Vista - Spinning Hat software

Listed in my problem reports and solutions, are two names. One is Spinning
Hat software and abcPager, that are apparently the source of a problem of
which I am not familiar with. Not only do I not know the the problem itself,
but Spinning Hat software and abcPager are alien to me. I have done a search
for these two names with zero results. Any and all help will be greatly
appreciated. Thanks.

Hello Julie,

Perhaps you can provide us with a little more detail about your problem. What is happening on your computer? Is there a specific error code that is being generated? What kind of setup do you have? With a little more information, I'm hopeful a solution can be found for you.

Julie wrote:
I don't know where you searched, but a quick Google for "Spinning Hat
Software" immediately brings up a link to:

http://www.abcpager.com/

It seems that Spinning Hat Software makes abcPager, which you apparently
have installed. Go to their site and read about the product and that will
probably answer your questions.

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
Don't Panic!

Good day to you and thank you for your reply. Attached below is an excerpt
from their webpage. Understand one thing, I am not so 'computer smart' and I
am hoping you can shed some light on this. Also, this problem just appeared
out of nowhere, so it was obviously installed at one point or another. I am
running Windows Vista Home Premium. I will add that since this problem was
made aware to me, Lavasoft Ad-Aware has become inoperative and unable to
reinstall, and I am unsure if the two are related in any way. I will contact
Lavasoft as well about this. Here now is the attachment:

"abcPager is the perfect software for the for network professionals
requiring a command line paging system. If you are using software like HP
Openview to monitor your network, you can use abcPager to page you if an
alarm occurs. This software has many features yet it is very simple to use.
For more information about this product click on the button above."
--
Julie


".Joe" wrote:

Good day to you. I do appreciate your reply. Let me make one thing clear to
you before I continue. I am not what you would label as "computer smart", so
when I visited the abcPager website, it was very alien to me. I am running
Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit version. I will also add that since this
problem has appeared, Lavasoft Ad-Aware has ceased to operated and will not
reinstall. Contacting Lavasoft is my next move, just in case the two are
related in any way. I did a search of my C drive for abcPager and Spinning
Hat Software with zero results. I hope I have supplied you with enough
information. Thanks again.
--
Julie


"Malke" wrote:

Julie wrote:
It's odd because the Spinning Hat website seems to be very old (1999). I
can't imagine a home user would ever install this software. It seems to be
very specifically targeted for network administrators. Certainly it isn't
anything you would ever have installed yourself and I've never seen
anything like this come preinstalled on a computer.

With the other problems you mention, I think I'd start scanning for viruses
and malware. I'll give you the usual troubleshooting steps but since you
say up front that you're not "computer smart" (which is not at all the same
thing as being smart!), you probably should take the machine to a local
computer professional and have him/her take a look at what's happening.
Even if you do go through all the steps below, you're not going to know
what you're seeing. Don't use someone from BigComputerStore/GeekSquad; get
recommendations from family, friends, colleagues.

Go through these general malware removal steps systematically -
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/...moving_Malware

Include scanning with David Lipman's Multi_AV and follow instructions to do
all scans in Safe Mode. Please see the special Notes regarding using
Multi_AV in Vista.

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Multi-AV - instructions
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/siche...ning_tool.html
- download site

The site is in German but David's tool is in English so don't let that worry
you. Scroll all the way down to almost the bottom of the page and you'll
see a box titled "Infos Zum Download - Multi-AV Scanning Tool". You'll see
"Download von www pctipp.ch" and the live link to download Multi_AV.

You can also check to see if there are targeted removal steps for your
malware here:
Bleeping Computer removal how-to's -
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/forum55.html

When all else fails, run HijackThis and post your log in one of the
specialty forums listed at the first link above (not here, please).

Not all tools used will work in Vista and you will need to run them
elevated. If you are unable to remove the infection by following the
general steps, register at one of the HijackThis forums as suggested.

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
Don't Panic!