Re: anti-virus removal question

[Jimmy Breck-McKye <jb527 -at- hotmail -dot- co -dot- uk>]

I'd just boot a LiveCD / LiveUSB of some lightweight Linux distro (like 
Puppy), use it to pull necessary files onto other media, then just 
reinstall. Reinstalling an OS every nine months or so is good practice 
anyway, because systems inevitably degrade after several iterations of 
third party software mess up libraries and dependencies anyway. Most 
people are frightened of reinstallation, but it's a lot more trivial 
than they think.

Scan those files on some other partition with an up-to-date scanner. Or, 
use something like ClamAV from the Linux disc if you *really* can't 
bring yourself to do a clean install.

On 06/08/10 20:48, Ken Poshedly wrote:
> My 15-year-old daughter is _almost_ perfectly responsible with her 2- or
> 3-year-old Toshiba Satellite laptop (with Vista). Her maturity level is
> more like 18 or 19 years old (in a good, well-grounded way). But she
> occasionally does still have those "teenager knows everything" moments and now,
> it's caught up with her.
>
> I recall how she was always too busy with the laptop and it was a real uphill
> battle getting her to let me install antivirus protection (AVG Free) and Spotbot
> Search&  Destroy on her terminal, but at least it was done. But then she never
> updated them with new virus or antispam definitions, etc. Instead, I did when I
> could get access to the laptop.
>
> Then AVG stopped offering updates for her version of the "free" product, so
> that's as far as that went. The result: expired (i.e., little or no) protection
> for who-knows-how-long.
>
> But earlier this past week, her terminal wound up with the nasty pop-up that
> announces that the terminal is infected and to click on the onscreen box to
> upgrade to some unknown bogus antivirus program (not Norton, not AVG, not
> anything I've ever seen mentioned anywhere).
>
> And cancelling out of the warning window doesn't mean the end of things.
> Instead, every program she tries -- no matter what it is -- results in the
> onscreen window notifying her that this file (or that file or the other file, no
> matter what) is infected and she should purchase this "unknown" antivirus
> program.
>
> Can't run Spybot, or download even a new AVG -- can't do nuthin'.
>
> My good friend Tim (who is also a member of this list) advises me that if I can
> somehow come up with a bootable Vista CD, I should be able to use it to get up
> and running and then run AVG from a thumb-drive (data-stick, whatever you call
> it). (My own desktop Windows XP computer is well-protected, so I can prepare the
> thumb-drive that way.)
>
> But at my office, the IT guy tells me that my plan won't work. And another guy
> says the best thing to do is remove the hard drive from the Toshiba laptop and
> cable it directly to my desktop and then run my own scanning software on it as
> it will be recognized as another drive.
>
> All of this is logical, but now I don 't know which way to turn. Is Tim correct?
> Or it my company's IT guy correct? Or is the last guy correct? School starts
> here in Gwinnett County (near Atlanta) next Monday, so getting this done in the
> next day or so is the plan.
>
> -- Ken in metro Atlanta
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