If you haven't, here's the short story: his laptop was hijacked by viruses, worms, malware, spyware, etc. Basically, everything that can destroy your computer. The little brat didn't have antivirus and was cruising porn sites. What else did he expect? GAH! All of his programs and applications were missing, couldn't open anything, and I kept getting pop-ups telling me 'application not found', 'cannot open', etc. With the knowledge and help of a fb friend, I downloaded on disc and (in safe mode) installed three separate programs to help me deal with all these problems: SuperAntispyware, MalwareBytes Anti-Malware, and Avast antivirus protection. Took me almost a full day, but those 3 programs removed over 800 infected files.
I was riding high on triumph and pride. Had gotten his computer pretty much restored, just had a few things left to figure out (like how to move his programs and applications back into the All Programs on the Start menu).
Suddenly an Avast window popped up informing me a rootkit virus had been discovered and removed, and the laptop now required a reboot. Upon restarting however, I was horrified to see the Blue Screen of Death!! It advised restarting the computer; did that, the BSoD kept appearing. Got more advice from my fb friend but nothing worked, the computer was too damaged. Looks like I'll be taking it in to a real computer techie.
BUT... all this researching and downloading inspired me to try to 'fix' the other two computers. The desktop in the livingroom is very old, very cluttered with files, runs verrrry slow, and the internet connection is slow sometimes (even though its connected via cable, so should be lightning quick). My laptop is pretty fast with not that many files or programs, but it still needed a good antivirus program (had installed Avast on it as well but with that rootkit virus destroying Gunnar's laptop, I was suddenly unsure about its competency).
I went to PCworld (my new favorite site for anything computer-related) and found a program called Security Task Manager (I found a free 30-day trial version). This program "gives a wealth of detail about each program and process [running on your computer, many without your knowledge], including whether the program is likely malicious or not, and it lets you delete any program and process with a single click. You'll get an enormous amount of detail about what's running, including the manufacturer, type of program, how it started (for example upon startup or from within Windows Explorer), and the file name. It also rates files according to how harmless or malicious they may be. To stop a program, highlight it and click remove, and you're done."
So I used that program to remove several unused, unimportant, unnecessary-to-the-system programs and applications, as well as some broken file fragments. I like that it shows you, highlighted in red, which ones are the most suspicious; as well, other users rate how dangerous they consider that program/process which helps you to make your decisions about what stays and what goes. One thing I would DEFINITELY advise is to open up a new window and google the name of each program/process BEFORE deleting or quarantining it, as some have weird and misleading names that make you think they are 'bad'. For example, I almost removed my laptop's wireless capabilities because I didn't realize that's what it was (you'd think it would be labelled 'wireless' or something obvious, but no). Security Task Manager also creates system restore points before each deletion/removal, so if you suddenly think 'Crap, what have I done?', you can go back and do a restore.
Next thing I did was to remove all the antivirus, antispyware, and antimalware programs I'd installed and instead download & install Microsoft's Security Essentials, which is completely FREE but you have to have a genuine Windows program on your computer (XP, 7, etc). This program guarantees: real-time protection, system scanning, system cleaning, Windows Firewall integration, dynamic signature service, rootkit protection, protection against real threats (not good software), and network inspection system. And because its from Microsoft, I know I can trust it to do its job, and do it well.
Okay, so with my computer now cleaned up and protected, the next thing to do was secure my wireless connection. I'd already secured it somewhat about a year ago using WEP, but in my online wanderings I learned that WPA or WPA2 is much more secure. Apparently, WEP can be cracked within a minute, huh. So this process involved getting out the linksys installation manual and following the steps, very very easy.
Lastly, I wanted to figure out how to get rid of the annoying pop-up windows that never failed to appear upon start-up, along the lines of 'unable to locate component for this application because this .dll file not found'. (Dynamic Link Library (dll) files are an essential part of the Windows operating system.) On the laptop I would always get two such notices, on the desktop there were three. I wrote down the specific dll files and applications, googled them, and just followed the instructions. The newest Apple update (for itunes) has an error in it that mistakenly places a certain dll file in the wrong place (the application is AppleSyncNotifier, if you're experiencing any pop-ups with that). Its as simple as locating the dll file stated (do a Search from your start menu), copying it, and pasting to the correct folder. Restart the computer and voila, no more annoying pop-ups!
So yeah, there ya go, am I not a computer whiz? What can I say...
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