Wednesday, March 9th, 2005

It was Sunday afternoon - 2:00 - I arrived at the house.

I kicked my boots off by the door and sat down in front of the computer. I introduced myself and asked about the history of the computer and specifically if there was anything that lead up to the crash. Apparently, the client, had downloaded something and when the attempt was made to uninstall the spyware suspect the computer ceased to function.

I powered up the computer. It was WinXp, good, I thought to myself. The login screen appeared and when I went to move the mouse I noticed that there wasn't a response. I could tab through the input boxes and buttons but nothing from the mouse. I asked the client if anything could have happened to it. You know, maybe it flew off the desk and hit a wall or maybe it magically leaped off the desk into someone's coffee. He said no. I had a spare in the car but I didn't feel like running back out into the bitter wind to grab my USB mouse from the toolbox plus I wasn't certain it was a hardware problem.

I powered off (the hard way) and upon rebooting I tapped the F8 key to access Safe Mode. I booted the machine into Safe Mode and it loaded up just fine, mouse working and all. I ran msconfig to see what nasty stuff was set to start up automatically and I found plenty. I deselected all that I was certain of and rebooted the machine.

The next step was to clean the poor machine. I ran Microsoft Anti-Spy, AdAware and AVG-Anti-virus and removed the most infections I have ever seen on one computer. The number was 8,001. That brings my current total beginning back in October of 2004 to 31,930.

While sitting there watching programs sort throught files and registry values looking for infections my phone rang. I silenced the ringer (In my opinion it is inappropriate to answer a business call on a client's time.) and continued on. It was over an hour since I had arrived. The client was getting restless. I could tell that he wanted to be somewhere else. I decided to wrap things up as fast as I could without leaving an incomplete job. I explained to him that more than likely his computer was still infected with viruses and/or spyware/adware/malware etc...I told him to run AVG again and the antispyware applications I installed. He seemed confident enough to complete the cleansing process and after all it was his money. It was a little over an hour and a half since I first stepped in the door. The client wrote out a check with a generous tip and I was on my way.

I left the house, walked through the parking lot and sat down in my car. I checked my phone messages. The call I had missed was from a client I had seen the day before. The guy with the two computers. I called him back. He was having issues with Firefox not having access to the Internet. I told him that I could be there in 10 minutes. He agreed and I headed towards his house. On the way I thought to myself, Firefox, huh, must be a firewall issue. I arrived at the house (quicker than in ten minutes) and knocked on the door. My client was on the phone. I knew where the computer in question was set up so I let myself in and sat down at the machine. I attempted to run Firefox. "This page cannot be displayed." I shut down Zone Alarm and tried Firefox again and it connected to the start page. I looked at the program access configuration, gave Firefox the appropriate access and told my client what the problem was and how to resolve it if the problem should arise in the future. He thanked me and I walked out of another house leaving behind another satisfied customer.