Reinstall of XP

  • Thread starter Thread starter Phyllis
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Phyllis

My daughter has a Gateway computer with Windows XP (bought in January) and
even though I have her XP firewall enabled, the computer is infested with
viruses (Sasser and trojan PSW.Agent G) at the present time. I can not seem
to get rid of them entirely. Every time she goes online she picks up sasser
again. She has AVG for virus protection ?? She is cable connected to
internet (unplugged at the present).

I have downloaded McAfee's "Stinger" from my computer (Win 98SE) and saved
to floppy. I have been printing out all the advice, etc. that I have seen
on this newsgroup and the virus newsgroup as well, and am going to try again
next week to clean it up. I have Norton Internet Security 2003 CD to load
on her computer when I get it clean. Finally to get to my question - if all
fails, the last resort plan is to do a reinstall of Windows XP, she says she
has the backup CD from Gateway, can I do a clean install with that? As you
can tell, I know very little about this but she knows less. Thanks for any
help offered.
 
The GateWay CD most likely is a Restore CD
What this does is format everything off you computer(that means it will erase
everything on the HD)
then reinstall everything and set it back to the way it was when you bought it.
So if you have anything you wish to safe do it now!!
In the Future have her get the free FireWall called ZoneAlarm...and AVG needs to
be updated for it to function correctly.
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/comparison.jsp?lid=pdb_za2
http://antivirus.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.grisoft.com
peter
 
Phyllis said:
My daughter has a Gateway computer with Windows XP (bought in
January) and even though I have her XP firewall enabled, the computer
is infested with viruses (Sasser and trojan PSW.Agent G) at the
present time. I can not seem to get rid of them entirely. Every
time she goes online she picks up sasser again. She has AVG for
virus protection ?? She is cable connected to internet (unplugged at
the present).

I have downloaded McAfee's "Stinger" from my computer (Win 98SE) and
saved to floppy. I have been printing out all the advice, etc. that
I have seen on this newsgroup and the virus newsgroup as well, and am
going to try again next week to clean it up. I have Norton Internet
Security 2003 CD to load on her computer when I get it clean.
Finally to get to my question - if all fails, the last resort plan is
to do a reinstall of Windows XP, she says she has the backup CD from
Gateway, can I do a clean install with that? As you can tell, I know
very little about this but she knows less. Thanks for any help
offered.
Click to expand...

Learn the difference between a firewall and an AVP. A firewall will *NOT*
stop your system from becoming infected.

You must *REALLY* hate your daughter if you want to infect her system with
the Norton trojan. What did she ever do to you?!
 
A recovery cd will wipe the slate clean and start over.. save any important
files to cd and virus check them BEFORE copying them back to the drive..
re-install the operating system from the recovery cd.. set up your internet
connection and ENSURE that the XP firewall is enabled.. BEFORE connecting to
the net, load AVG or something better.. connect to the net and update AVG
and Windows critical updates BEFORE doing anything else.. it is important to
be protected especially when connecting to the net, so regular updating is a
MUST DO.. the next step is to get a better firewall.. Zonealarm or Sygate
would be a starting point.. ONLY AFTER all security issues have been covered
should you consider loading/downloading anything else.. BTW, if AVG has to
be downloaded, get somebody else to do the download and save to a cd from a
clean computer..

Good luck..
 
Cerridwen said:
Learn the difference between a firewall and an AVP. A firewall will *NOT*
stop your system from becoming infected.

You must *REALLY* hate your daughter if you want to infect her system with
the Norton trojan. What did she ever do to you?!
Click to expand...
She has updated AVG on her computer now as well. I have had Norton for the
last 2 years on my computer and while it is a resource hog, I felt secure in
that it was working. I don't understand how she got the viruses with AVG
and her XP firewall both running, but she did, so I am just trying to get
her something on her computer that will work.
 
XP needs to be updated regularly in order to avoid this type of a problem.Its
the critical updates that need to be applied,the rest are your choice.
AVG has build in update if you activate it........if it has not been updates it
cannot expect to find the new virus or worms that crop up weekly if not daily.
The XP firewall is OK but ZA is 100% better and highly regarded.
I use both and check XP updates weekly and I have never been infected with any
of those virus/worms that are traveling around.Of course I also use a little
common sense and do NOT open email not addressed to me/do NOT use Kazaa/
I schedule system virus checks every 2nd day and AVG scans all of my incoming as
well as outgoing Email.
ZoneAlarm stops intrusions as well as cuts of my Internet connection at the
click of a button and does not allow a program to access the net unless I say
its OK
Take a look at this site for info on this pest
http://www.updatexp.com/sasser-worm.html
follow its instructions on how to get rid of it and how to never receive it
again
peter
 
Phyllis said:
She has updated AVG on her computer now as well. I have had Norton
for the last 2 years on my computer and while it is a resource hog, I
felt secure in that it was working. I don't understand how she got
the viruses with AVG and her XP firewall both running, but she did,
so I am just trying to get her something on her computer that will
work.
Click to expand...

You've not answered my question. Why do you hate your daughter so much that
you wish to infect her system with the Norton trojan?

Norton does *NOT* work - it screws up more than it will ever fix - and there
are several viruses (including the Sasser worm) that it does *NOT* pick up
(even when fully updated). AVG works fine - I've been using it for years.
It's far better than Norton, and does not break Office.
 
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