Settle an arguement about virus protection for me

[scumbalina]

If it's really old and underpowered replace XP with Xubuntu, hopefully that'll stop that bloke from down the pub messing around with it.

I might just twat the bloke from down the pub, I haven't even met him and I hate him and his cocking business cards already.


I could have business cards too if I really wanted them

 

[scumbalina]

haha, you could just let that happen, but you know what will happen, she'll get him back round to do the re-install, he'lll do a shit job of it, and probably take £70 off her for his services as well, and he'll probably install an illegal copy. (which is fine if he applys a proper crack so the updates still work!)

fresh install sounds good, defo whack service pack 2 onto it straight away if the cd/restore kit doesn't have it slipstreamed into it, which it probably won't if it's old.

He better not be charging her!

Yeah, service pack 2 is one of the things that won't go on at the mo, and he hasn't mentioned it to her at all. Cos he's a cock.

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

Yeah, service pack 2 is one of the things that won't go on at the mo, and he hasn't mentioned it to her at all. Cos he's a cock.

He is a cock. Download AV, spyware, firewall executables and burn to disk/stick. Wipe, reinstall windows, install AV etc from disk, connect to internet and accept all windows updates, wait a few hours. You might like to ask your mother if she's bought anything online - it sounds like her machine is totally compromised. Go to pub and kick arsehole in nuts.

 

[boskysquelch]

start with.... get Mum to read this thread.

Hiya Scummy's Mummy.

 

[scumbalina]

He is a cock. Download AV, spyware, firewall executables and burn to disk/stick. Wipe, reinstall windows, install AV etc from disk, connect to internet and accept all windows updates, wait a few hours. You might like to ask your mother if she's bought anything online - it sounds like her machine is totally compromised. Go to pub and kick arsehole in nuts.

The first thing I said to her was don't buy anything online or enter any banking details, she hadn't thought about it, I bet he's told her it's fine to now. I'm gonna tell her not to still I reckon to be on the safe side.

I spent all day downloading all that stuff to her stupid slow computer, if it needs doing again I'm sticking it on a memory stick here and she can do it herself or get the magic man with the business cards to do it.

I might be meeting him at the pub for the first time tonight and may well wear some big boots....

 

[scumbalina]

start with.... get Mum to read this thread.

Hiya Scummy's Mummy.

Family member on Urban = worst scenario ever.

 

[scumbalina]

Okay, might have got something a bit wrong Just realised she might not have a directly connected modem, I think she might have one of those gateway type things, is that the same?

 

[ChrisFilter]

Doesn't change a thing.

 

[scumbalina]

Doesn't change a thing.

Good. He is still a cock then.

 

[subversplat]

Christ, even PC users who might e-mail files to each other need antivirus!

 

[Sunray]

My recommendation for suspected compromised PC is to reinstall the operating system.

There are some incredibly sophisticated stuff out there gunning for your data and passwords and anything else. While not impossible to detect and remove some are incredibly difficult to do while the operating system is running. The time you spend doing it unless your an AV writer, would not be worth it. Easier to wipe it and start again. Then AV all the files again to make sure nothing is hiding waiting for it to be loaded or run again.

 

[scumbalina]

He better not be charging her!

Following a bit of a strop between me and my mum this weekend, it turns out...he's been cocking charging her And she's admitted he hasn't actually got a job relating to computers, so the relevance of the business cards is becoming more of a mystery

 

[cybershot]

Is your mum hard?

Does she know him well?

Get her to ask for her money back?

As long as she hasn't got any data that needs to be kept, the clean install method sounds like the way to go, for all you know, it could be him putting crap on there himself, it's not exactly difficult to hide keylogging software and the like.

 

[jæd]

As long as she hasn't got any data that needs to be kept, the clean install method sounds like the way to go, for all you know, it could be him putting crap on there himself, it's not exactly difficult to hide keylogging software and the like.

I'd backup her data, re-install windows and go to the pub with a couple of mates...

 

[scumbalina]

For the love of god

She now can't get online, it says the dsl connections down, tried everything I could find on google but didn't work - she tried to run Spybot but that won't work. Any chance it could be virus related?

