help google wont work

reddawg · 9 Jun 2010 at 11:16

hi im new on here you were recommended by a friend .im running a pc i bought second hand with windows xp on it . i am on bt and found mcafee was taking all my memory , while searching for avg free i got a msg from elsewere,opened it and gained a trojan . avg seems to have a grip on what happened and has found other spyware etc , but im still having problems. on start up i receive boxes ... smartbridgealerts:bthelpnotifier.exe entrypointnotfound.... and the process entry point get process image file name w could not be located in the dynamic link library psapi.dll windows cannot find "logon exe ". also i cannot use google , it either directs me to a phsing site roads-traffic.com ,or comes up with a cache problem and tells me to get in touch with administator. this is annoying as google is the "backbone" for most things on the computer for me . please help , if i had any hair i would be tearing it out , andy

manic_man · 9 Jun 2010 at 11:30

Being quite honest, if it's a second hand PC with a second hand XP install on it, I would bite the bullet and format / re-install the OS.

Assuming you have all relevant discs / licenses etc., it isn't too hard, if a bit time consuming and will give you a clean slate to start with properly.

theheyes · 9 Jun 2010 at 12:10

As above really, if you have any sort of recovery disc and you are technically confident enough to wipe the machine and reload Windows I would strongly recommend doing so.

markweatherill · 9 Jun 2010 at 12:29

If you don't want to reinstall Windows, if you can get a copy of 'malwarebytes' or similar anti-spyware onto the PC, try running that.
The startup errors (unless they only just started happening) could be caused by some or other hardware that the seller had physically removed but not uninstalled. Maybe something in the 'startup' folder or registry 'run' keys.
Then run sfc/scannow for good measure.
Some or all of this may need to be in safe mode.
If none of that works, you could try a repair install of XP.

Failing that, if you really have broken Google there will be a lot of angry people after you.

SiriusB · 9 Jun 2010 at 14:07

Second hand OS - anything could have gone wrong in the past or been meddled with by the previous owner.

Lots of things are going wrong for you, to the point where you cannot browse properly and you getting all sorts of dll errors. If it was an XP install I had installed myself, I would probably attempt to fix it, but when it has come from elsewhere, why bother?

Just pave it! A reinstall would get you a nice clean slate and start afresh. This could also be an opportunity to ditch XP and buy yourself Windows 7 Home Premium. Or Pro if you want/need the extra features.