Silly me

[The Dreaming Dragon]

My desktop can no longer access the Internet, or at least something is screwing with access.

I was surfing aimlessly,clicking on curious links,until I tried one of those that opens dozens of  browser windows like fireworks,until I Ctrl-Alt-Deleted to stop the flow and closed them all. But ever since,when I try opening a new browser  it says New Tab or Blank Page,even if I use bookmarks or copy n paste addresses into the search bar. Happily my ftp program can reach my website so I can still make updates,but neither Steam or refreshing Quake2 server lists can be accomplished. I tried using System Restore,but it tells me errors occured and nothing was changed even when i go back to the night before this happened. How can I un screw myself?
 

[quadz]

Bummer.

Make sure to back up your data ASAP and unplug whatever backup drive you copy your data onto so it can't be reached by whatever malware might be on your system. (Some malware will encrypt all data it can reach and then hold it for ransom.)

Then, might try a rootkit removal tool to see if it finds anything:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/sortdate/rootkit_removal.html

Also, check whether the following file may have been filled with bogus data by malware:

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

The only line it would be expected to contain by default (besides comments) is:

127.0.0.1       localhost

To edit the file you'll need to run notepad as Administrator. (I.e. right click on Notepad icon, and choose "Run as administrator.")


You didn't mention which browser you're using.

But going forward, I'd recommend setting EVERY browser you use to NOT run any plug-ins automatically (including and especially Adobe Flash.)

Also, I'd recommend setting up a backup tool like Acronis True Image, which is good at restoring your OS to a previous backed up version when things go awry.

[|iR|Focalor]

Aw, don't make it sound innocent. You were looking at porn. You damn pervert. You make Jesus cry.

Like Quadz said, could be a rootkit. Also could be a browser hi-jacker. Maybe try using another browser to see if it's just that one browser that is effected. If a different one works, then I doubt that simply uninstalling and reinstalling that effected browser would completely solve the problem. However, since you mentioned that whatever it is seems to also being effecting your Windows Restore ability, it probably IS something more than a simple browser hi-jacker. Malwarebytes Anti-Rootkit is pretty decent and listed on that link Quadz provided. I had a problem kinda similar to yours once. A rootkit and virus scan found a few things and cut them out, but after a while, it seemed to magically reappear under a completely new name. The only thing I could do to completely solve the problem was to format, delete the partitions, set new partitions, and do a new Windows install. With the newer Windows versions on newer PC's, you don't typically get an install disc though, so... not really sure how reinstalling Windows works in that case.

[Whirlingdervish]

If you are lucky, and the user account you were using at the time was not an administrator, you may be able to get things working again by creating a new user account with administrator credentials, and logging in via this account to fix stuff.

To get to your files to save them, you will be able to take ownership of your other user's folders with this new account.

In a lot of cases this will give you a user with a "new" clean registry that doesn't have the changes whatever malware/virus made to your other one. As long as you don't log in with your old account again, it won't load stuff on startup and the browser won't have been redirected. (hopefully)

If you can't get to the internet with this new account, you may want to download something like malwarebytes, burn it to a disc and install it on the machine and do a full scan. Don't put it on a thumb drive unless you want to throw that thumbie away after (they can get infected too)

This method will allow you to grab your data and put it on some backup storage, so you can reinstall or re-image your OS cleanly.

[The Dreaming Dragon]

First night trying get to unfux my stuff...

McCaffre  root kit remover and Malwarebites  AntiRootkit found nothing.

Making a new User with administration privileges did nothing,and  Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer are all in the same boat. Although when I am offline the Web pages try to load from their addresses, but only switch to New Tab when I connect via smartphone to the web,a fact of some significance, I imagine.

Looking at my hosts configuration in notepad,I see interesting stuff. Besides 127.0.0.1. local host,the next line down says. "  ::1.   local host" . And after that,a few hundred Web addresses inserted by Spy both Search and  Destroy.  Won't change anything until I hear from you guys. Worse comes to worse,I can get online with a laptop untouched by this, with documents salvaged before the problem happened on a thumb drive. I am also getting Hard Disk Problem  warnings for the past few months,and it will be some time before I can deal with that. Money lacks and will for a time longer. But I will keep you posted. Thanks!

[|iR|Focalor]

Although when I am offline the Web pages try to load from their addresses, but only switch to New Tab when I connect via smartphone to the web,a fact of some significance, I imagine.

