~Satsy

Stephanie Kelly

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Conferlicklewickle

Sat Apr 4, 2009, 12:46 PM

My laptop got a tummyache. It was filled with what I can only assume was worm. Judging from the symptoms anyway. Unable to scan computer (via installed or online software), the constant disabling of any antivirus or computer protection, the refusal to update anything... all that jazz. All started from the denied access to the desktop (which could still just have been unlucky -- my PCs, you may have noticed, have this ability to do strange things). So I am of the impression that the poor beasty had probably been contending with some worm for a while.

Not much else to do for it, I've reformatted.

Again. I'm still mildly paranoid that something could still be in effect, or have been, since the required software to reboot the system from factory settings are actually inside the computer.

Although so far so good, everything's updating as expected.

What I find amusing is that going through the lappy, gathering all the files that needed backup... they fit quite well on a 512 SD card.

I found that quite amusing.

So that's made things fun.

More fun than picking on beans.

Aside from further concerns and mild aggravation over my honours project, all going well. Keep getting distracted, but all is still well. :3

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~JTravoltaIIVII Apr 4, 2009, 2:25:15 PM

I had a bad virus not too long ago - I know what you're going through. I'm nervous to be running chrome all the time - it's not nearly as secure as it should be.

--
Oh, I'd bet you'd love to ground cow. BUT YOU CAN'T AND NEVER WILL.

Why.

~Satsy Apr 4, 2009, 3:26:16 PM

Thing is, I've had viruses, they've never really given me much gyp. This is the first one that's completely floored my computer. The last thing I reformatted over was Photoshop being a pain.

At least for now the computer's not going through some horrible infection. That I can tell, anyway. The programs that apparently shouldn't load (and didn't load) if I had something like conficker are now functioning normally, although apparently there's been some problems with a good deal of the windows updates. And for some reason I keep getting a tracking cookie. :/ Just the one, picked up by Norton.

*sigh* I'm sure I'll get over my paranoia eventually. -_-

~JTravoltaIIVII Apr 4, 2009, 5:24:49 PM

The main issue is that having viruses is bound to leave security gaps and call more viruses upon you.

Something I recommend you get is an application called "Autoruns". You can mess with what starts up with windows (you have to be careful!), but it helps you get at things that switch .dll names (I managed to mostly disable a particularly nasty virus from there by changing a .dll's name that I could not otherwise access... it was fairly hilarious.)

I don't know if you got the latest worm, but SP3's supposed to deal with this. Viruses are almost enough to make you want to get a mac - almost.

--
Oh, I'd bet you'd love to ground cow. BUT YOU CAN'T AND NEVER WILL.

Why.

~Satsy Apr 4, 2009, 6:29:34 PM

Oh I've already sorted out what starts with Windows and what won't (got the task manager for that

), even found how to turn off a bar that annoyed me for goodness knows how long. What I'll really be getting back onto it is CCleaner, which has done me fab of recent. ^_^

Either way, whatever I did have on my system's definitely gone with it -- got all of Microsoft's downloads at last. As of tomorrow I can finally start putting programs on it. Which'll be nice, I needs my art stuffs... It's a tablet PC after all.

~JTravoltaIIVII Apr 4, 2009, 6:39:16 PM

Task manager isn't automatic.

CCleaner's pretty good.

I would never get a tablet PC - art programs are too expensive to actually purchase.

--
Oh, I'd bet you'd love to ground cow. BUT YOU CAN'T AND NEVER WILL.

Why.

~alaisiaga Apr 5, 2009, 3:49:53 AM

eww. i know there was one pretty bad worm that was going around and activated itself on April 1. i'm a bit worried about this computer since its only protection is AdAware, but since i don't really do anything important on here, i'm not too freaked out.

bad luck, though. :c

--
Hey, you sass that hoopy ~alaisiaga? There's a frood who really knows where her towel is.

~Satsy Apr 5, 2009, 5:46:31 AM

Yeah guess when my problems with the lappy started.

~Satsy Apr 5, 2009, 3:28:04 PM

Well, automatic or not, it's allowed me to see what programs to change, the rest is easily done in control panel.

Art programs can be a complete annoyance, I'm well aware. There are the illicit methods of obtaining such things but even they're not always guaranteed. I did grab ArtRage, which I got with my Wacom tablet, and that's actually quite a nifty program -- comes complete with proper pencil tool and plenty flipping of paper.

Awesome stuff.

And hey, a program and a tablet at only £30-£40! Did well on that I thought.