Mar. 30, 2005

Hi, All!

This Week: A Problem Virus

I am working on a PC that had several viruses. The first was the worst; it would watch what programs were being started and what web sites were being accessed and if any anti-virus program or web site was used it would shut down that program or browser! It did not matter if it was Internet Explorer or Netscape even Firefox--it watched them all and shut them down. When I first thought about fighting this virus, I figured that I could just get a DOS version of an anti-virus program and that would remove it; however, this PC is running Windows XP, and the hard drive was formatted in the new format unreadable by DOS. So I was unable to use a DOS program because the program could not find the hard drive. I had to restore the PC with restore CD,s that were made just before I worked on the PC. The restore worked well but after setting up and connecting to the Internet, the PC started to act up, and I was unable to reconnect to the internet to finish the updating of XP with the security updates. I was at a loss and sent a note to Tiger Mountain to see if they had any ideas. Paul suggested that the PC may still have a virus and to check it out with a different antivirus program other than the two that I had been running on the PC. That started a search to see what software works and what doesn't on a PC that I knew had a virus. I discovered a virus on the restore disks, so when I restored from the newly created restore disks, they would also restore a virus!

Out of space. Next week, what I found testing several anti-virus programs.

'Til next week,
(ComputerFAQ#234)

Robert

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