Every box I touched (7 of them) had no less than 100'ish pieces of spyware in them. Each had a couple of virii, and NONE of them had visited windoze update.
I need to stop volunteering - or get one of these:
Every box I touched (7 of them) had no less than 100'ish pieces of spyware in them. Each had a couple of virii, and NONE of them had visited windoze update.
I need to stop volunteering - or get one of these:
I know what you mean, I work in systems support and my wife complained to me last month that her new laptop was slow. I loaded a spybot and found over 250. No viruses, I keep nortons on my machines for that.
If you are stuck fixing your relatives' PCs, make sure you download the IT version of SP2 from Microsoft Technet. You can burn it to a CD and easily install SP2 onto multiple XP systems. It is a huge download, but can be a real time saver when working on multiple systems.
You are much too kind! By the way, where do you live?
It's amazing. My kids are reasonably computer literature, but none of them seems to understand updating, either of the operating system or of the various anti-spyware programs I put on their computers.
At least they could clean some of the easy spyware off. The hard stuff sometimes requires messing around with the Registry, which I'd rather they didn't try.
Sounds familar. I have two friends (both with MBAs) and when it comes to taking care of their computers they are lost. One I installed adware and he couldn't believe what it found. Then Spybot put him into shock. By the time I was done he thought he had a new machine...repeated with my other friend later that day. Amazing, very smart people but fail to understand what it takes to keep their computers going.
I'm not sure what it is about family dinners and requests to fix computers, but it happened to me too (I suspect when I get the computers, the problem will be with spyware).
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
"What it does ... The Hosts file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. This file is loaded into memory at startup, then Windows checks the Hosts file before it queries any DNS servers, which enables it to override addresses in the DNS. This prevents access to the listed sites by redirecting any connection attempts back to the local machine. Another feature of the HOSTS file is it's ability to block other applications from connecting to the Internet, as long the the entry exists.
You can use a HOSTS file to block ads, banners, cookies, web bugs, and even most hijackers. This is accomplished by blocking the Server that supplies these little gems. Example - the following entry 127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net blocks all files supplied by the DoubleClick Server to the web page you are viewing. This also prevents the server from tracking your movements.
Now includes most major parasites, hijackers and unwanted Search Engines!"
OK I won't bother you with this problem, but seriously is there a good site to get help with fixing the dumb thing?
That's no lie! I got sick of old "friends" calling me for no other reason than because they were too dense to maintain their own stuff.
SO what I did was tell them that if they wanted me to fix their machines, that they'd have to pay me the same rate I charge for freelance work, which is $20 and hour and up. No exceptions.
"I offered to fix anyone's machine who brought it with them to dinner... "
You are a good person.
my favorite shirt is NO I DONT HAVE A QUARTER....good for areas heavy in panhandlers
I've had a problem for about 3 weeks now on my Win98 system. IE (any version, but using 6.x) won't launch. This also prevents Windows Update from also running, and any other programs that depend upon IE to access the internet.
I have been getting by with Mozilla in the mean time, but if I can't run IE I am getting limited on keeping my system running properly.
I have Norton AntiVirus, run several spyware removers (AdAware SE, Spyware Blaster, Spybot) reinstalled Win98 and IE, ran the IE repair tool, and installed Zone Alarm and SpySweeper, all to no avail.
IE will run if I boot in Safe mode. But my modem won't work in Safe mode, so I can't access the internet.
Any thoughts? Thanks!
If you have a system that you have tweeked so that it is stable, why would you even consider messing it up with an "update" from Microsoft. I'll let someone else be the alpha tester on their latest releases.