I hope someone can help me out here! I accidentally downloaded a codec a few weeks ago. Since then, I've had a lot of problems. First, my VOLUME quit working. Not a big deal, but I started trying to find out why. The sound icon had disappeared & my sound properties said I had no sound device.

Then, every time I'd try to open Explorer or Firefox, and some other windows, the computer would lock up. I ran Ewido, AVG, Spybot, Hijack This, and Ad-aware. My sound icon came back and the computer started working great again. However, after starting up again after a shut down, back to the bad stuff.

Here's what happens... When the computer is restarted, I lose my sound icon, Explorer & Firefox both lock up the computer, and "Multi-channel Sound Manager" is missing from the Control Panel.

My temporary fix has been to run Ad-aware. It never finds anything, but after it's done running, everything magically comes back & the computer is LIKE new again. I leave it running all WEEK, but shut down for the weekend. Monday morning, I have to start over again.

Any ideas? Let me know if you need more info.you might have downloaded the zcodec trojan..


turn off your system RESTORE and reboot in safe mode and run all of your scans.


to turn off system restore


right click the my computer icon

left click properties click the system restore tab and check the turn off box


to reboot in safe mode


RESTART computer and rapidly tap f8 until you get another menu



unlovedwarriorThanks, I'll give that a try when I have some time.

Not sure if it makes a difference, but I forgot to mention that I'm running XP.report back with the results.No go. I did everything as unlovedwarrior suggested. Then I tried running Ad-aware again after the restart back to regular mode, but my sound icon never came back & IE still locks up. Firefox is working, though. Any other thoughts?have you checked your sound driver? to make sure its not corrupt??