Laptop

houston, we have a virus.

to wipe or attempt to repair. hmmmmmmm. decisions decisions.

 

Attempt Malware Bytes first? Usually will clean without having to wipe unless it is really deep.

 

Kinda what a suggested, but let him do his thing. He seems to know more then the rest of us who did that work for several years

 

gunner, you way don't work. that's all there is too it. i've seen 100's of computer spend 100's of dollars, countless down days, and sometimes unneeded parts. and still not function properly. OR worse yet, bring computer home and it don't boot up.

avg found 5 viruses and 2 trojans. malware found 6 threats. and guess what, my keyboard is now typing way too slow, and now i have a TON of advertisements on the truckers report. and everywhere else i surf. i log into my cell phone bill, and instead of getting my account, i'm now getting JOYWALLET. for cashback.

delete the crap, well, guess what. they're undeletable. and that last time i actually got one to delete. my computer was unbootable.

like dieselboss says. DEEP. and that's usually where they go. HAVOC, is what you end up with.

once again your way didn't work. once again i wasted time. but hey, i didn't fork out money to a repair shop.

yes sir, i prefer my machines 100% like new. not tampered with from repairs, viruses, trojans, malware. and all that other crap.

why fight a losing battle.

you continue doing things your way. and i'll continue doing things my way. cuz i've been around the block a few years and seen what happens myself.

i'm certainly not going to deal with slow typing and advertisement crap on the truckers report. or anywhere else for that matter. defenitly irritating when one of them advertisements is actually a commercial. eating up my internet cap. heck, i can't even get a movie to play, instead of windows media player pulling up. i get some ilivid download manager to download some other program.

 

Well its worked for me for oh....about seven years now. Ive built close to 10 computers for myself, friends and customers, they bring them to me when their pc's have viruses, or are slow. 2 hours of actual work later, and guess what? Ive been able to remove said viruses. Safe Mode allows you to do a lot in the registry that you cant normally do with a full boot. But whatever Snowwy. I know what works, Ive yet to have it fail on me. When it does. Ill be sure to let you know that you was correct.

 

Hey guys, you realize you both can be right? Most of the time, an anti virus battle can be won without having to do a format and clean windows install. However, not always. And without getting into a dozen explanations, I'm going to leave it at that.

Sometimes on a heavily used computer, after a few years, a clean install is more efficient, time wise, than going through and individually removing unwanted programs and background processes that have populated through the years, not to mention registry issues.

 

A few easy things Windows users can do on the preventative side:

0. Don't run as an administrator! Running as a "standard user" will eliminate about 95% of the malware that you may run into. Instead of simply clicking "allow this program to continue" (which can actually be hidden), you need to type in the admin password. Go into the user control panel, create an admin account, and then demote your main account from the new admin account.

1. Keep your system updated! Whenever you get decent internet access, run Windows Updater. Also, keep other programs like Acrobat and Flash up to date, as well.

2. Use a good antivirus as a second line of defense. Microsoft Security Essentials (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-essentials-download) is good. Most of the others, not so much. (If you are running Windows 8, you already have MSE installed under a different name.)

3. DO NOT use Internet Explorer! Chrome (chrome.google.com) runs addons such as Flash and Acrobat in a "sandbox", isolated from your main computer. Firefox (www.mozilla.org/firefox) is also good.

4. If you're looking for a program do a little searching and get it from the program's home page. Don't just click on the first link on the search engine. Places such as Download.com (Oh C|Net, what happened!) like to add "installers", that helpfully install toolbars on your browser. Or worse, it could be a completely bogus site that puts all kinds of bad stuff on your computer.

Remember, it's up to YOU to be safe on the Web.

 

what gunner can't seem to comprehend. is that while his method may or may not eliminate the threat. to which it did THIS time.

it still don't change the fact that my computer is WHACKED OUT. and is faced with the inevitable WIPE.

i don't think the truckersreport was designed with commercials in mind. i shouldn't be directed to joywallet just because i want to log into my cell phone account. and lastly. i insert dvd, it plays with windows media player. not install some ilivid download manager that wants to install some other BS program.

eliminate the threat is all fine and dandy. but you still end up with a whacked out operating system. which happens every single time. and is why i don't bother with threat detection anymore. i go straight for the wipe. save myself the time.

100%. that's how i like my system. not tampered with from virus removals. that's not 100%. that's whacked out.

happens EVERY single time. i have yet to see a fully functioning machine after an attack.

as for being careful and all the other tips you all keep posting. SH-- happens. no matter how careful you are. just look at all the retailers getting breached lately.

what we need is the world to stop F.ING with us. but that ain't going to happen.

 

What you seem to not understand is that your method albeit works for you, because its going to work. You are erasing the hard drive and starting over from scratch. Most individuals use their laptops for far more than surfing the net, or looking at TTR. Its their lifeline to their family. Its what keeps their business going, so a full wipe, as easy as it might be, is not always the best course of action. Its funny that you said that Windows 8 wont play DVD's on your laptop because you have to purchase a media suite. When if that is in fact true(ive yet to try to use media player) Ive always used VLC player. It works great, and can play any video file type. And best of all its free. There are many ways to fix issues that are left behind when you do a virus removal. Ive never had one issue with not being able to repair those issues. 9 times out of 10, it involves running windows repair. If that doesn't fix it, there is usually a registry repair program that I can run that fixes most issues. If that in essence doesn't work, well then there is always the so called "inevitable wipe" that you want to do. Amazingly Ive never had to wipe a hard drive to fix an issue. As far as inserting a DVD and it wanting to install a download manager to install another program, that's in the software on the DVD, not the OS, there are settings for the disk drive that you can set to tell that drive what to do, for example run programs, or play DVD only. Its usually defaulted to search for a Run.exe program first, which I would imagine is what your drive is doing. However rather than take the time to learn how to use the OS, you would rather install windows 7. Which is fine, I love 7. Far better than 8. I use 7 on my desktop at home. I have windows 8.1 on my laptop and it works perfectly fine playing any DVD I want. It doesn't ask me to install a download manager to install another program. I use the above mentioned program to play my movies.

In the end your retailers getting breached, again, there is no 100% safeguarded system. Hell the Pentagon was hacked several years ago, Anonymous hacked the Senate and House websites, and there have been several attempts to break into the NSA albeit, failed. So far. Cisco, has been hacked. The Russians, North Korean's and the Chinese are the ones doing the most hacking. If you truly want to be secure, put your internet connection behind a proxy, set up a DNS address and route all your traffic through a DNS. Simple as that. It will assist in safeguarding yourself. And number 1 have some sort of decent antivirus. For you to sit there and tell us all that your system is constantly getting viruses, well the reason why is because you are doing far more than surfing TTR and using it for records keeping on the truck. No system just randomly gets viruses. You have to willingly open a file, or navigate to a site that has malware scripted into the source code for the page. So it is something you are doing. like it or not, I know this might be hard for you to understand, but if you get a virus. You only have yourself to blame.