Question : My Ex-girlfriend has a picture of me and my new girlfriend that is ONLY stored in my documents folder on my C: drive. HOW could she have got this ???? (she has no physical access to my machine). Thanks
Glad I seem to have helped some people. Regarding 'access denied while changing service error' - ignore it. Try again after everything else is done and restarted - or leave it. Regarding 'secure logon' this is only really of use against low-tech members of your own household. XP or Vista logon passwords can be blanked in a minute or two by any tech person.
Joab, If you are absolutely sure your ex has no physical access to your computer or your camera memory card.... (?) Then that would only leave a remote access program like VNC or the windows VPN or remote desktop. These would require setting up of your router as well as computer. If you followed the clean up instructions, VNC should no longer be working. But you could also reset your router (push a paper clip in the reset pin hole at the back for 15 seconds) to factory settings and put your network username and password back in which your ISP gave you. If you have an accessible wireless connection (even with a password it will have been memorized on your ex's laptop if she ever used it once) and if you have File and Printer sharing turned on with the standard MSHOME network name - it is then possible she just parked outside, connected to your wireless and browsed your network using My Network Places....
Paul, Thanks you've been very helpful. Turns out I gave her my email password months ago and forgot, then started using that email again, duh !
I used to work at Microsoft and know the Windows architecture fairly well. Programs like AIM and Yahoo messenger inject DLLs into other processes via "hooks" in order to determine if the user is idle or not. This is how they know to change the color or maybe you "idle" or "away" without you being there. They have to hook the keyboard for this. My advice to you is to forget these spyware documents, backup all NON-EXECUTABLE files to a DVD, and reinstall from scratch. Once reinstalled, be absolutely sure to apply all relevant updates. Then, install anti-virus and programs like snoop-free. Snoopfree cannot detect, for example, a ring0 device driver that has placed a new hardware interrupt handler for the keyboard -- especially if the user installed a boot-time driver to do this. You really should just reinstall and re-format your HD.
Having put many hundreds, maybe thousands of copies of AVG on home users computers in recent years - I now have changed to Avira Antivir. Version 8 of AVG has gone the way of bloat and the seed of the idea that your system resources are theirs to control is growing. It is not too bad yet, still a good program that will slow you down just a bit more. But the way they are defensively arguing on their web forums against some of their customers that at least want the option of disabling bloat, does not bode well. Norton and Mcafee were once good programs.... Avast is OK also but bigger memory footprint and requires annual registration. Antivir has a better detection rate, and uses less resources. Avira are technically excellent while being marketing idiots. By which I mean their program has a popup every time you update. All over the web you will read this as just about the only criticism. But there is an easy way to fix it here: http://www.elitekiller.com/files/disable_antivir_nag.htm I even found an obscure one click fix program that I use everywhere but can't find the URL where I got it from.... Lastly, don't be concerned about the lack of email scanning in the free version - email scanning is actually useless: http://thundercloud.net/infoave/tutorials/email-scanning/index.htm