win2k pro startup config problem, need some help

[drednox]

hi

i have never used win 2k, however i am an intermediate / adv user of win 95, win 98, milenium and win xp.

now i got a small problem with win 2k professional and i cant seem to be able to get rid of it. the stuff that works and/or would have worked in other o/s'es doesnt seem to exist here or i dont know how to get to it.

mainly, my friend who is not to computer savyy, somehow made multiple copies of an executable into his startup folder. when the system boots up, it naturally attempts to start up all those files, some of which are just links to the original, others are copies of the exec itself. needless to say it creates a whole load of problems. on top of that his rig is a rather old e-machine with a 20 gig HD and 64 megs for memory and a 1 gig celeron for CPU.

now, what i would like to do, is to:

a: stop all these files from loading up during startup, or
b: delete them.

i am unable to do either. in first case when i go to run and type msconfig, nothing happens, i did search on HD and also tried o manually locate it or anything that would sound liek its equivalent, without any luck. so could someone please tell me what is its win2k pro equivalent ? if tehre isnt one how do ou configure the startup ? where or how do i acess the option(s) to tell the computer not to load up those files ?

in the latter case, i cant delete them. all i get is "access denied". i tried going to safe mode, tried command prompt only, naturally i have manually restet attributes -h -r -s -a , and still same thing !!!! so what in tarnations do i need to do to move and/or delete those files so the darn thing doesnt try to start them up anymore ?


this is geting quite frustrating now and i need help.

thanks to anyone that can shed some light on this.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: drednox
i am unable to do either. in first case when i go to run and type msconfig, nothing happens, i did search on HD and also tried o manually locate it or anything that would sound liek its equivalent, without any luck. so could someone please tell me what is its win2k pro equivalent ? if tehre isnt one how do ou configure the startup ? where or how do i acess the option(s) to tell the computer not to load up those files ?

2K didn't ship with msconfig. If you can locate a copy of XP's msconfig, that works fine.

in the latter case, i cant delete them. all i get is "access denied". i tried going to safe mode, tried command prompt only, naturally i have manually restet attributes -h -r -s -a , and still same thing !!!! so what in tarnations do i need to do to move and/or delete those files so the darn thing doesnt try to start them up anymore ?

Are you trying to delete the files under your friend's account or under another account? If you're using his account, then you should be OK permission-wise, but the files may be in use - see if there are running processes that you can shut down. If you're using another account, like a local Adminstrator account, you'll need to take ownership of the files before you can delete them. That's true from Safe Mode as well.

Also, are these "friendly" executables - i.e. not viruses, porn dialers, etc.? If the executable is malicious, it may have played some other tricks to make itself difficult to remove.

 

[MrYogi]

msconfig for windows 2000

 

[drednox]

i'm trying it under administrators login, so general, that will affect all users since this is happening all across the board.

ok, also, it seems i am unable to read anything from any disks and cant connect to the net on this HD, i am very seriously considering just reformating, but he has a lot of stuff there he didnt back up, and like i said, something is preventing us from writing and reading other disks even when i moved the HD to my system which is pretty much near top of the line. i will not be able to use this msconfig from the link. likewise i am unable to install/run virus scanners etc.

also, i have confirmed these files are some sort of virus, because since i started working on it, it made more copies of itself. after the system starts up they keep on loading up to memory until it locks up teh whole comp. on my rig i have a gig of corsair ram hyperthreading, 800mhz FSB and all that nifty stuff so i have about 5 minutes of functionality before it locks up, on his (the original) i got about 30 seconds.

i need to somehow disable the processing of the files in the startup folder, and it needs to be done within win2k pro itself, without any external intervention, installations, file transfers, etc. if possible.

 

[blcjr]

Several things to say here.

First, if you think there is a virus propagating files, you should get an antivirus program on that computer with up to date signature files and let it do the work it was designed to do.

Second, if you get "access denied" errors, you need to "take ownership" of the folder the files are in (and any subfolders), and then add the administrator to list of users with rights to the folder(s) and give the administrator "Full Control." Then you can delete the files. While administrators can be "denied access", they can always "take ownership" and give themselves access.

Third, because Win2k is designed for a multiuser environment, there are at least three different places where you will find a startup folder:

\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

\Documents and Settings\Default User\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

and in individual profile folders for each user who has logged on, such as

\Documents and Settings\username\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

where "username" is the user name that a user logs on under.

Hope this helps.