Uninstalling MS Updates When Using Vista!

Your computer is probably old and slow, like mine. First, you must have all the memory your computer is rated for, I get mine on ebay. That speeds it up, cheaply.

Get Malwarebytes Antimalware, it's free. It will get rid of most of the bad stuff. You can always delete it after you're done if it bugs you later. It can get pushy.

I presume you are leaving Vista, going back to XP. You may find updates you don't want in 'remove programs' in control panel. Even in XP, I disable Automatic Updates. Too pushy. If my machine will run without it, I must not need it. If a device is acting up, I will go to it's website and update drivers there while I'm checking support.

I don't use MS Security Essentials either, got too pushy. They just changed their update system, it's nuts for slow machines. Free or not, it was jamming up my computer. I had to wait forever for it to update every time I turned the computer on, even the same day! My kid got Kapersky for three machines, only used one, so I was able to use the other, surprisingly.

As long as your computer has a processor speed of 800mhz or better, I would keep using it. If it's slower than that, shop around for a better one, you'd be surprised how cheap a good used one can be.

Hello there,

Is this and off the shelf or custom build computer?

It makes little difference as the machine is compromised. If you want help answer these questions:

What is the make/model # of computer and what flavor of Vista operating system is running?

What if any internet security is in use and is it a free version?

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It's running slow because someone else has control of the resources. The first step of eradication is to physically disconnect the computer from the internet by either turning off the router or pulling the Ethernet.

Now reply with the answers....using another machine if possible.

Hi,

Off the shelf Lenovo.

Intel T260 Processor at 1.60 Hz.

32 bit operating system

2.00 GB Ram

OS: Vista Home Premium SP2

120 GB Hard Drive

Windows is activated.

AVG 9.0 with all updates licensed version.

It just took an hour and 5 minutes to reboot, Super antispyware freezes and I can't uninstall it either.

AVG Scan shows nothing unusual, the Antispyware is running now.

I will see if it freezes again.

Backup your data........

On the start menu type "recovery" into the search pane and follow the prompts to do a factory reinstall/recovery etc.. Because at this point it's futile to try to repair the O/S...

Doing this now, wish me luck.

Backed everything up.

Did factory reinstall, now the machine will not completely boot.

Says to keep trying, any ideas?

Got tiresome saying yes to the restart prompt off and on all day.

Did you follow the default process or deviate? What steps did you take in the recovery process? Do you have XP disk?

Have you disconnected all peripherals other than mouse and keyboard?

Possibly you are unaware that disabling operating system updates handicaps the security softwares ability to protect the system also....

You will find this previous thread very interesting;

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/48645

If I'm using XP, which Microsoft has tried to make obsolete, I really don't expect any updates to benefit XP. I certainly don't need updates for Vista or Win 7 or whatever it is. My antivirus programs update themselves, don't use MS updates. Why should I suffer MS hogging my bandwidth for unnecessary updates? I only have so much hard drive, why suffer loss of space for unnecessary updates?

There have been updates that have gone awry, and had to have patches and more updates to undo the damage. I don't need that grief.

I just dumped MS Security Essentials because they went nuts with updates. My protection was shut off until it finished updating, every time I turned the computer on. I could not risk going online unprotected, so I had to sit and wait. It's gone. I'll pay a vendor who can update in the background without interrupting my surfing, thank you.

I went to a site to see if others were having problems with MSSE, and the moderator there mocked the complainants for having older computers. Adios MS.

There are many flavors of Linux and many are command driven but Ubuntu 9.4 is so much like windows XP the difference is difficult to assuage.

Try Microsoft "fix it center" its a free program for fixing common problems.

oilcan13

Well, backing up is futile... From your note about it got to your yahoo account and sent out emails should have told everyone - including yourself - that your system is compromized! If you have a set of 'recovery disks' that came with the system I'd suggest you start with that... Although it's hard to say what type of infection you have since any virus scanner installed at the time of infection is probably compromised too. You also need to take into account that the backup you made is compromised. Here's yet another complication... Some infections can get into your BIOS, and that's a bad thing since you'd have to get the BIOS back to 'normal' too. I would guess that your 'friends' computer is compromised... There are some sites that can help with it but starting over with a set of recovery disks would be the first step.

I got it cleaned out before this crazy stuff happened.

So, as it ends up now, I partitioned the drive and installed the Vista Business until I decide what I want to do.

None of my friends were as dumb as I, or at least no one has complained.

Of course my grandsons looked for the MS games and it isn't in Business.

Since this Vista machine is my backup now, I guess I will allow them some time playing games, just have to find and install them.

And as always, thanks to everyone who helped me, I did learn a great deal.