BleepingComputer.com: critical application hijacks after AOL installed

Hi.

I just got a computer.
A Dell Pentium II 400Mhz 128MB RAM 4.3 GB HD & win98.
The windows has all the critical security updates &
Windows Media Player 9
I had help getting it setup.
It hasn't got a lot of programs on it yet,
I'm just learning and I'm in eight grade.

It had to be fixed because it wasn't working.
The old HD was taken out, it had winME on it.

I was told other stuff had to be installed because the
Dell components drivers were lost when that was done.

Now it has a used Turtle Beach sound card.
A CD-RW 32x12x32x and floppy disk drive.
A zip drive.
An ATI Aureous Montego II+ video card.
We had trouble with the original US Robotics type modem,
so I got a Encore PCI 56K v9.2 modem with new drivers.

The programs on it now are:

Open Office 1.3.1
Firefox 1.03
Thunderbird 1.00
AVG 7 anti-virus
Spybot 1.3
Ad-Aware 1.05 SE personal
Sygate Personal Free firewall
Nero Express

I have a gmail account & it works with thunderbird.
The guy said to use IE only when I needed to & not to use Outlook Express.

We got online yesterday afternoon.
He used nocharge.com for the ISP, it's free in this area.
My cousin installed AOL, even though I said not to.
Now the firewall says:
Application hijack. Critical.
Application hijack. Critical.

He said the firewall will learn how I use my PC in the first few days.
But now I don't know what to do.

This post has been edited by ashton_r: 28 April 2005 - 11:12 AM

You have a very good set of applications installed, and not using IE is good advice. After bonking your cousin over the head, you need to uninstall all that AOL gunk which you don't need. At the very least, make sure it is not included in the programs that lauch automatically at start up.
To prevent their launch you can open up Spybot, find 'Tools"and find "system start-up." UNCHECK any AOL programs on the list (look in the command line column to the right to find which ones these are).
Use your add/remove programs (settings/control panel)) to remove AOL.

Sygate is most likely warning you that some part of the AOL program is trying to lauch another. You have to teach a firewall much like a young puppy what is allowed and what is not allowed (stay off furniture, yeah SURE). A good introduction to the use of firewalls is found in one of our tutorials:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/Und...alls-tut60.html

In addition, Sygate has a rather good help file that can give you insight about how it works.

I hope this helps you a little, if you have further questions about the firewall, post a NEW topic in the AV/Firewall Forum. (It's a good idea to write about only ONE problem in each post, even if you have to make several posts, as answers to multiple questions in the same post tend to get left behind or not answered fully).

Don't hesitate to post at BC, Ashton, because you will find many friendly users more than willing to take the time to answer your questions or help you with a problem, since everyone was as new to computers at one time or another, and we know how daunting they can be.

Lastly, be absolutely sure you update your Antivirus and Spyware definitions on a regular basis.

Welcome to BC and enjoy your new computer!
Regards,
John

This post has been edited by jgweed: 28 April 2005 - 03:45 PM

Thanx alot for the advice. the guy who helped me with the computer was joe jenson, or phawgg. I tried telling my cousin that AOl was for newer computers, but she wouldn't listen. thanks again and i'll be on here now often.

I should have known, ashton r, that all that good advice came from Phawgg!
Cheers,
John