So web access on your phone is acting funky too? Apparently something is wrong with your PC, but if other devices in the house can't access the web properly as well, then obviously something has made some changes to your wireless router as well. You could reset the router to revert it back to factory settings and probably regain internet access again (check the routers manual or look online for manufacturer and model specific instructions for doing this if you don't know how), but if your problem PC is reconnected to the network again more than likely it's just gonna exec something to fuck up the settings again. Probably all of this is shit you already know though.

Hard disk errors aren't always an indicator that the hard disk is about to fail. Viruses and shit can do things to a disk that will make the system do that also. Viruses and malware can sometimes make your hard disk AUDIBLY sound like they're getting ready to shit themselves and fly apart.

If scans with multiple antimalware/antivirus programs haven't found anything, then probably the easiest and surest way to fix things would be to simply format and reinstall Windows. Back up everything you can, reintroduce it to a clean OS install piecemeal if you aren't sure than malware scans are correct in calling the data "clean" so that at least you can kinda narrow down which group of files contain the offending item.

Please note that I am NO computer whiz, nor am I more qualified than anyone else in particular to diagnose things or help you. Just a reasonably knowledgeable computer user who is somewhat experienced in getting infected with bad shit. So when I say that formatting and reinstalling Windows will be "easiest and surest", note that I did not say quickest or least invasive. It's the equivalent of carpetbombing your neighborhood with napalm and carbaryl to get rid of fireants in your backyard. It WILL work though, so like I said, it's "easy", no wasted hours of running numerous antivirus programs that might not find and remove the problem, no trying multiple things to no avail, no getting frustrated and chucking your keyboard against the wall. Just gotta remember to delete the partitions during the format and setup and then designate new ones. Failure to do so could result in the problem coming back. Sometimes this shit likes to hide in the partitions.

And if you do all that and the problem STILL reoccurs, then that vastly narrows down what the next step will be. At that point, you'd have to "nuke" the hard disk. Sounds more ominous than it really is. Basically it's just a program that will go over the entire disk before formatting and a fresh install to magnetically wipe nearly everything back to 0's rather than simply deleting indexes and overwriting old shit like normal. However, it's highly unlikely that it would be necessary to nuke the disk. In 99% of cases, formatting and reinstalling will do the trick. From what I hear, it can take a long time to do it, especially with a huge disk. Really the only time you wanna do it is if you plan on selling your hard disk and don't want some knucklehead with forensic programs digging out old shit you thought you deleted.

[The Dreaming Dragon]

No,my smartphone is fine,it's what I use to connect TO the Internet at the moment. No broadband  since  early 2014,no landline. The world has turned Odd for me for the past few years:my girlfriend  suddenly became my roommate and I had to carry financially my studio and the apartment we hold together to house her house housefull of furniture.  Luxuries went first,and Internet access  was done by tethering my 15 gigs of monthly data to surf,watch videos and download audio books and update my website   But now hope lies in the future..

My girlfriend is now my  fiance, and after getting cash from her father,I was able to break the cash loop that had me trapped in perpetual poverty.  We are fully moved into the other place,I spent the summer renovating my studio,and now I b Ave a renter to reverse the negative cash clow. Hopefully by April I can stabilize my money woes to have real Internet again.  Which brings us to this problem again.

There are computer fix it shops a couple of blocks away from me if worse comes to worse. What it will cost me is another matter. My computer is nearing 10 years old and runs Vista ultimate, and my install disk was swiped by a scumbag workmates who wanted my help getting concert tickets and felt comfortable enough to pocket it after I refused his asking to borrow it. I never upgraded to a newer OS because I run Photosshop 5.5 which came out in the late 90's and I shudder to think of being without it. Some old games like Quake2 refuse to install on modern OSs, in fact the only way I managed to get it running on  Vista was to drag the whole folder on a back up hard drive and drag it off into C: ,and same with PS. I am tempted to erase that  " : : 1" part in that file Quads mentioned,since it seems like it doesn't belong there. Other than that,I will see if I can truly upload updates to my webcomic. All else is inconvenience, and I have lived with worse for far longer...

[|iR|Focalor]

Well as far as your ancient version of PhotoShop not running on a newer OS, that's kinda-sorta not a problem. If you have a cool**** internet provider like me (and the asterisks denote "cool" as in they don't fucking spy on my browsing habits and bust my balls for downloading torrents, however, I sometimes have shitty service because my DSL will go out once every few months without warning, and as an added bonus the god damn PHONE will go out with it. So hopefully I never a medical emergency at the exact moment that ever happens and my cell battery is dead too.) Anyway, rabbit trailed there. As I was saying, if you have a cool internet provider that doesn't spy on you and fuck with you for downloading torrents (which should be illegal for any ISP to do in my opinion), then you can always download an older cracked version of PS that will work with whatever OS you're on. That's what I did. It ain't 100% honest and upstanding, but... it's not the latest version anyway, and other free programs do the same shit PS does, if you ask me PS should be free and bundled into any Windows OS anyway. I'm rationalizing my blatant guiltiness of theft here, but whatever, hehe.

