Computer issues, Viruses, trojans, crashes, install problems etc Options

[Renee]

Thanks.

Anybody here know anything about current versions of LOOT? The "Load Optimization Tool"? I'm trying to rebuild Fallout 3 and in my backup disc's Utilities folder I've got LOOT 6.0, which is old. Trying to download a newer version from Nexus resulted in a file which is NOT an archive, not a 7Zip or a .rar file. It shows up in my Downloads folder called "Unconfirmed 560970.crdownload". Trying to open it, my computer gets confused. "How do you want to open this file?" it asks. None of the programs which show up have anything to do with opening archives though. Dead end!

So I do a general Google-type search of LOOT optimization tool and find the Github page. Ah-hah! Several options (versions?)show up so I click the one at the top-left, which promises "A modding utility for Starfield and some Elder Scrolls and Fallout games." --- Since I'm currently going for Fallout 3, this version seems best. Problem is, the page which opens from that link is a mess, see? icons of a bunch of different grayed-out folders show on this page == My question: where do I go from here?

Let me try the link which has been placed innocuously to the right of that page: Loot.github.io/, ahh here we go, a blue button called Download LOOT. Version 28, here we go. I hope?

Sound about right, guys and gals?

[Lopov]

I downloaded this version when I played FO4 a while ago and it worked flawlessly.

[Renee]

I downloaded this version when I played FO4 a while ago and it worked flawlessly.

Cool thanks, that's the one I've got--Version 28.

My Fallout 3 rebuild on this new drive is going okay so far. Slow but okay. I'm able to start Cho's game with about half the content in my Downloads > Fallout 3 folders without a crash so far, anyway. I won't try playing his game until Cho's World.esp is added though; that's his C-team and numerous quests & missions added to the Citadel in his world.

This post has been edited by Renee: Mar 29 2026, 08:10 PM

[mirocu]

Ooooooh, dangdangdangdang! What to do??


Apple actually released iOS 18.7.7 for eveyone not on iOS 26, implementing vital security patches mainly. Although they do also change things around like in the Album and so on, and I don't know how it all will look overall on my phone.

This is one of those instances where I would like to do a real-life savepoint, update and have a look, and if I don't like it I can reload that save. I'm not too worried about security but I am worried about the overall look and if it will change things around too much, even if it's still gonna be on iOS 18.

Saw the video about this release yesterday and so of course I scoffed at it. But when I went ahead today just to read the comment section to see if anyone caught it, it seemed like it wasn't April Fools. And when I went to my own phone and checked for updates; yes! There it is!


"The discovery of DarkSword makes it the second iOS exploit kit, after Coruna, to be discovered within the span of a month. The kit is designed to target iPhones running iOS versions between iOS 18.4 and 18.7"


I took this text from The Hacker News and it does seem to specifically target iOS versions between 18.4 and 18.7. I am on 18.2 so idk.

[Renee]

Trying to rebuild Morrowind I got an error message for msvcr100_64.dll missing from my system when trying to open Morrowind Code Patch.

Long story short, I come across a web page promising an easy fix but then it starts listing all the things wrong with my gaming computer, mostly missing & outdated drivers, which makes sense because I'm in the habit of NOT accepting updates from Microsoft over many years, but I'm working with a brand-new drive, so that's weird. The web page/program lists a driver for an Nvidia GT-640 graphics card being out of date which makes sense because that was the original card in my machine, which I no longer use for years now...

Further into this project, a page shows up on which I can choose what to update and what not to mess with at all. It asks for my email and name, and *HERE IT COMES* -- some money. Which damn,,, makes me nervous. And it sucks. All I want to do is game today. Wondering what to do, maybe should I even just take the entire computer to some geek shop? I just have this feeling something's gonna get screwed up, especially relying on third-party sites like the one I found.

This post has been edited by Renee: Apr 5 2026, 05:33 PM

[Acadian]

One thing that comes to mind to this non-techie is to consider some due diligence on that web site. A few searched via google or such should determine (via several sources) if it is legit / any good or simply trying to get into your wallet.

[Renee]

This is really pissing me off. I got rid of the third party crap entirely. It began randomly spewing messages for 50% off and so on, and none of that seemed right. Thank the Gods it uninstalled. Early in this thread I read something about never allow something which ... dang, can't remember. Okay, here it is.

One of the big things to look out for to prevent getting viruses and spyware is to avoid any site that claims to let you view any movie for free. Or download such movies. I do not mean using torrents, but downloading directly from a site. Usually this is in the form of a .exe file. Sites like this are worse than Porn sites when it comes to malware.

There, the underlined part. What I just found did open from an .exe I think. But now it's gone.

