Why Stymied?

[treetopflyer]

Everything's beautiful, downloading "heart" songs for Valentines Day, but then, the next morning, I find myself locked out. Attempts to open the program result in "Press Any Key" go-arounds. Then I discover that my Disk Defragmenter program does the same thing. Everything else is alright.

I've checked for malware, etc. Nothing. I did a registry sweep. Nothing. Tried to defrag but that failed, as I've already mentioned. What should I do now?

I'd like to avoid removing my WINMX program and going through a re-install if possible.

Any ideas? What might have happened or how to fix the problem?

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

[..Ñøßߥ..]

What did you use to ensure your computer is virus and malware free? I would run either the free scanner at http://www.pandasecurity.com (active scan) or http://housecall.trendmicro.com

Once you have run that and confirmed all is clear, run an error scan, tell it to auto fix any issues.

Post back here when you have done this and let us know where things are then.

[treetopflyer]

I'm using the latest version of Spybot, which did not detect anything and neither did Norton Anti-Virus.
The one you recommend requires a diff OS. I'm still running Win98SE! Thanks for the reply.

[treetopflyer]

Also ran: System Tools - Scan Disk, to fix any errors. It did not detect any errors to fix.

[Sable]

Norton isn´t safe if its infected by a virus. Spybot is crap.
i would prefer ad-aware and to do what Nobby said.
2 years ago i knew something is wrong with my comp and norton did not find something. then i used panda and it found exactly 219 files which were infected by a virus !!
after this i put norton into the trash, same did my b/f which always defended norton when i bitched at it, he deinstalled it also in his whole company where he works. we are using panda now.

[treetopflyer]

I've never had any problems with WINMX in the past. Is there a widespread problem of downloading virus' along with "heart" songs I haven't yet heard about?

I left the program running all night, several "Hearts of Space" and individual songs queued. In the morning, all but one or two of the songs had completed downloading. No problems detected in any of the completed downloads. They all play fine. There was no record of a partial download listed in the music files accessed through windows explorer.

The response here, so far, seems only to suggest the possibility of a malicious virus. Are there any other possible explanations? What should the registry file look like?

[Sable]

you can get a virus from everywhere.
did you try a virusscan with panda ?

[treetopflyer]

"you can get a virus from everywhere."

Death is always near.

"did you try a virusscan with panda?"

It will not run on my machine - they tell you right away if your system doesn't meet their requirements.

I looked at the registry, and I can't find anything resembling WinMX or MXpie, or anything else like it.
What's up with that?

[treetopflyer]

you can get a virus from everywhere.

Are you saying then, that if you download music with MXPIE that you are inevitably going to download a virus and therefore users should necessarily be willing to risk losing the use of their PC's?

Obviously, such attacks can be extremely costly in many different ways and whatever preventive measures you're going to use may not prevent such an attack, regardless of how highly touted the software.

The question is, what is the extent of the risk? Like skydiving or anything else, you're dealing with calculated risks.

Just how rife with virus' is MXPIE, in your estimation? And are there other circumstances that might cause the type of problem I am having, glitches other than those malevolently induced?

Thanks for your reply.

[Sable]

you can´t get a virus from winmx with pie if you only download music...mxpie has nothing to do with viruses or maleware.
you can get viruses from everywhere in the net.
the online scan from panda should work with IE, not with firefox. try it.
If you are running winmx and the patch from mxpie.info then uninstall it and get a fresh copy of winmx with the new community patch from here http://www.mxpie.com/downloads.html
Has nothing to do with a virus also but its safer against the faked files.

[..Ñøßߥ..]

Just to clarify the Mxpie patch/Winmx community patch does NOT handle downloads in anyway, it is simply a patch to connect you to the network and to block unwanted fake files and connections. I agree totally with Sable, Norton is not good enough to ensure you are virus free, you need to google for alternatives that run with your operating system. There are literally hundreds of things that could cause your issues, you simply need to start with the most obvious (virus, malware) and elminate them 1 at a time.

[Vladd44]

It ultimately depends on what you download in this situation.

If you were infected by something you downloaded, then all reason and logic would imply that it was NOT an love related mp3.

Frankly at this point I think it is a leap of faith to conclude that you were infected by something you downloaded from winmx at this point. Possible? Very.. if one is not vigilant to the types of files they are downloading.

But it is improbable that you did nothing but download music, at some point it is very likely you opened up your web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Seamonkey) and ended up on a website that had ill intent. Or perhaps you even used a horribly insecure email client such as outlook.

Either way a reinstall of winmx is not to much of a commitment to see if that issue is resolved. However, the disk defrag problem does indicate a problem.

I would suggest you dump windows 98se and go download puppy linux. With wine it can run winmx with no problems and would virtually eliminate your virus concerns.

