Crazy set of new problems

[jambonay]

I have a laptop I recently upgraded to WIN 7 from XP. It has been working well with WIN 7 but a few days ago the following things started happening:

1) windows search window keeps popping up, sometimes multiple windows, sometimes one at a time as the get closed, sometimes none at all

2) the Bing Home page appears in the Reading Panel of Outlook 2010 when reading email or looking at calender

3) in browser (Firefox or IE) when typing into google search box in main pane of browser cursor keeps jumping up into the google search box in the task bar of the browser


I have done updates, scans, reboots etc. Problem seems to have no pattern in that sometimes the laptop runs as normal and others all the things a bove start happening.

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance!!

 

[WindowsStar]

I would start by doing a Malware search.

www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

 

[loaba]

Get Avast and start scanning. avast! Free Antivirus - Download Software for Virus Protection

Alternatively, you can run a housecall from Trend Micro. HouseCall - Free Online Virus Scan

 

[jambonay]

Trying Malwarebytes now, could it be a setting that got inadvertently changed?

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello jambonay, welcome to Seven Forums!



Let's "see" what the malware scans turn up.

 

[jambonay]

Malwarebytes reports no malware found. Trying avast now

 

[Frostmourne]

Clean install and reformat 7. Upgrades have issues.

 

[jambonay]

not sure what Frostmourne is on about but AVAST found a threat called "plugin-kolobok.pdf" which it has isolated. Anyone know what this is?

 

[jambonay]

which BTW has had no effect on my problem

 

[RknRusty]

I have a laptop I recently upgraded to WIN 7 from XP. ...

I didn't think you could even do that. Isn't the upgrade meant only for Vista?

 

[gregrocker]

Hope you ran Avast boot scan which is the deepest possible scan since no services at all are running where viruses can hide.

Next, running Spybot in Safe Mode (after updating first) will pretty much give you a clean bill of health. Spybot can get at infections hiding in memory when run in Safe Mode.

Next I would run a http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html?ltr=R which keeps all files, programs and settings in place while reinstalling the OS. Only botched settings could then continue the problem and even those might be reset by the Repair. It will need to be reactivated afterward at Computer>Properties link.

A Repair Install is the last resort before Clean Reinstall, right after running sfc /scannow to check System File integrity.

 

[karlsnooks]

jambonay,
You can not upgrade from XP to Win7 as another person mentioned.

Perhaps you didn't say what you meant to say.

Under the circumstances, I recommend:
1. save all info dear to your heart
2. boot from the Win7 DVD
3. at the first dialog, press SHIFT + F10 combo
4. this will take you to a command prompt.
5. type the following, hitting enter at the end of each line and waiting for each "command" to finish before continuing:

1. diskpart
2. list disk
3. select disk 0 (assuming that corresponds to your harddrive)
4. clean (this will make your hard disk look "virgin")
5. exit (to exit from diskpart)
6. exit (to exit from the command prompt)

Now you can continue with your install.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

not sure what Frostmourne is on about but AVAST found a threat called "plugin-kolobok.pdf" which it has isolated. Anyone know what this is?

Does this solve the issue?

 

[mitchell65]

I have a laptop I recently upgraded to WIN 7 from XP. ...

I didn't think you could even do that. Isn't the upgrade meant only for Vista?

You can actually, Here's a guide to how:
Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 - Help & How-to - Microsoft Windows

 

[loaba]

To the OP - It has been my experience that whenever possible, your best bet is to go with a clean install. That's not always the easiest route, but it does cut down on OS issues (while sometimes creating pesky hardware driver issues).

 

[karlsnooks]

Regarding making a clean install: I agree 100% with Ioba. This has been a golden rule since the days of Win 95.

 

[RknRusty]

I have a laptop I recently upgraded to WIN 7 from XP. ...

I didn't think you could even do that. Isn't the upgrade meant only for Vista?

You can actually, Here's a guide to how:
Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 - Help & How-to - Microsoft Windows

That's not an upgrade, it's a clean install like others are suggesting.

 

[mitchell65]

I didn't think you could even do that. Isn't the upgrade meant only for Vista?

You can actually, Here's a guide to how:
Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 - Help & How-to - Microsoft Windows

That's not an upgrade, it's a clean install like others are suggesting.

Sorry misunderstood. I thought you meant that you couldn't buy an upgrade from XP to 7

 

[jambonay]

sorry i wasn't clear from the outset, i did a clean install of win 7 on a new harddrive. As far as detected infections: "plugin-kolobok.pdf" was the only thing that was turned up.

 

[karlsnooks]

jambonay,
I went thru all of the posts.

could you
1) recap for me what your present problem is,
2) tells us about your laptop, eg., amount of ram, processor speed, model, etc.

Re 2) you can do following:
WIN key | MSINFO32.EXE | Enter key

This will give you more info than one can digest.

= Win key