The virus notice is probably coming from malware, not a virus. They sell unwitting users their antivirus product, which only installs much more malware.
I'd tell him to restore his OS from the disks he got with it. If he's lost them, I think there may be replacements available from Dell. On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 7:10 PM, Robert <carrollcompu...@gmail.com> wrote: > A friend has an older Dell laptop with Windows XP that won't connect > wirelessly to internet. Maybe other problems, don't know. He knows nothing > at all about computers, so he asked me for advice since I know next to > nothing. He believes his problem is caused by viruses since he sees a > message that his laptop has 178 viruses. Don't know where the message comes > from, maybe an expired virus program from Dell or maybe a virus program that > he paid to download from the web. He doesn't know what he downloaded, if > anything, and he threw away all the CDs that came from Dell, including OS, > since he didn't know what they were for. > > I told him to go to a local computer builder (not chain repair place) who > might have an old Win XP OS on hand, tell them that he will pay to have the > disk wiped and the OS reinstalled (ask price first), and say that if the > computer won't work afterwards he will make no demand that the computer be > fixed for that initial price. The computer is old enough that a high price > to fix isn't wise, and he has no data that needs to be saved. > > Should I have told him something else? ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
