Re: Another OT Computer Question

Dan White wrote:

A friend has a virus that is preventing her from getting online.

Sure she does. What virus and what's it called?

The most common virus by far is Windows. It is a sick operating system. It has never worked right, and the hacks, like the computer store "geeks" and virus software thieves use this fact to get rich off the unsuspecting public.

The second leading cause of computer problems other than windows itself is McAfee and Norton and all the other virus protectors out there. About the worse thing you can do to windows is let one of those pigs loose on your system. If you want to periodically scan for a virus go ahead, but these garbage applications do more harm than good.

My first guess is she has something configured wrong, so she should call her ISP and see if she's got things right. If she is connected via modem, there are a million things that could be wrong, including the modem it's self.

The absolute last thing she could have is a virus that won't let her connect. Chances of that are probably a million to one, even if McAfee or Norton say they found 1200 virus's on her PC. My money is on after they remove all 1200 virus's, she still will not be able to connect to the internet, cause it ain't a virus.

IF it ain't a configuration problem up front, or a hardware problem, then, chances are her windows registry is screwed up. This is one of the things that causes even the most hardened criminals, I mean geeks to reformat and reinstall Windows. Has NOTHING to do with needing to reformat or reinstall anything, just that just about no one on earth has the knowledge, patience or time to screw too much with the registry.

She is
unhappy with the store that sold her the computer about 6 months ago because
it was supposed to come with a virus blocker that would protect her
computer. Now they say she just has a spyware blocker and needed something
more robust to completely protect the pc (I'm hearing that second hand).
Anyway, she doesn't want to pay the $130 for them to get rid of the virus.

My guess is they will spend 13 minutes trying to find the problem, then reformat and reinstall. This is what most windows repairmen know how to do. At around $75/hour, this is about all they can do. A good hack could spend days and not find the glitch in windows that is causing the problem.

I haven't spoken to her directly yet, but my suggestion was going to be that
she copy her personal files onto a flash drive, and then reformat her hard
drive provided that she has disc copies of the operating system and
applications. I thought this would be easier than buying more virus
software and cheaper than the $130.

I think that is a good idea. Of course, if she does have a virus, which is again HIGHLY UNLIKELY, then she stands a good chance of copying the virus right back to her system. I would spend less than 1 second worrying about that however. I would spend most of my time trying to figure out what is configured wrong, including the modem, to keep her from connecting. Once she/you give up on that, back up all her stuff and bite the bullet and re-install.

All I remember from DOS days is that
you could perform something like "format c:" type operation, then reboot
with the system disc and then reinstall the operating system from there. Do
I have that right, or is there a simpler thing to do?

She should either have recovery disk that came with her PC, or she can make one with windows. Go to windows help if she needs to make one and search for recovery disk or something like that.

My Gateway computer came with a recovery disk. I just stuck it in and booted up. A screen came up that said this application will delete EVERYTHING from your PC, all files and programs will be gone. Then it put up an icon that said "OK"! No other choices, and nothing you did could cancel the app. I had to turn off the computer to stop it from continuing. I've been doing this crap for going on 30 years and thats one of the dummest things I've seen.

--
Jack
http://jbstein.com
.

Relevant Pages

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