Discount home software window xp

In my cosseted world on the 11th floor of our mid-Manhattan building, I enjoy a legion of direct and indirect IT help, whether it's from the real and efficient IT department that's part of my company or from the numerous expert editors and analysts on PCMag's staff. When I have a small or large PC problem, I turn to one or more of them, and they usually can offer good advice and help prevent issues from going too far.

Sure, there are problems, like the sluggish performance of my IBM laptop, which no one seems to be able to solve, but for new software and hardware installation, and especially outside threats, viruses, phish, and spam, there's no better place for finding help and steering clear of trouble. Suffice it to say I am very lucky. Recently, I realized just how unlucky and relatively unprotected the average computer user really is.

Not long ago I spent three-plus hours disentangling a friend's PC from an unbelievable pile of Trojan horses, spyware, and adware, the likes of which I had never seen firsthand. The call came, as it often does, through my wife. She told me of a couple whose once trusty desktop had stopped responding in reasonable ways and now had refused to go online. This was serious, and she thought that maybe I could help.

The system I found, a Dell 4200 with an Intel Pentium III processor and 128MB of RAM, was roughly 5 years old and running (gasp!) Microsoft Windows Me. I told our friends that that was their first mistake. Windows Me is probably the worst thing Microsoft and Bill Gates ever foisted on an unsuspecting public (second only, perhaps, to BOB). My first inclination was simply to try to upgrade the system to the more secure and usable Windows XP Home, but I knew that given its hardware specs (including a somewhat tiny 20GB drive), it would likely revolt. So I decided to try and revive the system to its former happy state.

Of course, that state had undergone some changes in the last half decade, including a replacement hard drive, CD burner, and even DVD-ROM drive, all courtesy of Dell's long-term warranty. That warranty, however, had now expired. So we were pretty much on our own. The system was hooked up to broadband via a cable modem. But there was no router in between and, as a result, no hardware firewall. The system, in fact, did not even have a software firewall. Considering all the time my friend had spent on the phone with Dell tech support, I'm surprised they never recommended he install any form of a firewall.

I started by confirming that the system could not, in fact, surf the Web. I launched a browser by clicking on the Microsoft Internet Explorer icon and waited. Nothing happened. I did a Ctrl-Alt-Del[[Guide2]] to see what was holding up the process. Unfortunately, Windows Me's level of suckage came to the forefront here; its Task menu doesn't even include a tabbed interface of running applications and processes. So I looked to the task tray for clues. I noted that there was no antivirus program running. Something, no one was sure what, had disabled it on the system, and now Norton Antivirus 2003 could no longer run and inoculate the system. I continued perusing the small icons in the tray. I quickly found something called 180search Assistant.

I right-clicked on it to shut it off, and then I was able to launch IE. My friend didn't know where it had come from. I Googled the name and learned that it was some sort of adware. I uninstalled it using the Control Panel. I also saw a Bullseye icon in the task tray. I remembered that icon was for an application or agent designed to deliver "relevant" information to end users (and perhaps send relevant demographic info to Bullseye and its partners' home bases).

I began browsing the C: drive to see what other horrors I could find. There were at least a dozen suspect folders under Programs. To figure out what some of them were, I would either copy the folder name or the name of whatever EXE file I found nestled inside, and then Google it. Time and again I discovered that a file was either spyware or adware. Even the Desktop was riddled with folders and EXEs (no, not shortcuts) for other nasty spyware and adware mites. Needless to say, these files and folders did not come equipped with read-me files or uninstall instructions. And these infections were not dormant. Each time I opened the browser and surfed to something new, a second and third browser window would launch with something related to the page I was on. So, whenever I tried to go to, for example, Symantec's Norton Antivirus page, I got other pages for competing antivirus products.

Knowing what kind of garbage was still being dropped on this system even as I tried to fix it, I decided to install PCMag.com's CookieCop 3.0 as a stopgap measure for unwanted cookies and pop-ups. I'm sure it helped a bit, but CookieCop did not stop the browser hijacking.

If you do a search on your own system and find files or folders that seem to have appeared out of nowhere, or processes that you cannot identify, you might want to visit SpywareGuide.com. It has an excellent and pretty comprehensive list of spyware. Every listing details the aliases, originating URLs, and tactics of each piece of spyware. Much of what I found on my friend's system was on this list.

I realized that this problem was too big for me to fix by removing all these apps, folders, and so on, by hand. I've often relied on Spybot to help clean spyware/adware-infested systems, so I downloaded a free copy, installed it, and ran it. It found a ton of spyware and adware, but also noted that some of it was running in process and couldn't be removed unless I rebooted and allowed Spybot to run during startup.

I followed those instructions, and about 10 minutes later the system was running again. My next step was going to be to try to solve the antivirus problem, but as soon as I accessed Symantec.com, another window appeared with competing protection-software offers. We still had some sort of browser-hijack software running. I decided to try Webroot's SpySweeper. It's our Editors' Choice for antispyware, but unlike Spybot, it's not free. Fortunately, the company offers a 30-day trial.

I installed it and ran it. Even though Spybot had found a ton of spyware and, with my blessing, zapped it all, the SpySweeper report revealed that Spybot had done an incredibly incomplete job. Not only did SpySweeper detect loads of adware and spyware, it also red-flagged numerous running processes, including Trojans, Browser Helper Objects, and hijacker-ware. It even found a Trojan called "Backdoor.BackOrifice"! I let SpySweeper clean all it had found, and rebooted. Finally, the browser ran without any new surprises.

With that done, I moved onto the antivirus situation. My friends had been keeping the virus software's signature file up to date, but hadn't upgraded the software in a few years. We still had the original software CD on hand, but I urged them to upgrade to more powerful and comprehensive protection. Because they already had a registered version of Norton Antivirus (even though it was from 2003), Symantec offered them a $30 discount on Norton Internet Security 2005, which includes virus, spyware, spam, and even phish protection.

My friends paid for the new software and downloaded it. It installed with little difficulty besides asking for the Antivirus 2003 disk (it didn't say why) and temporarily blocking CookieCop 3, until I let the application know that it's a trusted program and that it should be allowed to contact the Internet. Finally, with Norton Internet Security, SpySweeper, and PCMag's CookieCop utility running, the computer once again became my friends' trusted, stable companion.

With the system finally healthy, the next obvious question was: How did this happen? By the end of the day (it was actually twilight when I finished), I knew the answer. All afternoon, as I waited for my cleaning programs to do their work, I had been quizzing my friends about who uses this system and how.

The primary culprit here, it turned out, was their 16-year-old daughter, who regularly downloaded music and other files via the Kazaa peer-to-peer file sharing service. Using Kazaa on broadband is bad enough (Trojans and other garbage are always piggybacking on the files you want, and sometimes masquerading as the files you want), but using it without any sort of firewall or antivirus solution? I told my friends that they might as well cut a giant hole in the front of their house—right next to their locked front door—and put a big "All Welcome" neon sign on their lawn. It's no wonder their system was so riddled with garbage. I'm surprised it didn't simply just throw itself out the window.