[Whirlingdervish]

Normally I'd search for the install disc ISO, but you dont seem to have a second computer around to burn it with, and microsoft dropped their contract with digitalriver which provided free ISO downloads to various windows versions in favor of checking for your cd key before you even get a copy of the install media (apparently they couldn't stop piracy any other way that making it stupidly annoying to get a repair disc).

I would bet you can still find an install disc for that OS on amazon. It may not be cheap, but it's cheaper than a new computer or any of the repair shops.

You could order it on the phone and get it UPS'd to you.

[|iR|Focalor]

but it's cheaper than a new computer or any of the repair shops.

YES YES YES. Unless you absolutely HAVE to, you don't take your PC to a fucking repair shop (unless it's a 100% warranty covered repair). Those people get paid to do the same shit you could always do yourself if you took the time to research it a little. And they'll gladly pull the classic mechanics trick on you saying that they found OTHER shit that HAD to be repaired and dealt with in order to solve your problem. For example, years and years ago I bought a new video card for an old PC I had. I asked the guy at the shop multiple times if it would run Quake2 and games using OpenGL and he said yes. Anyways, I was a moron and didn't read the instructions thoroughly about uninstalling the old video drivers before installing the new card. I didn't have time to fuck with it, and I figured it'd only cost me an extra 25 bucks to have them set it up for me. I know for a FACT that they could've done it in 5 minutes without fucking with anything else, but did they? Hell no. Instead, they installed an AV on my system to get rid of "viruses" I had (for the low price of 50 bucks) and then supposedly had to reinstall windows for me (another 50 bucks) and then they charged me another 25 bucks to set up the new video card. So once it was all done, the 120 dollar video card I bought ended up costing me 250 dollars. I was pretty pissed, but I was high as shit at the time and didn't feel like letting it fuck with my buzz. That SHOULD'VE been the last time I ever dealt with those assholes. But unfortunately, I guess I enjoy getting fucked, because I had those shitbags build me another computer a few years later. I specifically ordered and paid for a Western Digital hard disk. It was written clear as day on the fucking invoice. A year after I got it, the PSU, hard disk, and RAM all got fried at once. The warranty period was over, so I cracked the hologram sticker on the case and opened it up. What did I spy with my little eye? The PSU was NOT the brand and wattage specified on the invoice, and the hard disk was NOT a Western Digital. I doubt the fucking RAM was the quality of shit I paid for either. They fucking hosed me. They sold me cheaper shittier components and charged me the extra price for the good shit.

Why do computer shops do that? Because they fucking can. They slap that sticker on the case and if you remove it, then YOU obviously switched out the parts. Moral of the story: TRUST NO ONE. If you ever have a PC shop build you a machine, have THEM open it up and SHOW YOU all the parts in it and check them against the invoice before handing them any money. If it ain't what you ordered, LEAVE WITHOUT PAYING AND NEVER COME BACK.

I'd bet both my nuts on it that those fucking assholes were running that scam on 90% of the folks taking their PC's in there to have work. Cuz as I was walking around, I noticed that several other employees were busy at their stations running virus scans and they had stacks of peoples PC towers and laptops all over the tables beside them. And they could get away with it because nobody was gonna say anything. Most people are gonna have something marginally bad on their system that an AV would flag. And most folks having someone else do their PC work for them don't have clue how harmless some of these things are and that they do NOT require someone to reload the OS. Every PC that comes in is an extra 100 bucks for them on top of whatever the REAL problem is they're solving if that problem itself is not a virus infection.

So... maybe I'm in the wrong line of work. Maybe I should start fixing ignorant peoples PC's.

[Whirlingdervish]

I've rarely seen a repair shop that wasn't outrageously priced by my standards.

I do side work for friends and co-workers and I do charge them labor if it takes a ridiculous amount of time to fix something, but I've never gotten close to what guys like Geeksquad want for a fix.

I just did a laptop screen replacement, and full wipe/reinstall of win 7 on my receptionists personal laptop and a repair shop would have nailed her for a good 3-400 bucks for the same deal, or pumped up the list of broken things and just tried to sell her a new laptop instead. The screen was 70 dollars delivered, and the whole thing took me all of an hour my effort (you don't count the time windows sits there doing updates or installing).

