Outlook 2002 trouble in XP after malware removal

[sjcinnamond]

I am trying to help a friend and his wife with an Outlook 2002 problem.
Their computer was purchased 3 months ago with a clean install of XP Home and
Office XP. Since then their grandson managed to enter the Safe Mode
Administrator account, took control of the computer, and downloaded countless
malware. After cleaning up the mess I checked their Outlook accounts. In
one user profile Outlook works perfectly. In the other user profile it will
not send or receive mail. I tried Outlook Express and even Thunderbird and
cannot get any of the e-mail clients to work in this user account. I tried
"detect and repair" but that didn't work. Is it possible that the user
account itself is so compromised from the malware, despite its removal, that
Outlook (or OE) cannot be set up to run properly?

 

[DL]

It might depend on whether the PC is truly clean
If all mail apps fail it might tend to suggest there is something
fundementaly wrong with this user account

 

[sjcinnamond]

My next question would be if I look at this computer again should I delete
all previous restore points and turn off system restore and then run more
scans? I hesitate to do this without a restore point since it's not my
computer. I suppose it's often a gamble as to which is the best approach.
Even if I do this, would it really matter to do more cleaning and testing
Outlook if the account is already corrupted? Or is it better just to create
a new user account and try again?

 

[DL]

If you have malaware/trojans/virus the first thing you do is turn off system
restore, as all you will do is restore the infection. Only turn on after sys
is confirmed clean

BTW what are you scanning with?

 

[sjcinnamond]

My friend had an expired trial of Norton AV 2006, but I scanned with it first
anyway and it found nothing. I uninstalled it and installed AVG's free AV
for home users and that turned up seven trojans and viruses that it healed.
I also scanned with AdAware, Spybot S&D, and FaceTime's online X-Cleaner
scan. At first I had tried using windows Add/Remove programs to get rid of
anything that didn't belong there but most of the malware crashed the
computer during the attempt to remove it, which led me to doing the other
steps listed above. One program, South Park Desktop Buddies, was not
detected in any of the scans and would not uninstall, so I deleted everything
that I found for lack of any other option and no online advice to go by for
any other way to get rid of it. I deleted all entries that I could find in
temporary folders, many of which contained the .exe files of the malware.

By then 6 hours had passed and I needed to stop once I got to the Outlook
part and discovered the trouble in the one user account that I could not fix.
Since the account user can use webmail to do her e-mail she wasn't too
concerned, but I am, knowing that I left with things not being right and that
there might either be a corruption in her account or malware still residing
in the registry or system restore.

 

[DL]

The 'South Park' is a downloadable app that features you know who cartoons
on your desktop.
Its an App that comes with an uninstaller so should either have been visible
in Add/Remove or the uninstaller in the Program group

As its not reported as malaware, and assuming on installing it wrote various
files / registry entries, you might be advised to reinstall it then remove
it the correct way

MS also has a free malaware app, MS Defender that runs in the background.

You could also try an online scan at Trend Micro
If after the above the sys is reported as clean I think I would remove the
win user account, and create a new one
PS You HAVE turned off sys restore untill clean?

 

[sjcinnamond]

Thank you for the tip on South Park. Since each attempt to remove it in the
Add/Remove section crashed and since I did not see an uninstaller in the
program group I will take your advice about reinstalling and then
uninstalling it. I will also follow your advice for the additional scans and
turning off the System Restore the next time I have the opportunity to work
on this computer. Since I got it working well enough to satisfy the owners I
might not be doing anything else on it right away. (I find that people tend
to wait until a crisis before asking for help.)

BTW, I personally have not tried Windows Defender since I have a paid
anti-spyware app on my home computer and since I use Firefox instead of IE.
I will keep it in mind, however, for other users since I see that it's now
out of Beta.

Thanks for all of your help and advice!