My friend, a Windows user, calls in desperation
(Phone rings)
"Giles, our computer's gone mad. Every time we turn it on we get these pop-ups telling us we're infected with something; then we have all this horrible porn appearing on the internet."
Sounds familiar. I'm sorry - I don't think I'm capable of fixing it. Sure, I could spend a few hours trying to clean it up but previous experience tells me I won't make much of a difference.
"My husband tried turning it back - what do you call it?"
Reverting to a saved state?
"Yes, and we thought that helped, but it all started again soon enough."
I wonder, is this the old Windows Me machine I helped with last time?
"No, we bought a new one. It's Windows XP I think. Could you come and have a look at it? We'd happily pay you for your time."
I wish I could help out, but I don't think it's worth it, for you or for me. I'd spend hours fiddling with Ad-aware and all that other stuff and I still wouldn't get it all cleaned up. You need to take it to a professional. Or buy a Mac.
"It's so frustrating that it's come to this again. We installed all the antivirus stuff, we did everything we could, but the computer is still like this. Is there nothing we can do to prevent it?"
Well, you could use Firefox and Thunderbird, instead of Explorer and Outlook Express -
"Firefox! I remember, you set that up for us on the old one. But we didn't get it set up on the new computer when we switched."
Ah. Oh.
"So what shall we do?"
Well, back up all your important stuff as best you can, and take the machine to a professional. They will almost certainly offer to wipe it clean for you.
"Great. It's going to cost a fortune isn't it?"
Quite possibly. Good luck.
Labels: tech
