Automatic updates keeping getting disabled

Hello everyone, I seem to be having a serious problem. So I have XP Pro 32 installed and I've done a total of FOUR FRESH (full reformat) installations of the OS and every single time, a virus (or something) is downloaded to my machine. It doesn't seem to be that "malicious" however it does disable my automatic updates and causes annoying pop ups every now and then. I've tried manually turning automatic updates via services.msc and that does not work either. Something to note though, the problem only arises during or immediately after installing updates from Microsoft. Another thing to note is that whenever I tried to install the updates via wireless, it would always fail and I'd get this little virus (this happened on the first 3 installs). So I tried downloading the updates via my ethernet cable directly from the modem and all went well without a hitch. However, once I went back to wireless, about a half hour later, the updates would be turned off again and the popups would start again. I'm starting to believe that my wireless router is creating a gateway for whatever that's being downloaded and I think I'm going to do a hard reset of it. And no, I do not have anti-virus software. I haven't used anti-virus software in over a year and this is the first time I've had a problem (I really don't like most antivirus softwares). Some advice would be nice on this one. The computer is fairly "empty", so I have no problem reformatting and doing as many reinstalls as I need to. Thanks in advance.

 

Do you have other computers in your local network? One or more of those computers may be infected and propagating to your laptop through the network.

I would highly recommend that you get some antivirus and scan your computer(s). If you do not want the antivirus to take up a lot of system resources, take a look at Norton Antivirus 2009 or Eset NOD32. Both are very low on system resource usage, especially Norton 2009.

 

I do have another computer in the network however it appears to be unaffected, can it be like a "carrier" for the virus?

 

. What is the source of your installation package?

. And how about install an antivirus app (like avast) after the OS installation and BEFORE you get on the net for updates?


cheers ...

 

I found the source of the problem. One of my programs had a trojan in it and whenever I installed it, it caused the problems. Norton caught it for me. Now knowing that I wasn't hacked, I promptly removed Norton Thanks for the help everyone.