Those seeking detailing advice or product recommendations, please bare with me as I clean up my computer! I have some virus issues and am attempting to eradicate with adware and AVG Free.....Forum visitations are infrequent!

 

www.ubuntu.com FTW

 

Mike, elaborate if you could!! Looks interesting!
And does anyone know how to un-install Norton?

 

isnt it control panel -> add remove prog -> norton?

windows ____?

 

Hi Patrick.

My comment was half in jest , but if you are serious...

Ubuntu is a consumer-friendly distribution of Linux. It would replace Windows as your operating system. The advantages of it are that is free and very secure (you would not need to worry about viruses or adware). The downside is that most Windows programs do not work in Ubuntu. However there are Linux alternatives such as Firefox (to replace Internet Explorer or Firefox in Windows), OpenOffice (to replace Microsoft Office), Google Picasa (to replace your photo manager) and Rhythmbox or Amarok (to replace iTunes but it does not work with DRM'd files).

There was a fair and balanced review of Ubuntu recently by Walt Mossberg of the WSJ. See here. Most of his concerns are easily remedied by this though.

I am local. I would be glad to help you with it and/or download it to a CD/DVD for you to install. Feel free to contact me at home or on my cell.

Michael

P.S. To remove Norton have you looked at the "Norton Removal Tool" available from Symantec here?

 

Since you have windows, IMO, AVG works great. I've had Norton before and have had to many problems with it. With AVG I've had no Virus' or any problems. I use it combined with a program called "Pop Up Stopper" which doesn't let spam pop up.

You should be able to go to Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Then scroll to Norton ______. If that doesn't work, do you have the installation disk? You could pop that into your computer and it should bring up a window that reads.... " Repair" or "Remove." Then you would proceed to follow the instructions for removing.

 

Use the Norton Removal tool. It'll get rid of everything that uninstalling from Add/Remove Programs may miss.

Download and run CCleaner first to get rid of all the accumulate crap on our PC. It may help make the scans run faster too.

To do a thorough scan, also check out A-squared, Spybot Search and Destroy, Super antispyware, Counterspy, SmitFraudFix, VundoFix, and SpySweeper in addition to what you already have.

The malware out there nowadays can be a real PITA to find and remove. You'll need multiple programs and scans to be sure you didn't miss anything.

Don't forget to disable System Restore first before running your scans in safe mode.

If you want to be really thorough, when you're done with all scans run a online scan from: F-Secure, NOD32, and Bitdefender.

Good luck.

 

ya know , according to mi knowledge that u know how Norton, McAfee or AVG, or Panda is on, no matter what , but if you get the virus in the c drive and the registry then ur dead , u know wat imean , no matter ya scan and remove those sh!t ,, trust me bro , its still there and there is no way to get rid of it unless ya reboot and pre-install the window xp. As you said that u got virus on ur system then i know immmediately that u aint usin Mac lolz, so ok ima tell u this , go to google , download spysheriff and install it and here is the key regis for it : xjjQd4oO}VvYbP1 , and good luck bro

 

If you have a legit copy of Windows, download Windows Defender. If not, use Spybot Search & Destroy. They're probably the two best free anti spyware utilities out there.

In terms of antivirus, if you're looking for something highly rated, Kaspersky is one of the better pay antivirus apps, Avira Antivir one of the best of the free AV applications. That, along with the Windows Firewall on XP should keep you pretty secure.

I think I combo of both of those should clean up most of your issues, but for the "cleanest" solution, a reinstall is probably recommended if you want to be 100% sure you're clean. After you reinstall, just make sure you have an antivirus installed that's updated recently (most antiviruses will updated at least once a day, if not more often), and run the antispyware every so often. (I usually run the antispyware once a week, and a full virus scan once a month).

Good luck with the clean up Patrick! Let me know if you need any help with it! Figure it's the least I can do after all the invaluable help you're provided the rest of us.

 

Man its nice to have friends I tell ya!
I did run AVG and Adaware, as well as Norton. So far so good guys.........For the most part, the machine is running at about a "B". Its do'able, but not quite what I want. Of course the machine is 3+ yrs old, and has more then paid for itself.
I guess Im prety content with it. the busines soperates just fine with it. If I could only keep my daughter away from it and myspace!! I spent two days deleting/removing garbage she has loaded up on the desktop, and finally got that running without the connection disconnecting. Kids are real hard on computers. They are to computers, what soccer moms are to cars!!!

 

I don't know if it's one and the same, but after reading about it, I would not install Spysheriff! If I'm wrong, I apologize. This is from Wilkepedia . . .
Some other links about Spysheriff . . .
http://www.symantec.com/security_res...122910-4625-99
http://research.sunbelt-software.com...threatid=40066
http://www.2-spyware.com/review-spy-sheriff.html

 

hehe...ain't nothing wrong with a 2 year old machine. Got my old AMD XP2600 chugging along quite nicely (crunching numbers for Folding @ Home and is my lab machien for work) and it's working great.

It's probably going to stay at a B without a bit of work cleaning up (it's kinda like a hand buff instead of using a PC - to put it in your detailing terms).

Just run the anti spyware every so often (I'd say once a week) and the occasional full scan and you should stay clean on the spyware. It's probably more important that you make sure the software is updated regularly (there's usually a "Check for Updates" button somewhere in the software so it goes out and gets the latest definitions before it starts the scan.

That should keep you clean for a long while.

Now you just need to lay down the law with the daughter and monitor what they're doing on MySpace.

 

You have nothing to apologize for because you are correct to be suspect of Spy Sheriff. Spy Sheriff is a rogue (fake) anti-spyware program. It uses false positives to trick users into buying the full product. It's scanning report is also flawed.

It's also listed as being the same rogue anti-spyware program as: Brave Sentry, DIARemover, MalwareAlarm, Mr.AntiSpy, PestCapture, PestTrap, PestWiper, SpyDemolisher, SpyMarshal, SpyTrooper, SpywareNo, and Spyware-Stop.

It supposedly also installs other stuff without the users knowledge.

 

I ran the CCleaner and wow, what a difference. Thanks for the tip AZuser......

 

if you have had the computer for 3 years you may aswell reformat the hard drive and reinstall windows. just backup all your imporant files to cd/dvd/another hdd. registry cleaners and programs like ccleaner and registry mechanic tend to make things worse over time, it most likley will end up deleting important keys, more BOSDs etc etc.
deleting all the stuff cloging the system will help, but not much. the way windows is, its almost imposible to compelty remove all the bits and pices left after an uninstalled program. only a full format can get all that.

 

Im uh-scared!!

 

PLEASE don't use Norton, McAfee, Trend Micro, AVG, Avast, etc..

Kaspersky Internet Security or Antivirus is where it's at; minimal computer load (2 processes vs. nortons 135138957138 startup programs)

I run it on every computer at home (4) and my last job ditched norton and deployed kaspersky on 5,000 workstations

seriously it catches the stuff norton doesn't, does not clog your computer with crap like mcafee and norton.. it's good.