My home computer has a Windows XP operating system and is infected. I bought the Norton Antivirus software, but I cannot install it because as soon as I log on the computer shuts down to a blue screen with warning that it shut down to protect the system. It tells me to operate in the Safe Mode by pressing F8 and to disable Bios memory such as caching and shadowing…or something like that. I can not figure out how to disable the caching and shadowing. Also the Norton Antivirus does not load in the Safe Mode.

Thanks for any suggestions.

1st of all, if you just bought Norton I would suggest, take it back for a refund as there are free AV's that are just as good if not better and are not bloatware.
Avast http://www.majorgeeks.com/Avast_Hom...
AVG http://www.majorgeeks.com/download8...

Now, I would go into safe mode with networking and go to the avast link I suggested, when it comes up click on run this program (not save) and then put a check that it will do a bootscan on reboot.
On the bootscan, move everything to the chest that it finds and see if that helps

I refer many downloads to the majorgeeks site because they are usually more up-dated than other sites.
Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results as it will help others.

Another thing, if you have access to another desktop, you may want to take out the infected HD and slave it to another PC and run an AV scan on the effected HD that way.

I refer many downloads to the majorgeeks site because they are usually more up-dated than other sites.
Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results as it will help others.

XpUser4Real,

Thanks for the advice, however when I click on the link you provided I can not see a “run this program” button. Do I have to download a software first?

Both Avast & AVG have to be installed on your system, so yes, you download whichever one you require.

In very general terms it is always best to assume that "running programs online" is the exception rather than the rule. Opt for "saving" whenever possible or applicable, then run offline as usual.

DerekW