I found another site I trust a bit more called Livewire, 'Tech for humans'. I think I'm a human, so that's what I tried next. It says to try downloading the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015, which sounds more official to me. Gosh darn I'm dumb! I tried doing this only to get a message all that is already on my gaming computer, what the heck? So I uninstalled those files from my C drive and installed the Visual C++ stuff from that site. Which all seems official to me, valid Microsoft stuff, it seems. Except the same stupid code: "The code execution cannot proceed because MSVCR100.dll is not found. Reinstalling the program may fix this program....."

Exact same code shows up.


I do a search of the C drive for MSVCR100.dll and GET THIS. A long line of files with that code are already on my gaming computer's C drive, in many different variations I'm seeing x86_NETFX4-msvcr100.dll for instance and about twelve other variations of that configuration of MSVCR100, all dynamic link library files.

I give up. So I've been at this now for three hours I think. Gosh I'm so dumb! I'm giving up, before something really BAD happens. Yea [censored] all this I'm watching Netflix until somebody who knows what's wrong shows up.

This post has been edited by Renee: Apr 5 2026, 07:42 PM

[mirocu]

You're certainly not dumb, Renee. This stuff of getting old software working on new hardware is not easy which is why I've bought so many old computers. Maybe some sort of virtual equivalent to DOSBox for Arena and Daggerfall can do it. If it exists.


Best of luck

[Decrepit]

This is not about a computer issue but instead about a change in browser extensions, spelling and grammar checkers, to be specific. I've used both Grammarly and LanguageTool in the past, to varying degrees of contentment. Just recently I gave QuillBot a try and find that I like it better than either of the two forementioned checkers. I particularly like the sentence restructuring advice it gives me; unlike with Grammarly, I almost always agree with its recommended rewordings. I don't always act on its advice, likely to my detriment. (QuillBot offered no restructuring advice for this posting but suggested changing "and find that" to "and found that," which I believe is incorrect in this particular instance.) QuillBot is also teaching me the proper use of the semicolon, which I have been clueless about in the past.

[Renee]

This is really pissing me off. I got rid of the third party crap entirely. It began randomly spewing messages for 50% off and so on, and none of that seemed right. Thank the Gods it uninstalled. Early in this thread I read something about never allow something which ... dang, can't remember. Okay, here it is.

One of the big things to look out for to prevent getting viruses and spyware is to avoid any site that claims to let you view any movie for free. Or download such movies. I do not mean using torrents, but downloading directly from a site. Usually this is in the form of a .exe file. Sites like this are worse than Porn sites when it comes to malware.

There, the underlined part. What I just found did open from an .exe I think. But now it's gone.

I found another site I trust a bit more called Livewire, 'Tech for humans'. I think I'm a human, so that's what I tried next. It says to try downloading the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015, which sounds more official to me. Gosh darn I'm dumb! I tried doing this only to get a message all that is already on my gaming computer, what the heck? So I uninstalled those files from my C drive and installed the Visual C++ stuff from that site. Which all seems official to me, valid Microsoft stuff, it seems. Except the same stupid code: "The code execution cannot proceed because MSVCR100.dll is not found. Reinstalling the program may fix this program....."

Exact same code shows up.


I do a search of the C drive for MSVCR100.dll and GET THIS. A long line of files with that code are already on my gaming computer's C drive, in many different variations I'm seeing x86_NETFX4-msvcr100.dll for instance and about twelve other variations of that configuration of MSVCR100, all dynamic link library files.

I give up. So I've been at this now for three hours I think. Gosh I'm so dumb! I'm giving up, before something really BAD happens. Yea [censored] all this I'm watching Netflix until somebody who knows what's wrong shows up.

PFFT, finally got this mess sorted, I think. Without going into extreme detail, I had numerous errors for missing .dll files; not for the games themselves but for auxiliary programs like LOOT AND Morrowind Code Patch. I've been putting off looking for solutions because it's been nice outside and reading books on the back porch does not require .dll files. BUT, finally I've made progress. The solution just now was to download the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable packages again, following the links for whichever versions are supposed to be the "latest". I tried this in the past, difference this time was I ran three different installers: vcredist_x86.exe, vcredist_x64.exe, and an executable called "VC_redist.arm64" which I" got previously from a third party site I think, which is not part of the Microsoft page I just linked to.

Finally, after running all three of those, LOOT and several other programs which previously spewed missing .dll file errors, sometimes even if those .dll files were definitely on my gaming computer, finally these programs open just fine.

At this moment, I'd say Fallouts 3 and New Vegas are closest to running, though I don't want to jinx my their progress by saying when I'll get them running.

Gracie, and wish me luck. Hope to be able to join Mirocu especially.

[Acadian]

I hope things go smoothly Renee. Good luck!

