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This is supposed to be a vacation
Apr. 15th, 2009 02:59 pmSo why am I fixing my husband's computer?
He was surfing the net without any protection. The free Avast! AV software needed to be re-registered, and he chose to ignore the warnings and I think he got Conicker or something on 4/1, which then installed the pretend anti-spyware malware that is going around. This is starting to prove to be beyond my feeble computer skills.
I gave him the analogy that this was like me driving my car without oil for a couple of weeks, ignoring the dashboard light, and then expecting him to rebuild the engine during his vacation. (I did not mention that I've blown up 3 engines in my life this very way, but in all cases, I wound up shelling out large sums of money to mechanics, and I was under 25 and irresponsible)
I am trying very hard to avoid a nuke and pave, but I am thinking that this is possibly the only thing I will be able to do to get this machine back to usability. I am just so not looking forward to reloading all this crap that's on there, and I'm not sure if the pictures and other things on the system are safe to back up.
Edit: www.majorgeeks.com has come through again! I downloaded a malware removal tool, which caught a bunch of things, and I was able to reinstall Avast! AVP (which is now scanning the laptop's hard drive). I am hopeful that I can declare this machine clean again before I go to bed tonight.
Oooh! Avast just found an infected file. That is a good sign.
He was surfing the net without any protection. The free Avast! AV software needed to be re-registered, and he chose to ignore the warnings and I think he got Conicker or something on 4/1, which then installed the pretend anti-spyware malware that is going around. This is starting to prove to be beyond my feeble computer skills.
I gave him the analogy that this was like me driving my car without oil for a couple of weeks, ignoring the dashboard light, and then expecting him to rebuild the engine during his vacation. (I did not mention that I've blown up 3 engines in my life this very way, but in all cases, I wound up shelling out large sums of money to mechanics, and I was under 25 and irresponsible)
I am trying very hard to avoid a nuke and pave, but I am thinking that this is possibly the only thing I will be able to do to get this machine back to usability. I am just so not looking forward to reloading all this crap that's on there, and I'm not sure if the pictures and other things on the system are safe to back up.
Edit: www.majorgeeks.com has come through again! I downloaded a malware removal tool, which caught a bunch of things, and I was able to reinstall Avast! AVP (which is now scanning the laptop's hard drive). I am hopeful that I can declare this machine clean again before I go to bed tonight.
Oooh! Avast just found an infected file. That is a good sign.
