First post to this forum! Be gentle with me.
I can't get any of my email programs to work. It started with receiving an email from a friend (?) that had a link to a known site -- but it dumped a ton of spyware, and Norton said that a Trojan Horse had been detected. Of course I didn't proceed any further with the site and closed the window. I ran Norton antivirus and nothing was found. I ran ad-aware and rebooted, and then it said I had new programs installed. I hadn't installed anything so I went to 'add/remove programs' ... I began to uninstall a file that was called 'Realtek' which I didn't recognize ... then as soon as the uninstall began it said 'AV Rack' which I DID recognize, so I cancelled the uninstall at @30%. Nothing's been the same since. I now have no sound on my lappie at all, even the volume control icon is gone, and while I can communicate and send posts on certain websites (like this one), my email programs won't work now. AOL will let me read emails but when I try to reply to or forward and email the 'write email' window comes up at first but then goes blank in less than a second. Hotmail will let me read, compose and reply but then won't send anything. A subsequent reboot then said that I had new HARDWARE, which was a Multimedia program of some type, but when I tried to install it it asked for a disk and I had no idea where said disk might be if I had it at all, since I hadn't installed any hardware. I uninstalled 1 or 2 other things that were very small and looked insignificant, but unfortunately don't remember now what they were (one was something called RON-something). Some websites with interactive capabilities also won't work, such as one music site with a guestbook, and a jigsaw puzzle site called Jigzone.
I know just enough about computers to be really dangerous -- have I totally f***ed this up??? I have a service request into Sager but their hours are the same hours that I'm at work, and this is my home access. This lappie has a 1-year warranty (purchased from reseller Express Notebooks) that expires at the end of this month, so maybe I have some recourse but I don't know what. HELP!!!
I can't get any of my email programs to work. It started with receiving an email from a friend (?) that had a link to a known site -- but it dumped a ton of spyware, and Norton said that a Trojan Horse had been detected. Of course I didn't proceed any further with the site and closed the window. I ran Norton antivirus and nothing was found. I ran ad-aware and rebooted, and then it said I had new programs installed. I hadn't installed anything so I went to 'add/remove programs' ... I began to uninstall a file that was called 'Realtek' which I didn't recognize ... then as soon as the uninstall began it said 'AV Rack' which I DID recognize, so I cancelled the uninstall at @30%. Nothing's been the same since. I now have no sound on my lappie at all, even the volume control icon is gone, and while I can communicate and send posts on certain websites (like this one), my email programs won't work now. AOL will let me read emails but when I try to reply to or forward and email the 'write email' window comes up at first but then goes blank in less than a second. Hotmail will let me read, compose and reply but then won't send anything. A subsequent reboot then said that I had new HARDWARE, which was a Multimedia program of some type, but when I tried to install it it asked for a disk and I had no idea where said disk might be if I had it at all, since I hadn't installed any hardware. I uninstalled 1 or 2 other things that were very small and looked insignificant, but unfortunately don't remember now what they were (one was something called RON-something). Some websites with interactive capabilities also won't work, such as one music site with a guestbook, and a jigsaw puzzle site called Jigzone.
I know just enough about computers to be really dangerous -- have I totally f***ed this up??? I have a service request into Sager but their hours are the same hours that I'm at work, and this is my home access. This lappie has a 1-year warranty (purchased from reseller Express Notebooks) that expires at the end of this month, so maybe I have some recourse but I don't know what. HELP!!!