I might be sexy as hell, but I don't consider my time worth 200+ bucks an hour unless I'm giving handjobs or something. 

[PANTONE 7717C]

DreamingDragon, as suggested reinstalling the OS will most likely solve any problem unless it's hardware related, but perhaps you'd like to try some other things first.

I tried using System Restore,but it tells me errors occured and nothing was changed even when i go back to the night before this happened.

What do you mean by this, that you got errors while trying to run System restore and you can't use restore at all? If so what are the errors?
Since Malwarebytes or any other scanning software didn't find anything I was thinking that running the System File Checker from Windows itself could be useful. It's a Windows tool that can be used to verify the integrity of every protected operating system file (for Win10, Win8, Win7 and Vista.)

• Open Command Prompt as an administrator.
  (Click the Start button -> All Programs -> Accessories, then right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator and click Yes.)
• Once Command Prompt is open, type the following command and then press Enter.
  sfc /scannow 
  (There's a space between sfc and /scannow. The scanning usually takes up to 10 minutes, just be patient and let it finish.)
• The System File Checker will now verify the integrity of the operating system files.
• Restart your computer if sfc /scannow did actually repair any files.

====
Another thing worth a try is resetting your network adapter in Vista.

"Network shell (Netsh) is a tool an administrator can use to configure and monitor network devices on Windows based computers at a command prompt. A common use of Netsh, is to reset the TCP/IP stack back to default settings. But not only will Netsh reset the TCP/IP stack, but it can also completely reset your network adapter(s). It will also reset the Windows Firewall in Windows Vista too."

Here is a list of the Netsh commands you can use to reset your network adapter. Open a Command Prompt as an administrator:

   netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt
Resets TCP/IP and related components to a clean state. (Same as uninstalling and reinstalling TCP/IP, needs a reboot)

   netsh int reset all
Resets interface information

   netsh int ipv6 reset
Resets IPv6 configuration state.

   netsh firewall reset
Resets firewall configuration to default. Restoring the default settings will delete all Windows Firewall settings that you have changed(!). For example, if you have allowed certain programs through the firewall those programs will be blocked again.

   netsh winsock reset
Resets Winsock Catalog to a clean state. All Winsock Layered Service Providers which were previously installed must be reinstalled. This command does not affect Winsock Name Space Provider entries.

[The Dreaming Dragon]

Another night of attempts...

Followed Pan's advice,mostly. Did the SC first:it claimed to have fixed stuff,so rebooted,but still the same. Tried resetting netsh didn't work either,all nor ipv6. Didn't try resetting the firewall,since my browsers would say can't connect to --- and not just New Tab. And I don't  understand the last stuff about WinSock, or at least the stuff you mentioned. But so.e observations for further investigation.

I turned on network animations in the tray,and see that I am both sending and receiving data. Firefox will crash immediately at times, then just open a blank New Tab,and when I try opening a bookmark,it will show in the tab for half a second before reverting to New Tab.

I have a OS back up,of sorts. My laptop,even older than my desktop has a partition with Vista home premium on it. Or at least HP's backup files,nearly 13 gigs worth. Maybe I can find what I need there if I can dig through it for the right stuff,even though my desktop runs Ultimate.

At least I can update my webcomic with my laptop. All I really care about.

[Whirlingdervish]

in Firefox, you might try resetting the browser to defaults.
this wont fix the overall network issues, but it might narrow down what is really broken.

if you put in "about:support" in the address bar it should take you to the Firefox built in troubleshooting page, which has info about recent crashes of the browser, your environment, and other pertinent details.

In the upper right there should be two buttons, one for Safe mode (disabling any add-ons) and one to refresh Firefox.

The refresh one should wipe out any custom setting changes made to your browser.

I'm not sure if refreshing it wipes out the error log, but it might not hurt to hit the "copy text to clipboard" option beforehand, and dump it into a .txt file in case the logged errors contained some useful diagnostic information.


Once your browser is cleaned up, you can use it to help troubleshoot the network problem you are seeing with q2 servers and steam and such. I think there's a chance of a DNS issue somewhere, since you have some connectivity but not much.

You should see if you can connect over your network connection/internet to an IP address of a known website.

Something like google would be a good choice, but tastyspleen would work as well

in your browser, put in"http://216.58.216.174" and see if you get the google main page.
(likewise "http://67.228.69.114" should take you to the TS main page)

If that works, but navigating to "http://www.google.com" does not work, then something is shitting up you computer's ability to resolve domain names. (this would make connecting to a server in q2 using an address like "tastyspleen.net:port" not work, while FTP to a site via IP would work fine.)