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"Trogan Horse Dialer"

Ok... so I've got one of these and every now and then it'll start dialing up to some number, to which I usually turn off the PC asap. What I really need to know are what are the consequences of a dialer (i.e. cost, damage to computer etc.), how I can track the dialer down and any programs that can deal with the problem.

Thanks for your time.

Forest Fan

I hate service pack 2 already, its takes at least 5 seconds longer for my computer to boot.

cookie monster wrote:
> I hate service pack 2 already, its takes at least 5 seconds longer for
> my computer to boot.

Does it? Mine got faster! From power on to login in - 7 secs, to login to desktop, 25 sec. Just outside of the Microsoft reccomended 30 secs from Boot to Desktop. And thats with 9500+ fonts installed!

I've just downloaded Spy Hunter and it's amazing! It's already found dozens of dialers or 'parasites' as it likes to call them and gives you a full picture of what they are, including a severity rating.

Well I'm on a P3 450 here so I won't notice the difference only that when it shuts down I no longer get a screen saying its safe to turnoff

Tyla wrote:
> cookie monster wrote:
> I hate service pack 2 already, its takes at least 5 seconds longer
> for
> my computer to boot.
>
> Does it? Mine got faster! From power on to login in - 7 secs, to
> login to desktop, 25 sec. Just outside of the Microsoft reccomended
> 30 secs from Boot to Desktop. And thats with 9500+ fonts installed!

Yeah, its quite sluggish, MSN messenger took a dizzy earlier today as well. Although whether that is related to SP2 im not sure.

Afternoon wrote:
> Well I'm on a P3 450 here so I won't notice the difference only that
> when it shuts down I no longer get a screen saying its safe to
> turnoff

XP doesn't have a "safe to turn off" screen, not that I've ever seen and I'm running 4 machines with Pro SP2 ranging from:

Athlon 2400+ XP/1GB Ram to P2/256MB Ram?

I though they killed off that screen in Win98?

Those screens are only for computers which do not support (or have misconfigured) ACPI power off settings. I've seen them on XP.

How do you get it to go from power to login so fast? From login to desktop takes me about 10 seconds, but it must take at least 30 to get to the login. How do I speed up the initial bit?

It depends on your HDD access speed and what you're loading on bootup. A fresh XP install will get to the desktop about 10 seconds after the BIOS loads the OS, but a few device drivers later and that goes quickly upwards.

IF you want fast either get a raptor or SCSI drive.