Computer Problems

[Coreper]

i would like to tell you about something i was going through lately, but ill start at the beginning:

a friend of mine told me that the laptop from his little sister was acting odd, and told me she played a lot online games and such

i told him she should watch out doing that, but a few days later he comes to me and says: could you have a look at my sisters laptop?, we cant login anymore...

so i did: i created a windows xp boot disk, using Bart PE, put some security tools on it, and booted the laptop

after a scan with: Ad-Aware, McAfee Stinger and McAfee Virusscanner i got these results: 6 worms, 54 trojans and 8 pieces of ad-/spyware...

no wonder that laptop was acting strange!

that friend of mine told me that all the problems started after his sister clicked on an [unknown] link which showed up while she was chatting in Windows Live Messenger

i think we've all seen these "weird" links atleast once, if you use WLM

they usually are something like: Pictures of you on this website! LOL Click here to see the pictures!

but lets just keep thinking that his little sister wasnt smart enough to see that these links didnt come from her contacts...

lets just make a example: youre chatting with someone and suddenly a weird link shows up:

You say:

Hi

Contact says:

Hi :D

You say:

How are you?

Contact says:

Good, you?

You say:

Im good too, thanks ;)

Contact says:

Nice match yesterday, not?

You say:

Yeah, indeed! We kicked their asses!

Contact says:

Pictures of you on this website! LOL Click here to see the pictures!

Contact says:

What was the score exactly?

You say:

10-3 after the last half

Contact has left the conversation [because his computer randomly shuts down because of all the malware he has on there...]

kinda weird that the link shows up, not?

i recently got something like that, but a little different:

"Your pictures are being hosted on this website" is the message i got, but... where is the link!??!?!? XD

the contact where i got it from said he did see a link > i somehow was protected [by ZoneAlarm?]

so lets continue my story: i got the laptop and took it home with me

i began trying to get the laptop able to login

after a lot of tries i still didnt succeed, so i told him the laptop was so f*up that we needed to reinstall windows xp [which was also neccessary, because the laptop would be of way better now]

ofcourse i needed to backup the personal data before reinstalling windows xp: i used a Linux Ubuntu [Gutsy Gibbon] for that: i connected a external 30.6 5400rpm [old hd which was unused] in via USB, using my Scyth Kama Connect kit [which i love!! > it lets you connect multiple sata or ide harddisks via usb to a computer]

and i copied the data to it

so i reinstalled the laptop and put the ultimate free security software package on it:

Anti-Virus: AVG 7.5 Free

Firewall: Comodo Free Firewall Pro

Anti-Spyware: Spybot, SpywareBlaster and SUPERantispyware

Anti-Malware: Ad-Aware + Ad-Watch

System Maintainance: TuneUp Utilities 2008 + CCleaner + Acronis True Image 9

Other Security: McAfee SiteAdvisor

ofcourse i installed all the windows updates first, then MS Office 2003, Anti-Virus software, Anti-Spyware software, Anti-Malware software and finally the Firewall

after that i updated all the programs and applied all their realtime security

so, i finished that stage: its time to install the System Maintainance Package: TuneUp Utilities 2008 [the best System Maintainance Suite ive ever had!]

i cleaned the computer using CCleaner, then used the Windows Disk Cleanup Tool to cleanup the rest

then i used CCleaner again, and started on the registry:

CCleaner registry scan 3x, 2x TuneUp Registry Cleaner scan and finally a TuneUp Registry Defrag

so now we've got the registry cleaned up

too increase the system performances i used the TuneUp System Optimizer and TuneUp Disk Defrag, and ofcourse i tweaked a few programs myself [AdAware, SUPERantispyware, AVG, IE, WLM, etc.]

after i completed this i used again: CCleaner [cleanup and registry scan] and TuneUp [registry scan]

now the computer was running super smooth again, but i still havent got old documents from the previous installation back...

so i plugged in the hd, and began scanning the files: it was almost clean: it just had all the mess on it from the users: unorganised data...

so i began digging into the data: i threw a lot away, which wasnt used anymore [i asked] and organised it perfectly

after the data was on the laptop, i defragged the disk, scanned the registry and cleaned the computer.

now i was ready to backup this new and perfect running laptop: it has a 4% cpu usage during normal use [explorer, internet, wmp and msn] and only 300mb of memory is used

i returned the laptop to him, and they all loved me [read as an expression]

the laptop was ready to use at their home :D

but, when we got to their computer room, i made a awfull discovery: they have 4 computers, which are ALL unorganised, insecure pieces of sh*t...

we started on another computer which was also messed up:

Norton Internet Security [which we all hate ;)] was installed, but didnt work anymore

so we had to remove that before securing and cleaning the computer:

i downloaded the Norton Removal tool [google search: norton removal tool], but it wasnt able of removing norton, because we had to shut it down [but it wasnt running!??!?!]

