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XP Not Running Anything

2109 Views 9 Replies 2 Participants Last post by  dai
I will try to go into detail with what is wrong with my computer running Windows XP Service Pack 2.

On Thursday I noticed that I had a virus that was masquerading as a program called "Zinaps." Apparently a lot of computers had been infected by it. I didn't know how to uninstall it, so I searched google and was told to do many different things. I ended up going into my "Documents and Settings" folder and deleting any folder that was called "Zinaps." I also went to Run and typed in the command "regedit" for the registry editor and I deleted some things that were related to Zinaps (or so I was told).

Anyway after deleting all that stuff and rebooting XP I was surprised to find that I no longer had the XP Royale theme and instead had the Windows Classic theme. I didn't know what happened so I right clicked on my desktop and tried to apply the Royale theme and was told that "The Theme service is not running, please start the Service." I went to control panel and clicked on "Services" and the "Theme" service wasn't even there.

I also found out that my computer would not open up my "Network Connections" folder saying that "The Network Connections folder service is not working, please go to Services and start the service." Turns out a lot of things are not working. My computer will not connect to the internet as well, and will not allow me to open any USB devices, although it does detect them. (The USB drive is not even viewable in "My Computer")

I tried going to "msconfig" and making every service "Automatic" and "Started" and that still didn't solve anything.

Does anyone know what is going on and how I can get my XP back to working condition? This is very frustrating. Thanks in advance.
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I did what you said and after scanning for a few minutes, when it was done, nothing happened. It just finished and that's it...

Any ideas?
do a system restore to a point before you started removing anything
this should restore you back to when you were running ok,but will also restore any infection you removed
then follow the 5 steps here
http://www.techsupportforum.com/showthread.php?t=15968
I can't do a system restore because it says my computer needs to restart and then has to try to do a system restore after restarting. However, each time after I restart it keeps telling me to restart and do the system restore. It's an endless cycle.

I've been trying to do system restore by going to msconfig and clicking safe boot, and then doing a system restore when it starts up but once again, it says that I need to restart.
ok try a repair install
boot from the xp cd and choose install
ignore the first repair option and continue with install
when windows finds the previous installation and offers to repair
then do the repair
If I do that, do I have to backup all my files, or will Windows keep them as it restores?
the repair option will leave your files intact
I did everything you said and it worked flawlessly. My computer is working fine, however, since it loaded an older version it is now Service Pack 1 and it has the Zinaps virus on it. Can I automatically go from Service Pack 1 to Service Pack 3? Or do I have to install Service Pack 2 first?

Also, can you give me step by step instructions on how to get rid of Zinaps? I've tried some guides online but they aren't working.

Once again thanks! :)
you can go straight to sp3
aterwards you need the security experts to help do the cleaning so follow the 5 steps here
http://www.techsupportforum.com/showthread.php?t=15968
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