Thursday Sept 30th

Today I will be going over virus removal. I had two appointments today that were centered around this, each one I ran the same exact gambit of anti-virus tools and was able to clean up the machine and get it working like new. Beginning with diagnosis, being able to recognize a virus is 10x more important than actually knowing how to clean it out. Most viruses will slow down, lock down, and eventually destroy your computer if untreated.

Typically they come in the form of "virus cleaners" that offer to scan your computer for free and they ALWAYS find a "virus" on your system. They will then offer to sell you their product in order to remove the virus; **Never do this!** after getting your information they will then initiate hundreds and thousands worth of charges to that bank account and will ruin you financially if you allow them to. Only trust technicians when it comes to proper virus removal, and never take the easy way out by purchasing the software.

When it comes down to virus removal there is two schools of thought on how to do it properly. Manually and Automatically, either works as well but doing it manually requires much more in depth knowledge of computers than I can go over in a blog post. Doing it automatically through programs requires a toolkit with the proper programs to do the removal. typically you need a rootkit remover, a malware remover, and an active anti-virus protection system.

I cant recommend any rootkit removers, they are dangerous to use without the proper know how and again I cant explain how to use them in one blog post.

Malware Remover:
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

Active Anti-Virus:
AVG(free)
Avast(free, for one year(?))
Norton(paid, yearly subscription)
McAffee(paid, yearly subscription)

I also suggest getting Ccleaner and using it regularly to keep your computer cleaned out of useless junk.

Once you have your tools either on a flash drive or on the computer in question you'll need to start the computer up in safe mode. You can do this by restarting the computer and mashing the F8 function key as it boots up. It should give you a list of start up options including 'Safe Mode' and 'Safe Mode With Networking'. If you can use 'Safe Mode With Networking' otherwise 'Safe Mode' should work just as good. From there you need to run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, which should clean up the majority of viruses with a simple scan. After a scan, Malwarebytes will ask you to restart the computer; do so and then run Malwarebytes again in normal mode. This should clean out the majority of viruses in your computer, If this doesn't work I can only advise calling a local technician to do the cleanup for you.

Once your computer is cleaned you will need an active anti-virus agent, and of the ones I listed above should work equally well. I always suggest either AVG of Avast merely because of the cost(FREE!), but if you have a preferred system and don't mind the cost McAffee and Norton work just as well.

Wednesday Sept 29th

This morning went much better, I ended up going to my classes today; Most of them are preparing us for our first set of exams for the semester. My appointment for that day that followed shortly after classes was another quick and easy fix. Apparently there was a disconnect between their OS and their browser when it came to choosing an email program. On Windows XPsp3 this error will occur and will cause the 'get mail' button on the browser to not open up -any- email program.

The solution is to right click on the start menu and choose properties, from there choose the menu format you want to edit(standard by default) and click customize. From there all you need to do is select the default mail program from the drop down menu.
**This needs to be done even if it has the proper client selected already**

From there you need to do the same thing with your web browser by selecting Tools>Options>Programs tab. There should be another drop down menu for email here that can be used to select the default email program. After this is done the button should act properly and will pull up the e-mail client as it is supposed to.

This info is thanks to: The Win Help Online Blog

Tuesday Sept 28th

I called in sick today; waking up at 5am with severe stomach cramps will do that to you. Luckily I had only one appointment today so I was able to get it covered without trouble. I hope the appointment went alright for my co-worker.

Sometimes the appointments can drag on for hours and other times they take less than 10 minutes. One appointment I had yesterday was with a gentleman that couldn't see images in his email program. After about 5 minutes I found that he had hit the shortcut to turn images into raw code. I was able to set it back and explained to him how the shortcut worked. It literally took me 10 minutes total to do all this and head onto my next client.


 Tomorrow is promising to be a stressful day, with an exam in one of my classes and then an appointment with "can't receive emails" as the comment line. Normally email problems are easy, but I have a feeling tomorrow will be different.

Until then,

DailyTechnician