so i downloaded Unlocker [great software] and went to C:\Program Files\Norton or \Symantec, whatever it was

and i used Unlocker to see the processes using that folder > i shutted them all down [i didnt care if it could make the system unstable > it already was far worse than unstable] and removed ALL the files from those folder [except the ones which were in use], so norton couldnt start at the next startup

we restarted the computer, and -to my astonishment- the computer ran perfectly fine!

i used the Norton Removal tool, and it did its job [i used it twice afterwards, to make sure it completed its job > it still is a product from Symantec < you never know...]

we uninstalled about 42 programs which werent ever used and installed the System package [as i described above] and secured and cleaned the system

i think that computer will manage to get clean again > i have full confidence in it :)

but i keep thinking about: How could they EVER have let it come this far that their computers are so full of unorganised and unused data and get all the virusses and sh*t on it...

*we also had a look at the hardware of the computer we cleaned: and removed a lot of dust [i thought it was a miracle that that computer was still running]

what im trying to say with this message:

-Keep your computer secure

-Maintain [clean, defrag and organize] your computer and its data

-Think about what you do on a computer [clicking unknown links, visiting weird pages, etc.]

oh, and another great tip: if you need to know something [and are near a computer] > GOOGLE it!!!!!!!!!

more info at: www.justfuckinggoogleit.com

[-pops-]

So, so many home computers are in a similar state. I now refuse to look at machines that come from homes where I know or suspect that they have been neglected in this way.

There is no surprise that the computer world is awash with viruses, malware, this bad ware, that bad ware when there are so many people who just don't care until, of course, their computer fails to respond to their commands.

The worst part for me was that they always blame the machine and not their neglect of it with security software years out of date and security scans, even windows update never carried out.

[Coreper]

indeed

i completely agree with you

its hard to understand that people do not understand the fact that a computer isnt like a book: it needs to be maintained, secured and organised...

its nice to hear someone feels the same way about this :)

[andsome]

So, so many home computers are in a similar state. I now refuse to look at machines that come from homes where I know or suspect that they have been neglected in this way.

There is no surprise that the computer world is awash with viruses, malware, this bad ware, that bad ware when there are so many people who just don't care until, of course, their computer fails to respond to their commands.

The worst part for me was that they always blame the machine and not their neglect of it with security software years out of date and security scans, even windows update never carried out.

Agree 100%. :D

[Mike567]

Windows needs way too much maintanance.

No normal used knows to defrag or has ever heard of it.

[CurlyWhirly]

Windows needs way too much maintanance.

I beg to differ

It only takes me around an hour a week to keep my PC in 'top shape' and this is no big deal (to me anyway) as I usually leave it running in the background whilst I do other things.

[Mike567]

The difference is Windows is where it is because it is 'easy' to use, sure its easy to use if you know how to maintain it.

No one I know that has a windows box uses defrag and they haven't heard of it before, and when you don't defrag your installation really gets messed up and no longer usable.

Deleting temp files and cookies again the people that arn't knowledgable will say where are the cookies at I'm hungry.

Windows users don't want to have to spend a hour or two scraping through windowses bloatware trying to keep their computer running well, its rediculous and they pride themselves on having a OS that is easy to use.

Unix doesn't need to be defragged (Mac) neither does Linux, come on this is where I have to say I'm happy for Apple getting attention for once.

[Gandalph]

I for one am seriously thinking of turning to Mac as my next computer but it won't be for another year or two. There OS's are upgraded on a pretty regular basis, about two per year and at a reasonable price. What is more appealing, to me anyway, is that their operating systems work and do what they are supposed to do.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Windows needs way too much maintanance.

No normal used knows to defrag or has ever heard of it.

Absolutely not. It's the user's choice if they want to defrag their partitions. If they don't know about defrag, that's not a security concern at all.

If they don't have security software installed (firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware), then there is a problem. No-one can claim they have never heard of computer malware, and by not installing/maintaining security software, they are deliberately endangering their computer health.

Most paid-for software updates itself.

Most free software needs manual update; normally about once a week.

Both is not way too much maintenance!

[andsome]

My computer defrags automatically each day at 10A.M. No problem there. I have a first class AV program installed together with free Anti Malware programs. It runs as good as the day it was new, I take pride in spending just a few minutes weekly in keeping things up to scratch. If it had not been for Microsoft and Windows I doubt very much whether computers would be anywhere near their current stage of development. There would have been no basis for these other operating systems to have started from. :D

[Mike567]

Windows needs way too much maintanance.

No normal used knows to defrag or has ever heard of it.

Absolutely not. It's the user's choice if they want to defrag their partitions. If they don't know about defrag, that's not a security concern at all.

If they don't have security software installed (firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware), then there is a problem. No-one can claim they have never heard of computer malware, and by not installing/maintaining security software, they are deliberately endangering their computer health.

Most paid-for software updates itself.

Most free software needs manual update; normally about once a week.

Both is not way too much maintenance!

