I was called in by a friend of the family and tasked to fix their internet connection and computer.
The primary users are three young girls. It was a disaster. Imagine a rats nest squirming atop maggots circled by carrion. You could almost see brimstone and ash waft from the casing and screen.
It is a Vista machine, but there the similarities with windows end. The browser is hijacked and the ever present mywebsearch has infested all corners of the system, fake virus scanners abound, there was an image of Richard Pryor in the place of the typical mouse pointer animation.
navigating anything is nigh impossible. The system is bogged down so the tiniest click requires minutes to execute.
There is no hope or salvation for the machine in its current state, the taint runs too deep, I, or GOD, would never know if it was ever truly clean if cleaned save any option but scorched earth.
So I am picking up a copy of Windows 7 tomorrow. I'll get the retail version of premium as I need to replace my release candidate eventually anyway. At least I will still have one more install for my next desktop system.
But I need to inoculate the new system as best I can from the meanderings of those kids. I need to know all the main bases to go over that will not cost extra money.
I know to create user accounts that are separate from the administrator. I also hear there is a sort of sandbox feature from some software out there that can revert a system and contain and isolate bad infections.
I do not want to cripple their usage, but the only other alternative would seem to team them to be less foolish on the web. Not sure I have that much time.
The primary users are three young girls. It was a disaster. Imagine a rats nest squirming atop maggots circled by carrion. You could almost see brimstone and ash waft from the casing and screen.
It is a Vista machine, but there the similarities with windows end. The browser is hijacked and the ever present mywebsearch has infested all corners of the system, fake virus scanners abound, there was an image of Richard Pryor in the place of the typical mouse pointer animation.
navigating anything is nigh impossible. The system is bogged down so the tiniest click requires minutes to execute.
There is no hope or salvation for the machine in its current state, the taint runs too deep, I, or GOD, would never know if it was ever truly clean if cleaned save any option but scorched earth.
So I am picking up a copy of Windows 7 tomorrow. I'll get the retail version of premium as I need to replace my release candidate eventually anyway. At least I will still have one more install for my next desktop system.
But I need to inoculate the new system as best I can from the meanderings of those kids. I need to know all the main bases to go over that will not cost extra money.
I know to create user accounts that are separate from the administrator. I also hear there is a sort of sandbox feature from some software out there that can revert a system and contain and isolate bad infections.
I do not want to cripple their usage, but the only other alternative would seem to team them to be less foolish on the web. Not sure I have that much time.