Windows 7 How do I restore my computer to a certain earlier date?

[Boris Tsygan]

It seems to me that I allowed some bad program into my Dell (the OS is Windows 7). How can I restore the state of my computer to, say, two weeks earlier?

 

[Digerati]

You can't really - not unless you made a full backup of your system two weeks ago, then you can restore from the backup. You can try System Restore but it really is for rolling back driver updates and critical system updates made via Windows Update. It is not intended to undo changes caused by malicious code.

Therefore, it may be better to try and clean your computer. Have you scanned for malware? With what? And what is your computer doing?

 

[Boris Tsygan]

You can't really - not unless you made a full backup of your system two weeks ago, then you can restore from the backup. You can try System Restore but it really is for rolling back driver updates and critical system updates made via Windows Update. It is not intended to undo changes caused by malicious code.

Therefore, it may be better to try and clean your computer. Have you scanned for malware? With what? And what is your computer doing?

I did not scan it, and I cannot even find the anti-malware program at the moment. I remember I had something called McAufee, maybe it was removed during recent attempts to get help. What should I install?

 

[Pauli]

Dell computers seem to, at least partly, come with a McAfee security pack, Link Removed

Limited by time, it seems possible that your trial license has expired. Not sure about it, don't know all company policies.

The easiest way would be
1. Renew McAfee, comes with a cost
2. Microsoft Security Essentials, Link RemovedI,, comes without extra cost, and the main brain powers in this Forum seem to support it, and I have no doubt about their knowledge. Personally I have Avast Internet Security, and I'm pleased with it - comes with a cost.

Anyways, YOU NEED TO SCAN.

Right now it seems that you may be without protection, and that's a bad thing. That's a risk for everyone, and you should take care of it, since we all care for each other and we do have a responsibility. One source could also be http://windowsforum.com/threads/any-good-free-antivirus.90590/

Best wishes.

 

[Digerati]

What he said! You need to ensure you have a decent anti-malware solution installed, updated and running. I have been using MSE for about 4 years now on all my systems without problems. That said, I am a "trust but verify" type so I also periodically run manual scans with Malwarebytes's Anti-Malware (MBAM) just to verify MSE (or me) did not let something slip by.

 

[Boris Tsygan]

It seems to me that I allowed some bad program into my Dell (the OS is Windows 7). How can I restore the state of my computer to, say, two weeks earlier?

Dell computers seem to, at least partly, come with a McAfee security pack, Link Removed

Limited by time, it seems possible that your trial license has expired. Not sure about it, don't know all company policies.

The easiest way would be
1. Renew McAfee, comes with a cost
2. Microsoft Security Essentials, Link RemovedI,, comes without extra cost, and the main brain powers in this Forum seem to support it, and I have no doubt about their knowledge. Personally I have Avast Internet Security, and I'm pleased with it - comes with a cost.

Anyways, YOU NEED TO SCAN.

Right now it seems that you may be without protection, and that's a bad thing. That's a risk for everyone, and you should take care of it, since we all care for each other and we do have a responsibility. One source could also be http://windowsforum.com/threads/any-good-free-antivirus.90590/

Best wishes.

Thanks a lot. I restored the system to one week from today, and most of the problems disappeared. I now see McAfee and Malwarebytes. However, when I try to scan using them, something seems not quite right:

when I scam with McAfee, it tells me: Scan your PC. It will take less than two minutes. When I press Scan, it says: Please wait. McAfee is completing the action you requested. When I press OK, it offers me Scan again, and gives no further notification.

When I scan using Malwarebytes: it gives me the message Run-time error "383": "Text" property is read-only. Could you tell me what does this mean? All the best.

 

[Boris Tsygan]

Dell computers seem to, at least partly, come with a McAfee security pack, Link Removed

Limited by time, it seems possible that your trial license has expired. Not sure about it, don't know all company policies.

The easiest way would be
1. Renew McAfee, comes with a cost
2. Microsoft Security Essentials, Link RemovedI,, comes without extra cost, and the main brain powers in this Forum seem to support it, and I have no doubt about their knowledge. Personally I have Avast Internet Security, and I'm pleased with it - comes with a cost.

