K
Kevin
As I read the innumerable posts regarding loss of product ID's, product
CD's, mysterious virus infections, forgotten passwords, SP2 calamities and
other tales of woe, I can't help but chuckle quietly as I jump from one
desperate post to the next. I've been working with computers for a while
and I'm not even close to being as knowledgeable as some of the old-timers
here like Carey Frisch, Bruce Chambers and Larry Samuels. I help out my
friends and some private clients with their computing problems on a casual
basis.
A friend called and said he had an office worker who was having problems
with her home computer and asked if I could take a look and see if I could
help her out. I said sure, and she called me and we arranged a time for me
to come over to her place and check out the machine.
It was a brand new Dell Dimension 8400, the box was sitting in her hall.
She had cable internet service, professionally installed. She told me to
sit down and see what I could do to fix it. I hit the power button and
nothing. I hit it again and still nothing. I asked her if this was the
problem and she laughed saying that it turns on just fine, kneeled down on
the floor by the desk and flipped the power switch on a multi-plug surge
protector. The computer, printer, scanner, monitor, cable modem, web camera
and speakers all fired up at once! I must have looked amazed because she
asked if there was anything wrong.
Over the din of the machinery coming to life I explained that a power strip
was not the way to start up your system or its peripherals. When I returned
my attention to the monitor, I could see that I was in for some real
trouble. The poor thing was finding new hardware left and right and trying
to install everything in the book. It crashed, of course. I asked her if
this was the problem she was having and she said no, it usually started a
couple of times before she could get on the internet.
After I disconnected everything but the monitor, modem, mouse and keyboard,
I started the system up. A few of the "hardware not found" popups later, I
got to the desktop. It appeared to be normal (thankfully) with the usual
Dell stuff littered about. I found the Internet Explorer icon and hit it to
connect to the internet and see what was going to happen. At this point,
she pointed to the screen and said to watch closely. As IE came up, so did
the first of what would turn out to be over a dozen popups. Everything from
the usual pornography to plain, blank windows. Then the RPC shutdown, of
course!
She jabbed her finger at the countdown box and said that this was the main
problem, she could only stay connected for a minute at a time. This seemed
to annoy her to no end as it meant she could only surf to sites that would
load in under a minute and only get one email at a time! What kind of
internet was it that would only let you on for a minute at a time? It was
difficult to stifle my laughter at this point. I got the countdown stopped
and made a quick recon of her system.
No anti-virus enabled, even though Dell had shipped the unit with McAfee.
No anti-spyware software. No firewall enabled. In fact, no security
measures of any kind. I asked her if she knew about the built in Windows
firewall and she said yes. She didn't know that it had to be enabled to
work. When I asked her if she had turned on the McAfee anti-virus suite she
said she didn't know that it had to be enabled to work, either. I asked her
if the technician who installed her cable modem had mentioned any of this
stuff during his visit. She said yes, he had said that Windows XP can take
care of all of that for her, not to worry.
I grabbed my utilities CD, containing copies of Ad-aware, Pest Patrol,
Spybot Search and Destroy and Spyware Blaster. I installed all of them, ran
the updates, then browsed over to get her a copy of AVG Anti-Virus and Zone
Alarm. With a cable modem connection, AVG and Zone Alarm were downloaded in
just a few minutes. While I waited for the serial number to come down from
AVG, I installed Zone Alarm, the free version, and started scanning her
system.
At this point, it was just a matter of sitting through the scans and
allowing the applications to find and delete the incredible number of files
that had installed themselves. After about an hour and a half, her system
was clean. I had to do a Google search for the Blaster.exe fix because I
couldn't remember where I had found it myself. McAfee had identified it,
but couldn't delete it for some reason. She was delighted. I explained
what I had done and what she had to do to keep her system from getting
infected again. She wondered if some of those emails she had been getting
had something to do with her system problems.
I remember thinking to myself that this had to be a bad dream. She had only
been able to see a part of her email so she had only opened a few of them.
When she explained that she did not know who these people were, but wanted
to see what they were emailing her about, I had to laugh. I couldn't help
it. I told her not to do that again, only to open mail from people you know
and are expecting to hear from. As I explained each of these problems I
encountered to her it was obvious that she wasn't stupid, she was getting
the point, it was just that no one had ever bothered to help her. All the
information was making sense to her, now that she was getting exposed to it.
Once I had made sure that her machine was truly clear and clean I showed her
how to use the Windows Update feature as I had to leave for other business.
Of course, it was a huge list, the machine being new and the version of XP a
few months behind the updates. She understood that some updates would
require a reboot and she felt she could handle it. She was extremely happy
that someone would take the time to help her.
On my way out, I pointed to the pile of paperwork and CD's on the coffee
table and told her not to lose anything. She laughed and said that she got
the message, loud and clear. My work here was done.
So, people, listen up! The point of this is you have to get the knowledge
you need to operate your computer properly. Save all the paperwork that
came with your system. Save all the CD's and any packaging they were in.
Install, update, and configure a firewall, anti-virus software and
anti-malware applications. Save your receipts! Save and read the
installation instructions for your computer and anything else you connect to
it. Register your system so you can take advantage of the makers warranty,
and do take advantage, you paid for it! But, most of all, ask questions.
This is what these newsgroups are all about. Thanks to all the old-timers
for all the help! Happy computing.
