<rant> If you subscribe to this list, then you might be the guy or gal like me who gets called upon frequently to look at the computers of relatives, friends, neighbors, strangers, etc. whenever problems arise. Once people know that you are a programmer, it is assumed that you know everything there is to know about all computers. There is no distinction between being a programmer and a systems person to most people (granted, you pick up a lot of stuff). Mom's computer is on the fritz, no problem, I'll be there. The in-laws need help with their wireless setup. Okay. My mom's neighbor's niece who lives out of state. That's a stretch, but I have been asked about helping in situations like this.
This weekend, it was the neighbors. They moved in 1 month after we moved into our house 4 years ago. They know I am a programmer and have known the whole time we have know them. Keep this in mind as I describe my assistance to them. They could have asked for help as soon as problems arose and saved everyone some time. But no . . . First, they called a couple of weeks ago and asked if I could help them get the pop ups off their laptop. Uh-oh. Sure I said. Bring it by. Well after two or three weeks, the bring it. You know the routine. I put AVG, Zonealarm, Spybot, Adaware, Process Explorer, Microsoft AntiSpyware tool, and firefox on my jump drive and began. This machine had over 50 pieces of spyware on it as well as trojans and viruses. I spent Friday night (while watching Monster-in-law with my wife) trying to clean it. I spent Sat afternoon (while watching college football) trying to clean it. I spent Sunday afternoon (while watching the NFL) trying to clean it. Notice the word "trying." This machine was so inundated with stuff that it could not be done. To make matters worse, the control panel would not come up. Some piece of software had apparently deleted access to this (even in safe mode). There was one piece of spyware named SurfSideKick that was a real beast to remove. It would not come off even though all scanners picked it up and said they would remove it. It would randomly throw a pop up even if IE was closed (obviously it was running but it did not show in the task manager-nice). To make matters even more worse, these neighbors are on roadrunner and have not performed one windows xp update. None. Ever. This machine has been setting wide open for a year and a half without a firewall or patches. I removed as much as I could and peformed all the updates I could, hoping that these updates would somehow kill the beasts that would not die (surfsidekick, I am talking to your) and give me control of the control panel. No dice. Finally, I say to myself "It's time to go nuclear." I give my neighbors a call and say I need the disc that came with your computer. You'll love this. They lost it. They don't have it anymore. Nice. Well, I just got a new PCWorld that had a snippet on BartPE. An opportune time to try it out. I install it, run it, and it creates the boot disc fine. Unfortunately, it would not work. Winnt32.exe would not complete its operation (it was probably modified by something as well). BartPE did allow me to delete SurfSideKick though since I was not running windows. At this point, most of the spyware and virus are off. The machine is patched as much as possible. Alas, some pop ups are still happeing. I put my XP disc in to use it to modify the settings. I was hoping I could use it to get the control panel back. No option to install the control panel but there was an option to remove Internet Explorer. I did it. This killed the pop ups and hopefully shut down an open pathway for more crap. That was it for me. The laptop runs better than it did. It has more defenses than before. If more needs to be done, they will need to seek professional help. I did learn a few things and come to some conclusion. 1. The people who built Surfsidekick should have it installed on everymachine they use. They should enjoy its popups as much as everyone else. 2. Companies that advertise in these popups should be boycotted (these weren't porn popus. There were adds for Dell no less). 3. Congress needs to get busy on legislation to punish people responsible for this kind software. 4. I should check my caller ID more closely. 5. IE should never be used unless absolutely necessary. It is an abomination. That's right Bill Gates. I am talking to you . . . 6. Some people should not be allowed to own computers that connect to the internet. Web TV would be perfect for them. Well, back to your regularly scheduled work day . . . </rant> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Sams Teach Yourself Regular Expressions in 10 Minutes by Ben Forta http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=40 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:177841 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