Anyways, YOU NEED TO SCAN.

Right now it seems that you may be without protection, and that's a bad thing. That's a risk for everyone, and you should take care of it, since we all care for each other and we do have a responsibility. One source could also be http://windowsforum.com/threads/any-good-free-antivirus.90590/

Best wishes.

Also: after restoring the computer to one week earlier, one thing continues: it says to me that I need to update my media player and prompts me to do so. In particular, it often says that I need Media Player 12.7. It seems to me that following such prompts causes the problem in the first case, so what should I do to keep the Media player up to date but not to get the problem start again? Thanks

 

[davidhk129]

Run-time error 383 means "Property Set can't be used with a read-only property".
Something is interfering with running Malwarebytes.

Go to Safe Mode and run Malwarebytes again.......
Restart computer > repeatly pressing the F8 key until you see a black and white screen > use the arrow key to select Safe Mode.
Does Malwarebytes work this time ?

You had been advised to either renew McAfee or uninstall it and install MSE.
Seems to me you have done neither of the above.
So, please answer these ;
1. Did you pay for the McAfee separately, or did it come with the computer when you bought the computer?
2. Has your McAfee expired? If expired, what did you do with it?
3. Did you install the FREE version of Malwarebytes or did you choose the PAY version ?
4. Besides McAfee and Malwarebytes, do you have another anti-virus/security program installed?

 

[Pauli]

1. If McAfee has expired, which starts to seem obvious, restoring to an earlier point won't help, because your computer will still be in this date = today, and the program will recognize that as for license validity. You can't renew a license by restoring to an earlier date.
2. In restoration, some programs suffer, they may even disappear. Restoring, Windows gives you the opportunity to check what programs will be affected, but one can miss that click... Probably that has happened with Malwarebytes.
3. Considering that you may have been without active security for a while, it's very difficult to tell what has happened.

Now, in my opinion, we need to stop fussing around with options. We can go on for days or weeks with such a debate. I suggest
a. Exit McAfee and in the options, tick so it doesn't start with Windows = at boot.
b. Get Microsoft Security Essentials, Link RemovedI
c. Uninstall Malwarebytes, download latest from http://www.malwarebytes.org/

And, SCAN!

I'm sorry if I sound aggressive.

 

[Jimbo22]

It seems to me that I allowed some bad program into my Dell (the OS is Windows 7). How can I restore the state of my computer to, say, two weeks earlier?

I may have the answer for you.....but I'm waiting on a link for it.

 

[badrobot]

If System Restore was enabled in your system before you installed the "bad" program, it should have created a restore point before proceeding with the installation. You can restore from that point.

 

[Boris Tsygan]

1. If McAfee has expired, which starts to seem obvious, restoring to an earlier point won't help, because your computer will still be in this date = today, and the program will recognize that as for license validity. You can't renew a license by restoring to an earlier date.
2. In restoration, some programs suffer, they may even disappear. Restoring, Windows gives you the opportunity to check what programs will be affected, but one can miss that click... Probably that has happened with Malwarebytes.
3. Considering that you may have been without active security for a while, it's very difficult to tell what has happened.

Now, in my opinion, we need to stop fussing around with options. We can go on for days or weeks with such a debate. I suggest
a. Exit McAfee and in the options, tick so it doesn't start with Windows = at boot.
b. Get Microsoft Security Essentials, Link RemovedI
c. Uninstall Malwarebytes, download latest from http://www.malwarebytes.org/

And, SCAN!

I'm sorry if I sound aggressive.

Thanks. I did uninstall McAfee and download Essentials. I scanned, found 7 potentially bad items, and cleaned them. I will uninstall Malwarebytes and install the new one. Everything seems normal but two things.

1. It prompts me to install a new media player but it seems to me this caused the problem in the first place. How do I install a media player safely?

2. I still see some agressive ads when I open Facebook.

All the best

 

[Boris Tsygan]

Run-time error 383 means "Property Set can't be used with a read-only property".
Something is interfering with running Malwarebytes.

