- Joined
- Jun 4, 2012
- Reaction score
- 633
This is kind of a long story, and not totally pleasant. Just be glad it happened to me and not to you. 
There's an older program I use a lot on my computer, but I needed some help with one of its features, so clicked "Help." I am using a laptop with Windows 7, 64-bit. I got an error message, saying I needed WinHlp32, which was not installed on my machine, but which I could download from the Microsoft website. So I did so. It had this major liability disclaimer that I had to "accept" to install it.
As I was using the computer, I got this DOS-like "Blue Screen of Death" saying something was really wrong, that it was rebooting the computer, and that if this recurred I should uninstall whatever hardware or software I had recently installed that was causing the problem. I got this "Blue Screen" twice more before deciding I had better uninstall the WinHlp32 program.
I go to Control Panel and this program is not listed there. So I have no straightforward uninstall option.
The only thing I could do was go into System Restore and restore the machine to the previous restore point, which was 5 days previous. I do this.
Upon rebooting two problems occurred. 1) The battery icon disappeared, and 2) Norton Internet Security reported its virus definitions and other features were out-of-date and my computer was therefore at risk.
After rebooting several times, the battery icon came back. I tried to update my virus definitions several times, but this failed each time. I was referred to technical support for an on-line "chat," but it told me I was 17th in the queue.
I thought I was in deep trouble, but tried to download the Norton updates yet again. On what must have been about the 9th try, the computer started a 250 MB download from Norton, which finally fixed the problem.
They say doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results is the definition of insanity, but in this case persistence paid off.
Looking back in hindsight, I think I would have been better off if I had manually set a Systems Restore point immediately before trying to install the WinHlp32 program.
There's an older program I use a lot on my computer, but I needed some help with one of its features, so clicked "Help." I am using a laptop with Windows 7, 64-bit. I got an error message, saying I needed WinHlp32, which was not installed on my machine, but which I could download from the Microsoft website. So I did so. It had this major liability disclaimer that I had to "accept" to install it.
As I was using the computer, I got this DOS-like "Blue Screen of Death" saying something was really wrong, that it was rebooting the computer, and that if this recurred I should uninstall whatever hardware or software I had recently installed that was causing the problem. I got this "Blue Screen" twice more before deciding I had better uninstall the WinHlp32 program.
I go to Control Panel and this program is not listed there. So I have no straightforward uninstall option.
The only thing I could do was go into System Restore and restore the machine to the previous restore point, which was 5 days previous. I do this.
Upon rebooting two problems occurred. 1) The battery icon disappeared, and 2) Norton Internet Security reported its virus definitions and other features were out-of-date and my computer was therefore at risk.
After rebooting several times, the battery icon came back. I tried to update my virus definitions several times, but this failed each time. I was referred to technical support for an on-line "chat," but it told me I was 17th in the queue.
I thought I was in deep trouble, but tried to download the Norton updates yet again. On what must have been about the 9th try, the computer started a 250 MB download from Norton, which finally fixed the problem.
They say doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results is the definition of insanity, but in this case persistence paid off.
Looking back in hindsight, I think I would have been better off if I had manually set a Systems Restore point immediately before trying to install the WinHlp32 program.
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