They hear of computer security because if you walk in PC world they have 10 people around you trying to sell norton to you!

Linux you don't need all this security, or mac.

My computer defrags automatically each day at 10A.M. No problem there. I have a first class AV program installed together with free Anti Malware programs. It runs as good as the day it was new, I take pride in spending just a few minutes weekly in keeping things up to scratch. If it had not been for Microsoft and Windows I doubt very much whether computers would be anywhere near their current stage of development. There would have been no basis for these other operating systems to have started from. :D

LOL MS stole a lot of products and patented them!

DOS they brought and made it into 'MSDOS', without that they wouldn't be anywhere.

Apple came up with the first GUI OS, MS followed.

We would be a lot further without MS thats a fact!

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Linux you don't need all this security, or mac.

You may be right about that, but that doesn't help Windows users in any way.

[Coreper]

if you have the proper tools/software on your windows system, you wont have to spend hours on the maintainance of your system

i spend about 30 minutes to clean my whole system: clean [CCleaner = 1 min], registry scan [TuneUp + CCleaner = 3 min], virus scan [AVG = 20, but i can do other things while this scan runs], defragmentation [TuneUp = 5 to 10 minutes > also during other tasks] and malware scans [AdAware + SUPERAntispyware {+Spybot sometimes} = 10 min > also during other tasks]

ofcourse, keeping these programs updated is very important, which i do, atleast every time before i scan, and usually also when im not doing anything on my computer > lets update! :)

but thats me

i think the "simple" computer user dont know that keeping a computer up-to-date

but what i find the most weird, is HOW all those virusses got onto the computer [because the computer as i described above, wasnt used by immature users...]

[Mike567]

No antimalware program picks up malware, they cannot detect a virus algorithym, the programs rely on the people running it to find malware and use the digital signature to then detect them on users computers, so you could have malware on your PC for months without it being detected.

When I first used a computer, I never knew to keep it upto date I never ran anti malware programs then when I said I have a problem my uncle scanned it finding 500+ viruses.

No normal used knows what cclean is or anything like that which is what I'm trying to say, MS make their OS so assessible its rediculous, which is why Linux is so much more secure meaning you don't need AV programs for it, you can't even get a AV program for unix/linux becuase their is no such thing as a virus for linux.

For home users windows is not a good OS unless you know how to maintain it, but good for business's because they don't maintain it.

I should add what annoys me is its exactly the same in Vista they should add like defrag to the schedule list or something!

[Coreper]

youre quite right there...

but windows does support the most hardware of all os's

something which would be really cool, is a program which could automate this maintainance for you: there are programs for this, BUT they are hard to configure, or rely on a static situation: no changes > during a virusscan changes might occure...

i do think though, that most computer users know too little about their computer... [you dont need to be an expert, but atleast youve gotta know something]

[CurlyWhirly]

No antimalware program picks up malware, they cannot detect a virus algorithym, the programs rely on the people running it to find malware and use the digital signature to then detect them on users computers, so you could have malware on your PC for months without it being detected.

Some anti-virus vendors feature heuristics and advanced heuristics that don't rely on digital signatures of known malware:

Fortunately for me, NOD32 has this feature B)

[CurlyWhirly]

I for one am seriously thinking of turning to Mac as my next computer but it won't be for another year or two. There OS's are upgraded on a pretty regular basis, about two per year and at a reasonable price. What is more appealing, to me anyway, is that their operating systems work and do what they are supposed to do.

Windows works for me so I'm sticking with it B)

How does it not do what you want then?

[Mike567]

No antimalware program picks up malware, they cannot detect a virus algorithm, the programs rely on the people running it to find malware and use the digital signature to then detect them on users computers, so you could have malware on your PC for months without it being detected.

Some anti-virus vendors feature heuristics and advanced heuristics that don't rely on digital signatures of known malware:

Fortunately for me, NOD32 has this feature B)

I never knew that they are not scanning for malicious algorithms, actually good to know, anyone know if AVG and Avast! do the same?

[Coreper]

i guess [hope actually] they do...

[andsome]

I have never used anything else but Windows and see no reason to. I am completely familiar with it and what is more I LIKE IT. Each to his own. If you don't like Windows, why visit a WINDOWS FORUM?

[Belatucadrus]

If you don't like Windows, why visit a WINDOWS FORUM?

But if you're on a Linux forum you can't feel all superior by telling the Windows boobs how foolish they all are.

Unless you're really perverse and use Solaris. :lol:

[Coreper]

haha

thats a good one ;)

i guess that the same reason i like windows so much: i know how to use it, and how to tweak it the way i like

[Mike567]

Because I plan on having a career with desktop support, currently working on my MCDST.

Plus I love a nice little argument about Windows Vs Linux :lol:, I like windows its a brilliant system but their are small bits you can pick at :lol:.

[mark2]

snip....

Plus I love a nice little argument about Windows Vs Linux :lol:, ......snip

For you mike

bad boy

:D