Tuesday, August 16, 2005

I have seen some interesting problems over the past few weeks. One of my favorites was when I found a piece from a floppy disk jammed in the non functioning drive. I have removed spyware and viruses from several computers. One I worked on yesterday for three house had 1,620 spyware infected files and 21 viruses. It was a Dell laptop running Windows XP Home that had only been subjected to the dangers of the Internet for six months. The antivirus software trial period had clearly run out. Therefore there weren't any updates to the virus definitions file. No firewall running either. Automatic Updates was disabled and the operating system had no been updated since SP1. There was a lot of starting in Safe Mode (press the F8 key as the machine is starting to boot - on some machines it's different) running AdAware, Spybot Search and Destroy, Microsoft AntiSpy and AVG AntiVirus. Some of the names of the virus infected files were smse.exe, wualcts.exe, dipset.exe and MMXMtf8exe.exe. Some of the more commonly known spyware/adware which I ran into was WinTools and CoolWebSearch. There were others. The first symptoms of spyware where when I booted the machine and could not access the msconfig utility (start-run-type in msconfig). I rebooted into Safe Mode and ran msconfig to see if I could spot any spyware. I noticed some odd looking file names that led me to believe that the machine was indeed a victium of spyware, viruses and adware. I rebooted the machine after disabling some of the suspicious executable files set to load upon startup. I installed the proper tools. Updated them (on a dial-up connection, I swear it was painful to watch) and ran the applications. I ran Spybot first and found 58 problems. Next I ran AdAware and found 359 problems. Then I ran AVG and found the 21 viruses. Lastly I ran Microsoft AntiSpy and found 846 problems!

At the end of it all I explained in detail what I did to the machine and also what to do to help prevent the problems from getting on the computer again. I drove off down the driveway and onto a pothole lined dirt road past farms and acres of green grass. I left behind another satisfied customer.

I had a few quick visits over the past seven days. Both of them lasted under an hour. My policy is that I get paid at least one hour. One was to enable a DSL connection to load upon startup automatically, plus check for spyware/virses and the like. It was another Dell laptop running Windows XP. That went quickly. The other was to check a PC running Windows XP for a virus. The client compained that the computer was shutting down automatically after twenty-or-so minutes. I booted the machine (it was very slow booting), looked at the Startup menu, removed a few obvious items and rebooted. Then I checked the system properties (right click on the Desktop and choose Properties - then choose Screen Saver - then click the button that says Power.) and found that someone had set the computer to go in Standby after 25 minutes. Problem solved. I ran Microsoft AntiSpy removed a few items and was out the door within 45 minutes. The machine was running smooth.

I will be picking up a laptop on Thursday and working on a basic virtual tour for this site Pathways To Well Being. Plus I am waiting to set up another appointment with a woman who is complaining about viruses.

On another note; a friend dropped off two towers, probably running Windows 98, for me to play with. I haven't even fired them up to see what they can or cannot do. Maybe I will install some spyware or viruses for fun and then remove the pests. I now have about six computers in my basement! Plus there are four in this room with me right now! I might have an addiction!