Bugs

…but not that kind.

A few days ago I picked up a PC from one of my former employees to work on. Her kids is also one of my wife’s students, so I figured I would do them a favor. At one point in time, I had to clean out a bunch of viruses and spyware from my wife’s computer. At that time, it was the worst infestation I had ever seen. I finally just backed up all of the documents and wiped the damn thing clean.

I don’t have that option here unfortunately. One thing I hate when people bring me their computers is that I ask them to bring ALL of their installation CDs as well. No monitors, keyboards, mice, just the damn box and CDs. Of course, as is usually the case, she can’t find her installation media. Luckily she still has her damn Windows sticker on the fricking thing. I thought I still had a copy of XP Home OEM here, but apparently not, so I had to find one before I could even get started. I did an install and chose the repair option, so that it would not delete any of the stuff that she needs saved.

I am on my 14th or 15th reboot after having scanned for viruses and spyware. I have actually seen more infected files on other computers, but this has been pretty difficult to get rid of. I am just about done thank goodness. The usual suspects were found. Kazaa media desktop. Just buy your fucking music legally. I hate it when people that don’t know any better install kazaa along with it’s wealth of spyware and proceed to download gigs of files, some of which are more spyware, trojans, and other wonderful viruses.

The person they took it to last (they had someone attempt to work on it before and were told that they just needed to format the hard drive) must have installed five or six different spyware programs, some of which are no fricking better than what they are supposed to be removing. I generally stick with Spybot, maybe Ad-Aware, and if they want something free for AV, I use AVG Free. Once that is finished I will install Windows Defender, and run all of the Windows updates.

It is simply amazing how much crap people put on their computer. As much shit as I download and I very rarely get a virus. My main problem is that I like beta testing software, so I will occasionally end up hosing my computer, but the difference is that I know it might end up this way and I am doing it on purpose.

I think I will put a sticker on top of their computer that says “DO NOT INSTALL KAZAA, EDONKEY, WEATHERBUG, ANYTHING THAT SAYS GATOR OR BARGAINBUDDY”. Gator and bargainbuddy will install when you visit some web sites, but only if you let them. Bonzi Buddy also sucks.


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