CD's, mysterious virus infections, forgotten passwords, SP2 calamities and
other tales of woe, I can't help but chuckle quietly as I jump from one
desperate post to the next. I've been working with computers for a while
and I'm not even close to being as knowledgeable as some of the old-timers
here like Carey Frisch, Bruce Chambers and Larry Samuels. I help out my
friends and some private clients with their computing problems on a casual
basis.
A friend called and said he had an office worker who was having problems
with her home computer and asked if I could take a look and see if I could
help her out. I said sure, and she called me and we arranged a time for me
to come over to her place and check out the machine.
It was a brand new Dell Dimension 8400, the box was sitting in her hall.
She had cable internet service, professionally installed. She told me to
sit down and see what I could do to fix it. I hit the power button and
nothing. I hit it again and still nothing. I asked her if this was the
problem and she laughed saying that it turns on just fine, kneeled down on
the floor by the desk and flipped the power switch on a multi-plug surge
protector. The computer, printer, scanner, monitor, cable modem, web camera
and speakers all fired up at once! I must have looked amazed because she
asked if there was anything wrong.
Over the din of the machinery coming to life I explained that a power strip
was not the way to start up your system or its peripherals. When I returned
my attention to the monitor, I could see that I was in for some real
trouble. The poor thing was finding new hardware left and right and trying
to install everything in the book. It crashed, of course. I asked her if
this was the problem she was having and she said no, it usually started a
couple of times before she could get on the internet.
After I disconnected everything but the monitor, modem, mouse and keyboard,
I started the system up. A few of the "hardware not found" popups later, I
got to the desktop. It appeared to be normal (thankfully) with the usual
Dell stuff littered about. I found the Internet Explorer icon and hit it to
connect to the internet and see what was going to happen. At this point,
she pointed to the screen and said to watch closely. As IE came up, so did
the first of what would turn out to be over a dozen popups. Everything from
the usual pornography to plain, blank windows. Then the RPC shutdown, of
course!
She jabbed her finger at the countdown box and said that this was the main
problem, she could only stay connected for a minute at a time. This seemed
to annoy her to no end as it meant she could only surf to sites that would
load in under a minute and only get one email at a time! What kind of
internet was it that would only let you on for a minute at a time? It was
difficult to stifle my laughter at this point. I got the countdown stopped
and made a quick recon of her system.
No anti-virus enabled, even though Dell had shipped the unit with McAfee.
No anti-spyware software. No firewall enabled. In fact, no security
measures of any kind. I asked her if she knew about the built in Windows
firewall and she said yes. She didn't know that it had to be enabled to
work. When I asked her if she had turned on the McAfee anti-virus suite she
said she didn't know that it had to be enabled to work, either. I asked her
if the technician who installed her cable modem had mentioned any of this
stuff during his visit. She said yes, he had said that Windows XP can take
care of all of that for her, not to worry.
I grabbed my utilities CD, containing copies of Ad-aware, Pest Patrol,
Spybot Search and Destroy and Spyware Blaster. I installed all of them, ran
the updates, then browsed over to get her a copy of AVG Anti-Virus and Zone
Alarm. With a cable modem connection, AVG and Zone Alarm were downloaded in
just a few minutes. While I waited for the serial number to come down from
AVG, I installed Zone Alarm, the free version, and started scanning her
system.
At this point, it was just a matter of sitting through the scans and
allowing the applications to find and delete the incredible number of files
that had installed themselves. After about an hour and a half, her system
was clean. I had to do a Google search for the Blaster.exe fix because I
couldn't remember where I had found it myself. McAfee had identified it,
but couldn't delete it for some reason. She was delighted. I explained
what I had done and what she had to do to keep her system from getting
infected again. She wondered if some of those emails she had been getting
had something to do with her system problems.
I remember thinking to myself that this had to be a bad dream. She had only
been able to see a part of her email so she had only opened a few of them.
When she explained that she did not know who these people were, but wanted
to see what they were emailing her about, I had to laugh. I couldn't help
it. I told her not to do that again, only to open mail from people you know
and are expecting to hear from. As I explained each of these problems I
encountered to her it was obvious that she wasn't stupid, she was getting
the point, it was just that no one had ever bothered to help her. All the
information was making sense to her, now that she was getting exposed to it.
Once I had made sure that her machine was truly clear and clean I showed her
how to use the Windows Update feature as I had to leave for other business.
Of course, it was a huge list, the machine being new and the version of XP a
few months behind the updates. She understood that some updates would
require a reboot and she felt she could handle it. She was extremely happy
that someone would take the time to help her.
On my way out, I pointed to the pile of paperwork and CD's on the coffee
table and told her not to lose anything. She laughed and said that she got
the message, loud and clear. My work here was done.
So, people, listen up! The point of this is you have to get the knowledge
you need to operate your computer properly. Save all the paperwork that
came with your system. Save all the CD's and any packaging they were in.
Install, update, and configure a firewall, anti-virus software and
anti-malware applications. Save your receipts! Save and read the
installation instructions for your computer and anything else you connect to
it. Register your system so you can take advantage of the makers warranty,
and do take advantage, you paid for it! But, most of all, ask questions.
This is what these newsgroups are all about. Thanks to all the old-timers
for all the help! Happy computing.
