32 to Avast (including for his business clients) after seeing what it did once only.


As for your last sentence.:p
I too, am prone to the odd "error code 18" pooping up in my "personal confuser".:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:


Error code 18? I hear you ask!

Measure the distance from monitor and keyboard to your brain.
About 18 inches? Yep, I get error code 18, on a pretty regular basis.:confused: :laugh: :laugh:

I'm wondering if this could be related to the Bon Voyage anti-piracy thing. :thinking:

I was about to say "Nah, it can't be BV/SecureRom related 'cause I haven't installed BV yet" when it dawned on me that I had installed H&M Fashions which did put SecureRom on my PC, which was still happily hidding out even after I uninstalled H&M Fashions.

So I can't really say "Nah" now can I?

Just got my computer back from the shop (how it takes a week to do a 2 hour wipe/reinstall of XP I have yet to figure out) and- while they did not do as clean a reinstall as I would have liked- at least those two "WINDOWS" folders have vanished. They were the folders that freaked me out the most, so I am happy to see them gone.

Of course this means yet another clean install of Sims 2 (along with all my other games) but what the heck; it's not like I have a real life or anything!

I forgot to menchien that amoung the things that Avast found (that Norton did not) was a Trojan linked to- belive it or not- the Prima guide for Bon Voyage that I had downloaded not long ago!

Is that EP cursed or what! (I really wanna install it though: what the heck's wrong with me!)

It does sound like a really fun expansion pack! I'm sure I will enjoy seeing your screen shots of it! :D

Scene 1.

A family of 4 sims. 2 sent on vacation, 2 left at home to look after the household and pets.

Scene 2.

Couple arrive on vacation, check into accommodation, decide to stroll to Community Lot.

Scene 3. At the appointed Community Lot. Waiting, waiting, no Sims turn up.
Go back to hotel lot, game says sims walking to lot, go to lot, no sims.
Exit "hood", go to main "hood", enter family lot. NO, game won't allow, family on holiday says game.

WHAT?:asking06:

Roll mind back to scene 1, No, that's not right.:confused:

From there, it got really interesting.:laugh:

And now I sit at the old P4 1.6 Pentium, waiting for the letters to appear on the screen as I type them. Alright, I'll type slower, you cranky old....

At least it's still working.:blob7: :blob7: :p

It's all part of the entertainment, Shorty! :lol:

Did you ever find your missing family? Maybe they were abducted by bandits while on vacation?

Oh dear!

"Bon Yoyage Melting In 3 Acts" sounds like something I don't want to see! (I've seen others in this series, unfortunately!)

Shorty; was this with or without the new Offical BV Patch that's up now?

Now I'm scared again...

I had just about worked up the courage to give BV a go when I ran into a post (on the InTeen board) about someone who's BV install deleted her entire Documents/EA Games folder & installed a new Admin account, among other things!

Just when I thought it might be safe to go into the water...

Darn. Now I need clean underwear!