Win2kPro Problems. Assistance Please (Long)

[CreePinG_DeatH]

My brother came home from college with his computer and wanted me to network them so he can have internet access if I am on the other computer. He bought a gateway with WinME installed on it, but over the course of the past 4 years, he had a friend install Win2kPro. The friend was adamant about how secure that OS is....I agree to a certain extent especially when my parents insist thier computer have WinXP Pro(yea I know).

Anyway, this "security upgrade tech" decided to leave all of the Services on by default, similar to the ones that WinXP is plagued with. Needless to say, that PC had it's fair share of viruses/worms/trojans. I removed them with Vexira, and my next step was to stop the services before installing Zone Alarm Pro (the PC does NOT have internet access yet, wanted to take care of this stuff first.)

When I went into services, either through control settings or through start-run, I am unable to view the properties windows. They pop up, but are transparent. I can't close services until I close all of the properties windows. I have to use task manager to kill the exe.

When I boot into safe mode, I can't enter the password to login. The mouse fails to move and the keyboard is non-functional. How can I regain control over services?

Also, after I login after boot, it takes a good 45 seconds to display the desktop. Before it took maybe 5 seconds. What can cause this?

Thanx in advance

[stan03]

is a reformat an option? if it were me i would just reformat and reinstall everything.

[Xaotic]

Reformat would be the best option, but you can download msconfig.exe here:

http://www.perfectdrivers.com/howto/msconfig.html

and should have control of which services are supposed to start. On any compromised system reformat and reinstall is best, as there is no sure what way of determining which other registry entries, programs or settings might be compromised.

[CreePinG_DeatH]

Thanx Xaotic. I'll try MSCONFIG first, as it seems my brother lost the install disk if reformat is the only option, then he will have to use WinXP Pro. Unless I can find something like Win98....

[stan03]

whats wrong with WinXP Pro? i have it on both my machines and i think its the best Windows yet...

[CreePinG_DeatH]

Bah, I can't autostart/manual/disable services in msconfig. Guess it's reformat time. Unless there is a way to do this through the command prompt??

[CreePinG_DeatH]

Nothing is wrong with WinXP Pro..... UNLESS you have irresponsible and ignorant computer users using it (my parents). Their computing habbits are terrible. They both Download anything anyone sends them in an email and will click on spoof email links 100 out of 100 times even if they don't know who sends it. The only reason then lasted this long is because I clean up after them :-/

[stan03]

oh... that sucks :( but yea i would just reformat i think thats the better way to go