What to do when ACtiveX is broken in IE6?

[Booty]

I ran across this once damn near a year ago... I was working on a computer with a virus (actually, the thing had multiple viruses, not to mention spyware, etc) that I eventually managed to clean up. I'm not certain whether it was the virus that broke it, but for whatever reason, ActiveX controls weren't functioning properly... the Windows Update page refused to work, online virus scans wouldn't go, etc. I eventually ended up just doing a reformat/reinstall.

Now, I'm looking at a similar machine I got my hands on today. Cleaned gaobot off the thing, plus another trojan and a little bit of adware. I've scanned it with numerous AV and anit-spyware aps, and I'd say it's as clean as it's going to get. I'd like to do some online scans to be 100% sure, but, whaddya know... they aren't working. Same deal with Windows Update...

I've been here, and haven't done the in-place reinstall yet... that's the next step. I don't really have a problem reinstalling Windows on this thing... it's more just the geek in me wanting to solve the problem rather than give in. Kinda like an ER doctor trying to do everything he can to save his patient's leg, even though he knows he's probably going to have amputate.

Any suggestions on things to try would be great... formatting might be the way to go, but I just want to see if there's another option.

 

[mikecel79]

Have you reset the security settings back to default in IE yet? Go into IE and to to Tools > Internet Options > Security Tab. Click on Internet and choose default level. Also you may want to reset all of IE settings back to the defaults. To do this in the Internet Options go to the Programs tab and click Reset Web Settings. That should put it all back to defaults.

 

[Booty]

Yeah, I had tried that with no luck.

My co-worker had done adware scans and supposedly cleaned the system of those, but apparantly he didn't catch them all.

One of the gaobot variants was causing most of the problems - I managed to get into safe mode and get it out of the registry to keep it from loading at boot time. Got AVG installed, it took care of it. Installed/ran stinger, which found another. Finally was then able to install NAV 2004, which found some newdotnet crap still installed (my coworker swore he got it off there with adaware, but I guess this is just another case where one virus or adware removal tool isn't enough) - so I got rid of that, which broke IE further. Did a reinstall of IE and all appears to be well.

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions... I thought I'd go ahead and reply to this post with what I found, since it doesn't seem like many people follow-up to let others know whether their problems were solved or not.

 

[NYSTrooper]

Does it give you the An error has occured message and then ask if you want to debug it?

I've had that come up, couldn't figure out how to fix it, and now I just use Mozilla.

 

[Booty]

Nope, no such error message.

I'm the kind of guy who won't give up on stuff and just switch to another program. I mean, I use Mozilla anyway personally because I like the browser better... but if Mozilla started acting up, I'd insist on messing with it, reinstalling it, etc. until it worked again, instead of, say, switching to Opera or reinstalling Windows (even though sometimes you're better off doing those things).