But since you are unlikely to choose that option, I would suggest you go back to nobby's first reply.

I would run either the free scanner at http://www.pandasecurity.com (active scan) or http://housecall.trendmicro.com

You came back with...

The one you recommend requires a diff OS.

There are two links in his post. And one of them (trend micro) most definitely allows for win98. Did you run it? Or did you just give up after the first link and declare defeat?

[treetopflyer]

All's well that ends well.

I finally decided the best course of action was to just remove WinMX & the PIE patch from my hard drive. A clean sweep, as it were. Following that, I ran Disk Defragmenter again and it ran perfectly.

Then I did in fact search for free virus scans for Win98SE and came up with.... Housecall. I used it and discovered a few (small) "Trojan" type anomalies dating back to 2004 (probably marketing related). I removed them personally after they were identified. Then I ran subsequent checks after that to insure a complete sweep. Thank you, Housecall. Why the Spybot program didn't detect these, I can't say. Maybe they weren't deemed a threat? I updated the Spybot again, but I'll also consider Housecall for all future consultations - it's a keeper.

Today I installed the WinMX version 3.54 and within minutes I was connected once again with the WinMx community. No problems, and noticed a few things have changed but basically still the same program I love and respect.

Thanks again for your kind assistance and for providing a community forum where problems such as these can be worked out in such cordial manner.

[Sable]

Why the Spybot program didn't detect these, I can't say.

because its crap, i told you before, get ad-aware here www.lavasoft.com/
its much better

[treetopflyer]

"Crap". Yeah, I got that part. And I also took note of your 'Ad-Aware' suggestion. Thank you. And I do figure I can take your advice to the bank - hopefully before the bank crashes. (smiley face)

For me, I don't worry much about the evil tricksters. I continually back up my photographic works and writing on archival disks. My system is old now, obviously, and a systems nuclear crash would be doing me a favor. And obviously, too, I'll sometimes find it hard to let go of things - like asking around if maybe there's a way to fix a troubled program rather than simply dump it and re-install the latest version of it.

I'm not a dumpster diver as our Dr. House ("everybody lies") was suggesting here previously, I won't download programs from WinMX, period, or anything from anywhere else on the internet unless I'm fairly certain it's not likely to contain some stupid demon seed, au naturel and existential being my modus operandi, and all.

"But it is improbable that you did nothing but download music, at some point it is very likely you opened up your web [trousers] and ended up on a website that had ill intent. Or perhaps you even used a horribly insecure email client such as outlook."

Dirty little whores.

The problem I was having still remains a mystery though, inasmuch as a scan of the program was never allowed to be completed. But how much of a "leap of faith" is it really, to download Michael Buble's version of 'My Funny Valentine' and not expect to download a virus? That was one of the song files queued the night before that never made it onboard.

Contrary to Dr. House's remark that a virus was not likely to be found in a "heart" song, I would think that such a title would be a perfectly diabolical location for committing a hate crime. Consider the movie, "The Talented Mr. Ripley' for just a moment. Consider the Barnum Effect, or Tom Waits' "There's a sucker born every minute... you just happened to be coming along at the right time."

Please Note: I did forget to mention here that when I (FIRST) tried scanning with Housecall (as you originally suggested) the scan got about halfway through and then locked up, just like my Disk Defragmenter program had in the beginning, and that was one of the main reasons I decided to just go ahead and dump the corrupted program and start over.

And finally, one possible cause for the problem (other than a virus), may have had something to do with the fact that I had left my Mozilla Thunderbird mail program (and Firefox) running all night and sometimes I've experienced problems associated with that - like when forgetting to shut down Thunderbird before attempting to burn a CD. A mail delivery suddenly comes in and... pow! I've also had lots of system crashes with Firefox in the past when attempting to load Java applets on some photo uploading sites, and so on, sites that are poorly written by tech schoolers that have never used anything but Microsoft.

Firefox, et al, isn't perfect though and I figure my system is also behind the learning curve. Sometimes programs just get corrupted though, you know - by glitches, as it were, as opposed to the hand of evil doers.

"Though he was a vocal religious skeptic, Vonnegut wrote in [his] final essay collection that "if I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: 'The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music.'"

[Vladd44]

But how much of a "leap of faith" is it really, to download Michael Buble's version of 'My Funny Valentine' and not expect to download a virus? That was one of the song files queued the night before that never made it onboard.

Then we can exclude it as a possibility if it never made it on board. But once again any mp3 you downloaded is not the cause for this problem.

The leap of faith would be a presumption of how you were infected. From an mp3 you downloaded on wimx? No. From another type of file? Possibly. From a file that did not download? No.

The other problems you mentioned are not normal. Since you use older computers, have you considered trying something like puppy linux out? It is specifically for older computers, and you can run it from a cd without installing to test it out.

It has become my main os on older and newer machines.