[mirocu]

Geez, couldn't imagine doing all that myself. I've encountered that .dll problem many times throughout the years but only with simple programs and mostly I've fixed it though not every time for some reason. The .dll is there but it keeps saying the .dll is missing, just like in your case.


Well good luck, Renee!

[Renee]

Geez, couldn't imagine doing all that myself.

It comes down to necessity. My only other option is to take my gaming device into a local shop. Which, who knows how much that would cost? I took my original (non-gaming) computer to Gadget Guru after its hard drive went bad--it actually began smoking! And something like that was way over my head at the time!!! -- Which cost somewhere around $250. I wanted to see if they could retrieve whatever info they could, see. Because in those days --early days of Covid actually, I had only just begun backing up saves and info. Well, the gurus tried their best, and in fact were able to grab a large amount of info off that drive, which was given to me on an old thumb stick, but none of the info made any sense; it was all jumbled.

Here's an example:

`œy0΁Õ
C : \ U s e r s \ R e n e e \ D o c u m e n t s \ T h e E l d e r S c r o l l s \ T E S 4 O b l i v i o n \ T h e G o b l i n L a d y \ C h a p e r . t x t

...yea that seems to be a partial backup for one of my story chapters, which originally would've been on a Notepad file. But it's all jumbled.

Well good luck, Renee!

Mixed results, in other words. I don't want to spend all this money and NOT get what I need. Now, I'm going to tell ya a story, crow. You might want to brew some tea. In the early days, back in 2013 when I got that non-gaming computer from Walmart, I only did so because Microsoft was about to cancel the entire MSNTV service, which was internet on your TV, basically. Very limited internet on my TV. Couldn't watch movies, for instance, only very short .WAV visual files. No YouTube, no Netflix, etc. BUT, I was able to type all those early Kahreem & Lady Saga stories on my television, here at Chorrol or at Beth's original forums. So since MSNTV was going away, I now needed a computer in my room, there was no way to dodge the subject anymore. But where to start? Well, I wound up getting that first non-gaming computer from Walmart (BIG, somewhat Evil corporation of box stores here in America, but...reasonable prices) But before going to Walmart I went to Radio Shack. Which was originally a chain of stores that sold parts for ham radios during the turn of the 20th century. Radio Shack sold everything small, mirocu: batteries, capacitors, diodes, all gauges of wires, etc. I only went there one day in 2013 after I realized they now sold computers. So me...I'm a total dummy, really clueless in those days. And my assumption was that computers are like gaming consoles; like, any computer can be used for hardcore gaming!

But intuition kicked in, and so I decided to ask the Radio Shack employees some questions. So I point to one of the desktops they had on display and ask: "can these be used for gaming? Like, Skyrim and Oblivion and such?"

Well the guys behind the counter just sort of chuckled a bit before explaining that NO, their models were NOT good for gaming! That there are all levels of computers these days, and that the ones sold by the Shack were mostly for school/office/light home use at best. Scanning photos, internet, saving documents. Only games I'd be able to get into would be Solitaire, online Chess, maybe some goofy puzzle games like Beadazzled or Jewel Shuffle.

And so wow, I realized this is going to turn into a 'project'; requiring some thought and strategy. Because now I wanted something which could handle the games. Thaat I wasn't just going to walk out of the Shack with a shiny new toy which could play games as well.

Long story longer, I was now overwhelmed, sort of back to where I started. I decided to ask them one more question, even though I now had a thousand questions, which was something like "How do you learn all the facets of computer gaming?" ....because I knew I was going to get stuck a zillion times on stuff I'd be unable to answer, without bothering Wyrd and others in the forums like some annoying little brat, anyway....

Well, the Radio Shack employees' main answer is one I still use to this day: "Google, Google, Google" He basically explained everyone gets stuck, even the pros who've been computer gaming since the 1960s get stuck. Well I prefer Bing over Google, but otherwise that guy's answer is still my main go-to, assuming nobody here just knows the answer.


There. Is your tea cold? 🍺 ha ha ha

This post has been edited by Renee: Yesterday, 06:38 PM

[mirocu]

I got ice tea, so no problem


I'm not into the latest specs of graphics cards, sound cards and the like since it's so long since I had to be into it. My computer goes back to 2009 and that's basically the last time I knew my stuff. I probably could read up on it if I had to but the problem now is my gear is outdated and not compatible with the new graphics/sound cards so that would likely be the more pressing issue. And I would hate getting a new computer with Windows 11. Too much crap tacked on that I don't want and sometimes can't just ignore.

It can be quite daunting to get into the world of computer gaming and learn what gear is required with what games etc. I'm impressed with how far you've gotten, Renee, not least with the modding scene. Must have been quite the learning curve but you did it