Heya all

Currently I cannot connect to a qw-server through an "ordinairy" "connect bla.bla" in ezquake. I get a "dup connection" and i can see that it appears that in it fact tries to connect 3 times!!

However, when connecting through qtv as an observer i have no problems.

I suspect that the virus i have just gotten rid off (i hope) is causing this.

Basically, i have 10 - 15 svchost.exe files open and some of them is massive (memory wise) and at the same time a netstat shows all kinds of foreign connections going out from my pc

I have tried the latest antivirus proggy etc and nothing helps.

Anyone who has an idea what to do?

Whimp

Reinstall windows dammit

God damn it Zalon!! I would like to avoid that

Remember to unplug net cable when reinstalling. After windows installation IMMEDIATELY install good firewall, and then plug net cable (i use Ashampoo Firewall and it works great).

This isn't QW related problem, it's OS problem, and if you for some reason can't just reinstall windows, search for help in internet (there are many forums dedicated to such problems). But this can be long and hard fight if windows is messed up to this point...

Personally I would reinstall Windows, but since you don't want to, check for spywares and stuff like that with Spybot S&D ( http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html )

Back in the XP days, none of mine or my family-members PCs got infected when using AVG-free, Firefox and zonealarm-basic (and continuously applying new XP patches). Iif really low on system resources, it should be safe to close down avg when playing already installed games.

So if you decide to start from scratch or u have the system restore option enabled, you might wanna try this combination.

(remember not to connect to internet before at least having installed the firewall and the sp3)

Antivirus software is not to clean your PC from infection, it's to prevent the infection getting inside. One of the most common misconceptions.

Antivirus is a placebo. It might protect you from 190423 malware software pieces but it won't protect you from anything new or slightly different.

The Windows firewall is enough to stay safe from worms and similar things. If you have a router, well, you are even better off. "Personal Desktop Firewalls" are placebos too.

Do yourself a favour and format your system. Keep it uptodate, use alternative software (Firefox/Opera, Foxit PDF, Media Player Classic/VLC/mplayer, Miranda etc), block ads/flash/javascript and don't browse bad sites. And don't install things with questionable origin.

If something doesn't protect 100%, that doesn't make it placebo. Virus scanners and personal firewalls are useful tools too.

I went without any antivirus/firewall software for 2 years (when I was still on Windows) and had no problems, antivirus is totally unneccessary (most malware that even of the best of them can detect is easily removed manually, and most of them don't even detect the latest, greatest rootkits that you can instantly find using free tools so what's the point?) and software firewalls are pretty useless for the most part with a properly configured router (WinXP's firewall, as bad as it is, is adequate when your router is setup properly). The key is a properly configured router, not waiting around with installing updates and using a proper browser like Opera with JavaScript and Plug-ins disabled by default (and enabled manually for sites where they're neccessary). Disable system restore, dodgy stuff often tries to hide there. Commonsense is also pretty useful of course.

All I can recommend at this point would be to reformat, your system sounds pretty infected. Could always post a Hijackthis log if you're up for trying to clean it, but I'd personally just back up all DATA (not binaries, just to be on the safe side, wouldn't want to end up reinfecting your system), burn off all critical updates since SP3 (assuming you're using WinXP) from a clean machine onto a CD/flash drive and reformat/reinstall Windows without a network connection until you've installed all of the updates. Starting fresh is the safest way to go.

..or use GNU/Linux (or some BSD) of course, security through obscurity! Who actually bothers writing malware for Linux/BSD desktops anyway?

But if something is not necessary it does. Virusscanners and firewalls CAN be useful, but they almost never are. If you rely on them to protect you, then this is like wearing a leather body that makes your crotch itch badly. The itching makes you focus on the crotch area blending out any dangers you might encounter on your way. A stinkbomb flies your way, you don't even notice it but it leaves a bad smell. And then you blindly stumble into a room full of knifes. The sharp knifes rip through your flesh and you painfully bleed to death.

Alternatively you could have easily dodged the stinkbomb and simple not stepped into the knife-room.

Ok, that's not a good analogy but it should work.

Yeah, I was not suggesting to use solely those. When dealing with warez (not that anyone of us ever would!) or family members etc, they are useful.

i pirated quake in '96. i can't be prosecuted for it today can i?

You can in the UK :p

you will never catch me

Word! - Antivirus is good for the same thing as the year 2k bug, selling useless crap to people who do not know better

-I've been doing like spirit, and I havn't had a virus since I downloaded a crack for some random program using internet explorer on my machine running win98se.

windows firewall doesn't really qualify as a good personall firewall, google "firewall challenge" if you want tips on good personall firewalls

Software firewalls are crap

A really silly comment, since an appliance (or "hardware firewall" is nothing more than hardware and software - mostly pf or netfilter. So you're basically saying that every firewall is crap.

exactly

But a firewall running on dedicated hardware thats been designed to use as a firewall is ok i guess.

firewall / personall firewall - not the same

Not strictly true; good virus scanners are more than a simple "blacklist" of malware, they also do heuristic scanning which should (in theory) pick up some malware.
Of course, that's partly "PR" and won't be as effective as claimed, but it is based in logic. I found this a fairly good read on the subject: http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1542

Virus scanners are contradictory in nature. If you know its a placebo then its useful, if you don't realise a placebo then its a huge risk.

If you understand that virus scanners must be kept up to date for them to work, then chances are they'll get a huge chunk of serious viruses, but less obscure ones yes. In this regard they are more useful than not (they'll detect things like word document viruses infecting your normal.dot for instance).

If you think they're always gonna work then you're not going to be cautious, you're probably not going to keep the thing up to date, etc. And you'll freely download stuff from anywhere because after all, you have a virus scanner.

But yeah, virus scanners are useful _after_ the event.

15 svchost.exe
time for reinstalling windows

and get a windows version with current service pack

Winxp +sp1 +inet-> u can it delete again

@ whimp

so did u managed to get rid of "dup connect.." problem ? i have the same thing right now. I've reinstalled windows, scanned pc , did everything i could yet the problem stays. Fuhquake connects perfectly, i can also watch games through qtv but newest ezq fails all the time.

help ..

EDIT

or @ anybody who knows... [;