I've told her as it's running so slow that she should just reformat it. Guess who she's gonna get to do it? Turns out he sold her the computer too....


Found out the spec - it's only got 256 mb ram, but she can't even do one thing at once, like open a word processor page, without it being painfully slow, that can't be normal? And a 1404 mhz proccesor.

 

[scumbalina]

Is your mum hard?.

More stroppy than 'ard, and a bit weepy sounding at the mo

Does she know him well?

I don;t think so, she's being a bit hazy about it all

Get her to ask for her money back?

She seems to have faith in him, and seems to think it's stuff I've done, she wants to know if taking Spybot off would make everything okay now

As long as she hasn't got any data that needs to be kept, the clean install method sounds like the way to go, for all you know, it could be him putting crap on there himself, it's not exactly difficult to hide keylogging software and the like.

Hmmmm. I may hint at that to her....

 

[gentlegreen]

Found out the spec - it's only got 256 mb ram, but she can't even do one thing at once, like open a word processor page, without it being painfully slow, that can't be normal? And a 1404 mhz proccesor.

Twice that and a Windoze XP machine starts to become useable.

My general purpose office PC is a P3 1GHz with half a gig of PC133 running Win2K and it's quite serviceable.

 

[ChrisFilter]

When did he sell it to her, and for how much?!

 

[baldrick]

Found out the spec - it's only got 256 mb ram, but she can't even do one thing at once, like open a word processor page, without it being painfully slow, that can't be normal? And a 1404 mhz proccesor.

and she paid money for that?

*grits teeth*

 

[scumbalina]

When did he sell it to her, and for how much?!

A couple of weeks ago...I'm not sure but I think it was £85, he kindly threw in a keyboard and a broken mouse

 

[ChrisFilter]

Fucking hell

Double that spec would only be worth about £50, max. Cheeky fucker.

 

[mitochondria]

You can get double that spec for free

I'd own a house if I people paid me half of that for comp service for the last ten years. Stupid, stupid me.

 

[Radar]

A couple of weeks ago...I'm not sure but I think it was £85, he kindly threw in a keyboard and a broken mouse

Jesus wept. Talk about taking advantage of folk

As you've discovered, it will boot XP and exceeds the minimum MS spec for XP, but there's no way on hell that money should have changed hands for as crap a spec as that in 2008 (especially 2nd hand, which I assume it is)

I had an old lappy (P3-550, 256 Mb RAM) which I had XP pro on from when I was made redundant. Even with maxed out RAM (took it to a dizzying 768 Mb) it struggled IMO to run XP properly, in the end even my parents were getting annoyed waiting for the hour-glass to piss off.

The only way to salvage any use from it was to totally wipe it and bung a Linux distro on it. At least now they can get some benefit from it (and until I get another job it's the last hand-me-down they're likely to get from me) and being linux its a) a piece of piss to support remotely and b) beyond the ken of the journeymen down the local PC butchers

 

[cybershot]

It's time to print this page and show mum!

It could do with another 256mb of ram in it to help speed thing's up!

I've got a PC at home that's a slightly better spec than that, and I'm thinking of just giving it away If I can't find a use for it. I'd feel guilty as fuck to even charge someone £20

 

[scumbalina]

The more that I find out the more dodgy it seems, I keep getting little bits of info from her that sound worse and worse. I said what people on this thread had said and she did say she thought she could get her money back, but didn't seem to be considering it, she was saying she didn't mind if the computer was a bit slow as long as it does stuff, and doesn't seem to understand that the 2 might go hand in hand. And if I ask her one more time if she's sure she's not got a firewall on there still and she says "yes I've got a firefox" I'll lamp her. I get the feeling this blokes told her he's a right whizz kid and implied that all the problems are my fault - I told her not to let him anywhere near it again (bear in mind he's charging her!) and she didn't sound convinced

I'm inclined to say fuck it tbh - I'm definately not helping her reformat it and sort it all out to have her let him fuck with it all again