sick computer

christ almighty, I'm in the wrong buisness...

Do you know if they used retail products or freeware? If they installed stuff like AdAware, Spybot, and Zonealarm that's highway robbery.

 

Oh yes...it was freeware --which I provided-- to them! But it was messed up beyond my mere expertise.

 

GOOD GRIEF ... !!!! It usually takes me about 2 hours to clean up a machine, and install Norton Internet Security. They have to be charging about $100 an hour for labor, as NIS costs $69.95 at full retail !!

Hmmm .. sounds like I need to raise my rates in 2005 !!



Neil Z.
Resident since 1999

 

Yah, and this is some circuit city flunkie rather than an IT professional like ourselves. I wonder what the PC techs there get paid hourly? Maybe we could start moonlighting.

 

I'll beat neilz's price by 30%!

=)

 

You must have a full-time job ... this is my only business, and I just started turning a profit

Neil Z.
Resident since 1999

 

For what it is worth, they removed close to 6000 viruses, worms and trojan horses from his computer. Let me tell ya, if none of you are doing so, it would be well-worth having a computer security awareness seminar some evening or weekend. Man...my poor friend's computer sure opened up my eyes!

 

well, you shouldn't have to have these seminars if the operating system was designed better.... something that is slowly progressing but not there yet... *sigh* at least it'll keep neilz in bid-ness =)

 

Probably the only thing I praise Bill Gates for !!! [}]

Neil Z.
Resident since 1999

 

I'm noticing now on my own computer that when I run spybot or ad-aware that both programs are unable to remove some of the objects it finds. Why is that and is this something I should worry about? In fact, with spybot, I am now receiving an error message when loading it and get a pop up window that won't go away either by clicking close or even by clicking the "no" in the center. I then tried to remove spybot and download again but it will not remove. Anyone else encounter this problem?

 

In both cases, if they can't remove the item, they will tell you that, but that they can remove them after a reboot. Usually this is caused by the object being in memory, and until the system is rebooted, the original file cannot be deleted.

Without the text of the error message, its hard to try to determine what the problem is, however ... what I would do, is not try to remove Spybot at this time, just boot to safe mode and run Ad-Aware to see if it can clean things up. Make sure you do a object signature file update before you reboot. Then after you reboot and before you start Ad-Aware, turn off system restore so the system won't try to reload the deleted entries and/or files found. Then run Ad-Aware to clean up the mess.

Once you're sure that everything is cleaned up with Ad-Aware, try to reinstall Spybot without removing the installed version first. Sometimes this fixes the problem.



Neil Z.
Resident since 1999

 

Your son has the best idea. If you can at least get to Windows Explorer (NOT Internet explorer) - try to get the friend's data files onto a jump drive, floppy, or cd. Then put that data disk into a PC with robust antivirus and firewall protection.

That should check those data files for viruses.

Then completely reformat the friend's PC- do a full reinstall of Windows. Then install antivirus and firewall prptection. Next reinstall other apps (office, etc). Finally copy the data files back.

In the long run, this may be less time and trouble.

That's my 2 cents.



Dawne

 

Perhaps ... but it usually takes about an hour or two to load Windows, then insure all the service packs are installed, depending on the speed of the machine. Then you have to spend all that time installing applications. You're talking major time here.

And all this is predicated on whether or not you have another computer available, many don't. In which case, trying to clean up the mess is preferable.



Neil Z.
Resident since 1999