Sunday, February 6th, 2005

I got a call on Friday. A previous client was having issues with his computer. The same thing as before - spyware, and viruses. I scheduled an appointment for Sunday morning. I woke up, drank many cups of coffee, drank many more cups of coffee and drove a half hour to his house.

It was 12 noon when I arrived. He looked like he just woke up and indeed he had. He was clearly hung over from the night before. He was getting geared up to watch the Superbowl and to get intoxicated all over again. Personally, I could care less about the Superbowl. I don't understand what is so Super about it. Anyway, my task was to fix his computer. Once he cleared all the cigarette ash off his computer desk I was ready to begin troubleshooting.

I sat down infront of his dusty machine, hit the power button and waited. His Windows XP machine stumbled along and finally got to the log in screen. "It won't accept my password", he said. I tried typing it in. He was right, the password would not work and neither would his Enter key. Strange, I thought to myself, how strange. I asked if his keyboard was having any problems prior to getting locked out of his computer. He said no.

The smell of cigarettes and stale beer began to overwhelm me as I attempted to boot into Safe Mode. Safe mode would not work. Last Known Good Configuration would not work. I couldn't even boot to a command prompt. I tried a boot disk. Nothing. I tried using an XP cdrom to boot to the Recovery Console, not a chance!

Two hours later it didn't look good. I was thinking that reformatting his hard drive was an option. He would loose all his school work, music and whatever else he kept cluttering up his machine. He said, "Do what you have to do. I need a computer, preferably one that works!"I decided that I should take his tower home to work on it. I am a stubborn man when it comes to computers. I don't enjoy failing and I tend to become obsessive when it comes to computer problems! They always have a solutions!

I got the computer into my shop, plugged in my own mouse, keyboard and monitor. I pressed the dirty power button and walked upstairs to get a drink. I would be in the shop for quite some time, I suspected. I walked back into my shop to see the log on screen. I typed in the password and Windows began to boot. "It was a damn keyboard problem", I laughed. I knew it within the first five minutes. Ha, this one is going to be easy.

I began the usual routine; check the start up menu for odd looking executables, check out to see what programs he had installed (some contain spyware) and then I began installing the software to remove any viruses and spyware on his machine. I installed AdAware, SpyBot Search & Destroy, Microsoft Anti-Spy and Free AVG antivirus. What did I find? Over 4800 infected files and registry values. It looked like the mass of downloaded music, movies and applications from some P2P file sharing network had gotten the best of Windows. Some viruses and spyware were more stubborn than others forcing me to search out the names of some of the executables in the start up menu. I found many that were know to be spyware, disabled them from start up and went on.

Finally, after several passes with AVG and spyware removal tools I was looking at a clean machine. I decided that before I connect to the Internet I would throw on a Firewall (He had a cable connection without a firewall!). I installed and configured Zone Alarm, connected to my router and began to download updated for Windows from Microsoft. After about fifteen critical updates I got to the big one; Service Pack 2. I accepted the download and walked away for a while.

Once the download was complete (about a half hour later) I began the installation process and walked away again. About twenty minutes later I went to check on the progress and noticed that the screen saver had kicked it. I jiggled the mouse to get back to the desktop and realized that the installation process had stalled. His computer was frozen and I mean solid! Ctrl + Alt + Del would not work. Swearing did not work. Punching thirty keys at one time did not work!! I had to power down the old fashion way; that dirty power button, the one with the finger print stain that was clearly wiping off onto my finger from pressing that damn button so many times!

Upon rebooting I received an error message that said the computer was "unstable". I thought to myself, "No, I am the one who is going to be unstable. I had this thing running smoother than a Belgian Wheat beer down my slippery tonuge!" I didn't panic though. I followed the instuctions on screen to use the Add/Remove Programs control panel applet to remove Service Pack 2. After a long, long time the uninstall was complete and I was told to reboot. Again, I pressed the now not-so-dirty power button and crossed my fingers as the clicks and beeps brought the operating system to life. I entered his password and hit the Enter key. His machine was alive and well; no spyware, no viruses and no Service Pack 2! I could have attempted to reinstall but I knew what kind of a budget he was on. His computer wasn't worth as much as he would have had to pay me for the total time I worked on it. I decided that I would let him download and install Service Pack 2 saving him $80!

I returned the following day and gave him his computer back. He handed me some money, thanked me and I went back out into the world. The only difference this time is that I had a pocket full of cash!