How to layer DCS & Norton Utils reinstall

[frugalphone]

Greetings o Great Ones,

I've been learning your tools only since yesterday, but the authors of utilities that patch these unstable freaky systems have my humblest respect. Thanks for your feedback - all posts are extremely useful.

(Couldn't find instructions elsewhere, so please re-direct if dupe?)
I didn't initially load DCS tools with Norton Utilities off, so must redo & system is confimed mess. Hidden file still lurking.

In what order should I uninstall and reinstall everything?
(DCS , Norton Systemworks 2003 +Firewall 2003, just got Spybot and Ad-ware. (Win ME)

Should I run scans before uninstalling?

Uninstall in reverse order that I installed? (I assume re-boot after every uninstall?)

Install DCS tools before or after Norton ? (Maybe, if DCS is "lower level" than Norton?)
But then Norton doesn't help me watch the install of DCS tools?

Run full system DCS scans before Norton Virus Scan?
Or run Norton Virus Scan from CD before install DCS? (I think can do this)
Or install only TDS3, then Nortons, then PE and Wormguard?

Does it matter (to DCS) in what order to load Norton, firewall or Systemworks first? Last time I did this, Norton didn't say which to load first.

I've recently had to re-install HP Printer software - should I uninstall and reinstall this also?

Also sent 3 files to DCS, 1 potential worm, 2 files PE flagged as RATs, searching for 2 more tasks on NT Services Screen Objects List as <file doesn't exist>, system is a confirmed mess. Still have hidden file, but gotta clean up so tools work.

Weekend will be busy -- would like to get it right, if I can...
frugalphone

[Jooske]

Hello again frugalphone,
now you call upon the great ones, we'll have to wait for the dear DCS Aussies to wake up in several hours and have a look at your deep going layered questions.

I would say before unisntalling, why don't you mess with a deep scan in the first place, updating the TDS database and everything checked in the scan configuration and see what comes from that.

BUT: you do have windows ME, so can't you go back a few restore points from before installing anything like the DCS holy tools or maybe even the Norton stuff if that saves really time and grey hairs before your time, let alone worse things?

If it comes to the DCs tools i would have the order PE - WG - TDS to lay it in nicely, after the firewall and maybe to stop there or if you insist to put the norton things there and hope everything will still work after that.
After each install a reboot.

So and while you're nicely occupying yourself with getting back to some old restore point and play with the scans and rebooting several tens of times, we might see the real great ones jumping inhere for you for more details! We're just doing some fore-work now :)

[Pilli]

Hi Frugal phone, IMHO I would not uninstall Norton but would make sure that none of it's processes are running in task manager before installing the DCS products, to be extra safe you could insatall PE, WG & then TDS3 in safe mode.
Like any other programme it is always better to have all other running programmes switched off when installing new programmes especially when we are talking about security programmes. ;D

PS I am not a great one but am on the other side of slight :P

[frugalphone]

I did forget the checkpoints, thanks for reminder.

New Problem Since Then: PE says there's 2 hidden iexplorer processes I'm trying to get logged. After file logging is stopped, Log file creates (I think) but PE -> Settings -> File Logging -> View File Log says
"There is a failure launching WordPad"

(it's pelog.txt? There's 5k of data - maybe too much for WordPad?)

Do I need to shut down / restart PE before I can view log file?

Not holding my breath on a short weekend of work, thou, the 2 RAT processes were both Symantec processes (could be totally wrong). Tried turning off Antivirus, it crashed. Tried to turn it back on, got error. Tried reloading LiveUpdate per their instructions (they have fix) neither method's worked.

So Symantec's next step is to uninstall and reinstall :(

Pencil and paper is sounding good right now.....durn it!

[Jooske]

Look if there are any 0 kb size files in your system, which you can delete.
Windows has the nice habit when it can't start a program for some reson to create a file with the name, like in this case wordpad.exe.
I solved it for myself by copying the wordpad.exe and notepad.exe in the directories where i see most frequent those same names as 0 kb files and no problem since starting them.