Someone deserves a slap

[lostcarpark]

Mi sister turned up last night with the laptop she bought from a friend (Sony Vaio - fairly old model, but definitely a bargain for €100). She said that it was giving some trouble and would randomly shut down if she went online for a while, and doing a few other quirky things.

As soon as we powered it up, it started wanting to go online, which made me even more suspicious than I already was.

I checked for a virus checker. There was one. When was it last run? Sometime in 2002! When was it last updated? Never! Not good.

Installed a new virus checker and reboot. Reports three different vituses/trojans/worms attempting to run before bootup even finished. Run virus checker. Finds five different viruses infecting 24 files. All heal successfully.

Install AdAware and get rid of a few more things.

Install wireless LAN card and connect to internet. Run Windows update to download and install 54 patches and security updates.

Install Firefox and recommend avoiding insecure built-in browser.

Machine seems much happier now.

Comments

[lostcarpark.livejournal.com]

We may will do that yet, but that was the best I could do in a couple of hours.

Of course that was before I tried to install SP1 and it refused because it was a dodgy XP license key...

[lproven.livejournal.com]

[Nod]

And [!] I've heard of that, but never seen it...