TeaTimer quirk?

[honu1]

I really don't understand how tea timer works with S+D.
The past couple of nights that I have tried to shut down my computer, I get an error message, quite lengthy, with a lot of numbers. But the is also a reference to "resident". I don't know what's going on, but it has me concerned.
I am running Windows Home-SP2,Firefox as browser, Windows Defender as firewall, AVG Free for virus.
I'm sorry I don't have more info as to the error message.
As I'm thinking about it now, this strange occorance happened the day I had made a set of recovery cd's for my HP computer.
If I get the error message again tonight I will be sure to write everything down to better help you to help me.
Thank you
honu1

[spybotsandra]

Hello,

Probably TeaTimer has told you that it has deleted a bad registry entry and blocked it.

Please read this information about TeaTimer:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/faq/33.html
and http://www.safer-networking.org/en/faq/34.html

Best regards
Sandra
Team Spybot

[honu1]

Thanks for the input. My system is acting normally at shutdown, so that's a relief.
I don't understand why resident should give me an alert tho, when I'm not actively using my system. It happened tonight with my monitor in screen saver mode.
I had no clue what all the file names are, so I had t do some research on the web. I hope the value I chose to allow the change was correct.

Does Spybot or Resident have a list of files right at the site to make my searches quicker?

Thanks
honu1

[honda12]

the general 'rules' of teatimer is that If you surf the web and without any user interaction the teatimer pops up and warns about a registry change it is better to "deny", but if you install something by yourself it is OK to "allow" the change.

At present (as far as I know of) there is no list of files to make your searches faster

[honu1]

So are you implying that someone or something may be trying to invade my system?
My computer was on, but I was not surfing the web nor reading emails.
This tea timer facet of Spybot S+D has made me nervous to say the least. Before Tea Timer I just ran my scan weekly + my system seemed to run fine. Of course I had to have a complete reinstall of Windows XP a while back.

Ever since that awful time, I'm so very nervous when it comes to alerts + error messages. And when Tea Timer requires me to allow or deny something about my registry it's pretty nerve wracking!

[honda12]

oh no,

I wasn't trying to alarm you or anything!

you computer writes and deletes entries from the registry all the time - you will get the most prompts from teatimer when you are installing software because so much information is being written to the registry.

most of the prompts I will get 'out of the blue' are from programs just trying to add themselves to the start up list (one common example is quicktime) I feel I can deny those changes.

sorry if I wasn't clear in the last post!

[honu1]

So as I am a novice user, really, is there any disadvantage to not using the tea timer portion of Spybot? It just gets me all tensed up when I have to sort out that allow or deny part.

I have always been told never to mess with my registry as I am clueless as to what's going on there.

I don't want to have my system crash on me ever again!

[honda12]

Personally, In my point of view - I think teatimer is a feature that should be used by more experienced users that feel comfotable with the windows registry.

I don't actually use the teatimer as I'm very cautious (probably over cautious!) about what I install and download.

As long as users use their common sense, I don't see teatimer being an essential part of your security

I also think that teatimer may make novice users panic - something we do not want! I have seen the same thing happen with the vista uac (user account control).

If you feel you want to disable teatimer here is how to do it:

To disable teatimer: Go into Spybot > Mode > Advanced Mode > Tools > Resident. Under the heading "Resident protection status" uncheck the following:

- Resident "TeaTimer" (Protection of over-all system settings) active.

To reactivate it: Go into Spybot > Mode > Advanced Mode > Tools > Resident. Under the heading "Resident protection status" check the following:
Resident "TeaTimer" (Protection of over-all system settings) active.


here is a pic aswell!



honda

[honu1]

Thanks honda!
Your directions +screen shot were very helpful. I was concerned about even going to the advanced mode as it warned me that doing so could alter my system if I didn't know what I was doing.

For now I feel better just running Spybot in the default mode without worrying about resident.

Thanks ever so much for being here!

[honda12]

no problem