Go to Safe Mode and run Malwarebytes again.......
Restart computer > repeatly pressing the F8 key until you see a black and white screen > use the arrow key to select Safe Mode.
Does Malwarebytes work this time ?

You had been advised to either renew McAfee or uninstall it and install MSE.
Seems to me you have done neither of the above.
So, please answer these ;
1. Did you pay for the McAfee separately, or did it come with the computer when you bought the computer?
2. Has your McAfee expired? If expired, what did you do with it?
3. Did you install the FREE version of Malwarebytes or did you choose the PAY version ?
4. Besides McAfee and Malwarebytes, do you have another anti-virus/security program installed?

I think McAfee came with the computer and Malwarebytes was free. I uninstalled McAfee and installed Essentials, scanned and found 7 bad items that were removed. Everything is much better but it still prompts me to install a new media player and it seems to me that this caused the problem last time. How do I install a new good media player safely?

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Boris: Glad you're system is running better. You got some really good advice so far.

It appears you have a corrupted Windows7 OS at this point. Reference this information on the Windows Media Player 12:

******
Windows Media Player 12 (WMP12) is the default and factory-installed media player that comes with Windows 7, and WMP12 does not have standalone setup installer available for free download. As such, Windows 7 users cannot uninstall and install Windows Media Player 12 manually. In fact, there is no entry of WMP12 in “Programs and Features” that allows uninstallation or removal.

There is chance that user may need to uninstall, remove and then re-install Windows Media Player 12, such as to fix WMP corruption (possibly due to attempt to downgrade or convert WMP12 to WMP11), or to reset and re-configure Windows Media Player.

********

I verified this information by trying to download the standalone WMP12 installer from several different sites, and they always take you back to Microsoft's download site for WMP12.

If your computer is working ok on the Internet and Email and other basic functions, you may have to learn to live with the WMP12 error. If you cannot, your options include repairing Windows7 from the Recovery Console accessible via the F8 key on computer startup. This usually only works in 30% of the attempts from what I've seen.

Since you've got an integral component of Win7 which has been embedded in the OS kernel; much as has been done with Internet Explorer recent versions, the Windows Recovery Console doesn't have the ability to repair a busted OS kernel. It can only repair missing or corrupted files; but the OS kernel is compiled code, and you can't fix that with that tool.

The repair basically would consist of running the Factore System Image Recovery program either from discs that came with your Dell (you didn't mention whether you had a desktop or laptop), or run from the built-in Recovery Partition on your hard drive. Depending on the model of your Dell, you may be able to access that program from within Windows via a Dell utility that came with your computer called Dell DataSafe. If you don't have that program on your model Dell, you will have to use the Windows Recovery Console (F8 key) to access it. I suggest at this point you backup all of your Critical Data to external Hard Drive, Flash Drive, or CD/DVD discs. Then run the Factory Partition Repair to restore your computer to what we call "Out-of-Box' condition; or the condition the computer came in when you first opened it when brand new sealed in the box.

Ensure you select the FORMAT DRIVE option to remove any Malware or RootKits which are known to hide in the Recovery Partition files as well. (Yes, I've run into this recently on Customer computers).

This will correct your problem, and since WMP12 is built into most Windows7 versions, it will now work without giving your nagging error messages!

However, if you have one of the versions of Windows7 that doesn't support built-in WMP; you'll have to download via the microsoft.com website. So, for example if you have Win7 RT; you'll have to go through the download to get the WMP12 player.

If you are not using WMP player, and just wanted to eliminate the error message, my suggestions above will fix your problem.

After you get all working again, make sure to install one of the Anti-Malware programs and use the MBAM as suggested for manual scans. There are a number of viruses out there that attack the WMP just like there are many programs written to attack Internet Explorer. As I said earlier, since both are built into the OS kernel of Windows, hackers love to write viruses to attack vulnerable Windows systems that have no, expired, or out of date anti-virus anti-malware software such as your system appeared to have. Attack your Windows Kernel and your Windows is compromised and never works right, which was the Hacker's goal who wrote the virus you got infected with on your system.

Hope that helps...

BIGBEARJEDI