update or Hacked????

[sybershot]

 
I left my computer on with 3 firefox browsers open, I wanted to finish reading about a certain subject I was researching.  I went to bed and when I awoke, firefox was closed, a dos box was open, and IE was opened numerous times. I could not bring the dos window to the front, close any IE window, and my mouse was crawling and sometimes unresponsive. I hit ctl alt del and choose task manager it took 15 minutes to open and it when it did open it was just a blank window. after another 15 minutes another blank task manger windowed opened.

when my pc reboots I have a batch file that runs to make my Hal usable, but seeing I could not get to the dos window I was not able to tell if it was that or not. I checked my updates to see if maybe it was caused by an update and it said the last updates where on the 15th which was last night  they where 6 security updates nothing that I think would open up multiple IE windows.
  what do you guys think? was I hacked, or was this maybe just a weird windows update phenomenon. 

[tedathome]

 Maybe related, maybe not. Last night I was using my laptop with XP pro. When I shut it down it got eleven forced updates. I had heard online news that Microsoft was going to forcefully  update older browsers. When I started it back up everything was fine. My Vista desktop is running chrome browser and I have it set to notify me of updates and let me choose. When I get in a bind and ctrl-alt-delete won't work for me, I right click the task bar at the bottom and select task manager from menu. Hope this helps.

[NIGE]

Sorry to hear.
See if you can get Malwarebytes, it has helped me a few times when things have gone wrong.

If you go this way it is best to load the program then re-start computer in safe mode with internet connection.
As computer starts press & hold F8 before windows logo appears.
Then run Malwarebytes, it should ask to up date, if not select it.
After up dating run it.

[markofkane]

I'd run anti-malware programs and anti-virus scans. You computer MAY have been hijacked. (Windows has an option for people to control your computer from another location, I forgot what it was called, maybe remote assistance??) Something like remote desktop in XP.

[GT40]

I have XP SP3 and yesterday I got a big bunch of updates from MS (they tell me and I choose to download them or not). No problem with these updates.

But sometimes (I mean everyday, lol), when I'm on some very "sensible" sites, the Ctrl+Alt+Del needs several minutes to act, and sometimes I must reset the machine. Then all is ok again.

I think you don't have to worry too much about that, if all is working fine now. But I'm not a specialist.

[lightspeed]

my opinion for what its worth , i would first run an up to date virus scan and malware bytes , then if that didn't show results i would then try to go back to an earlier date on my computer to restore before the updates . and see if that solves the problem , i have had ms do some updates in the past and "some" has caused problems with my pc (slowing it down , etc. until i removed the updates then it was fine (but if this is the case and you can isolate which one caused the problem , make a sticky note and if it and others come back up manually download others except that one, that's what i did before on a xp pc i had in the past.  Hope this helps. 
P.S i never had as much trouble as what you are saying though which seems to be a lot .
is your pc a factory or a built one?

[sybershot]

tedathome, Thanks maybe it is related and that is why IE opened up on me numerous times ??
I tried to right click the task bar but it would not let me
as far as forced updates it is why my laptop does not go online anymore, I had updates turned off but yet I still received some.
I got really upset at microsoft on that one a while back when they forced updates and disabled the WiFi. Sadly I know microsoft or the government can override that also Sad to know they still incorporate forced updates.

NIGE. Thanks Malwarebytes seems to be a great program from what research I have done, since you last told me about it.
problem is I'm all out of funds atm, and the belt is getting even tighter by the day.

markofkane Good advise it is exactly what I did. I ran a deep scan that checked every file on both my hard drives. took 2.5 hours
nothing was found though, which is a good thing I hope Remote assistance is one of the first things I disable. I feel it should
never have been built into a os, but that's only my opinion.

GT40 Thanks, I'm really thinking it was the updates. Maybe they conflicted Okozo Desktop for once I restarted my computer all was
fine, but I had to reset my Okozo Desktop wallpaper.

But sometimes (I mean everyday, lol), when I'm on some very "sensible" sites, the Ctrl+Alt+Del needs several minutes to act,
and sometimes I must reset the machine. Then all is ok again.

one is going to sites there not suppose to be going to lol

lightspeed, thanks for the advise. I did run a virus scan but I cannot go back to a earlier time using system restore,
for I have disabled it cause of my main hard drive is only a 40gig ssd and I could not move it to save the files to
my secondary drive. I do however have a system image of windows and some programs installed, but it would be a hassle to
re-image my computer and set it all back up. I was going to make another image before this but I procrastinated.

P.S i never had as much trouble as what you are saying though which seems to be a lot .
is your pc a factory or a built one? 

I had issues similar due to updates before on vista, but not with windows 7
untill now. My computer is 99 % factory all is factory but the 40gig ssd and about 10 programs