Computer Problems

[Spindles]

Is indexing turned on on the drive? Personally I always turn that off as it is more of a hindrance than anything.

[eFestivals]

Is indexing turned on on the drive? Personally I always turn that off as it is more of a hindrance than anything.

not entirely sure if it is or isn't (I normally turn it off too), but the disk activity was being caused by skype according to performance monitor.

The problem has gone away now - which may or may not be due to me having tried a few different older versions of skype (I'm using v6.10.0.104 now).

[The Nal]

The problem has gone away now - which may or may not be due to me having tried a few different older versions of skype (I'm using v6.10.0.104 now).

Ah thats it yeah. Some of the versions of Skype over the last 18 months have had major issues.

[windy_miller]

Skype was probably scanning your hard drive for information to send to the NSA.

[windy_miller]

Does the problem go away if you close Skype down?

[eFestivals]

Does the problem go away if you close Skype down?

yeah it did ... tho then I had another problem: not being able to use skype.

[eFestivals]

a different problem....

when firefox isn't full-screen, I can't find the firefox window - I'm guessing it's so tiny that it's as-good-as invisible.

(I know it's actually running cos if I press F11 I've got firefox full-screen).

Does anyone know how to resize a window that you can't see, so that you can see it?

[eFestivals]

panic over, sorted it (by luck).

[kaosmark2]

a different problem....

when firefox isn't full-screen, I can't find the firefox window - I'm guessing it's so tiny that it's as-good-as invisible.

(I know it's actually running cos if I press F11 I've got firefox full-screen).

Does anyone know how to resize a window that you can't see, so that you can see it?

You can press winkey+left/right/up to lock it to a certain size and then you'll be able to drag and resize as normal.

[t8yman]

Ok, not often I ask for PC advice but..............

Windows 8 and antivirus.

The inlaws live 275 miles away. They are fairly clueless with PC's. I gave them one a few years ago, and when I do go to visit, I check everything is OK (this can be as little as once a year) I installed Microsoft Security Essentials and scheduled updates and scans etc.

I visited over the weekend, the fucking thing was running like an old man, slower than anything I have ever dealt with (it was a fairly decent spec, MCPC from HP). The AV protection was switched off (they wont have done it) and nothing would update (I think we know where this is heading?)

I told them I would take the PC home with me, salvage all of their music and photos, and stick it all on a new laptop for them, so they could bring it down with them for a healthcheck when they visit us (which is more frequent than our visits up there).

I need an AV that I can just install and leave, that will basically be bulletproof, with hardly any input from the user. And its obviously on Windows 8. The newer version of MSE comes in the guise of a butch version of Defender, but there doesnt appear to be any way of scheduling updates and scans etc, and I dont know if I trust it to keep them protected without user input.

So basically, which is the most idiot proof, safe AV. I dont care if it costs money, it just has to be user friendly and robust, and not too intrusive.

Sorry for the "TLDR" post, but if you got this far, you may be interested to know that when I ran Kaspersky Rescue disc, booted straight from startup - the first pass revealed over 350 trojans, 50+ viruses and about 30 worms, as well as about 10 pieces of adware. It took over 5 hours to scan and deal with them, and its chugging away at home on its second pass now.

[windy_miller]

I have come to the conclusion that all virus checkers are shit and that they can all be worked around. Nothing will protect you apart from common sense.

However, Avast! is the best of a bad bunch, and is free.

[LondonTom]

Sorry for the "TLDR" post, but if you got this far, you may be interested to know that when I ran Kaspersky Rescue disc, booted straight from startup - the first pass revealed over 350 trojans, 50+ viruses and about 30 worms, as well as about 10 pieces of adware. It took over 5 hours to scan and deal with them, and its chugging away at home on its second pass now.

Jesus!!!

I find AVAST pretty decent, even the free version pretty much can leave it in the background once its setup (but does need to re-register for the free one about once a year I think it is). I have it installed on my famli'scomputers and never been to much of an issue apart from the friggin' toolbars they all seem to install.

Anyway thats mostly Windows 7 Machines...but it should work the same on Win 8 I imagine?

[eFestivals]

However, Avast! is the best of a bad bunch, and is free.

it's about the only one that is now - I've recently started using it after AVG went all "give me money".

[The Nal]

IT security is months behind where it should be at the moment. Companies just refusing to invest. The amount of serious threats knocking about at the moment is ridiculous. And to big players too. Ebay, Internet Explorer etc. Worrying.

[atomised]

Still on AVG on the home pc currently but will switch if they start pushing for cash

[eFestivals]

Still on AVG on the home pc currently but will switch if they start pushing for cash

they only do a limited-time version now for free - and it pretty much forced me to swap to the new version with then expired after 30 days.

[feral chile]

I've got Kaspersky, but I'm having trouble with the virtual keyboard stopping me entering info in boxes. And Safew Money kicks in, but doesn't actually open up a browser, so I can't access the bank verification screen. It's extremely irritating.

[t8yman]

I ended up sticking with MSE, it still seems the best option without forking out. I wasnt against forking out, but it appears the benefits of doing so arent that big. At least with this one being a laptop - they can bring it down once every 3 months or so for me to check over.

Eventually took me 3 passes with Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 (which does a brilliant job of getting you back from such a catastrophic mess IMHO), which allowed me to then install AVG, (which turned up another 3 trojans), which finally allowed me to get windows update working again, and 3 cycles of update and reboot to finally get it back to being a decent PC once again.

3 full days. Jesus!

[feral chile]

Do you know how they managed to pick up so many viruses? I'm not very computer literate, and I'm paranoid about picking up a virus. I know enough not to click on an email link, but I get ridiculous at times, scared to trust prompts to update drivers etc.

[t8yman]

It could have been through dodgy email links, but it also looks like my brother in law has been using some rather dodgy torrent sites, so my money would be on that. Once you have one trojan, you are vulnerable to further ones, and I reckon 6-9 months of unchecked propogation of said trojans wont have helped.

One of the earliest warning signs on a windows machine is the inability to use windows update (in my experience) so try running that and see if it functions correctly, another sign is if your antivirus is unable to update its own virus definitions (or is failing to work at all/been disabled). If either of these apply, I would run a "full" system virus scan, rather than the "quick" scan most AV programs offer.

The biggest lifesaver for me was Kaspersky rescue disk 10, because once burnt to a dvd, you run it straight from the boot, so windows (which is most likely where the infections are) doesnt load, KRD10 runs linux straight from the boot, and allows you to deal with any threats from outside of the windows environment. Just be sure you connect it to your home network and run the update option to get all of the latest definitions before you run the scan, as the scan can take quite a long time (5 hours on my first pass on that machine). If you have any further concerns, by all means post on here, I'm no expert, but I have researched a lot over the last few days! I'm sure plenty of peeps on here can offer guidance.

[feral chile]

Thanks T8yman, will try that.

[TheJackson]

I work in IT support and there's not too many decent options out there that are free, and wont slow your PC down to practically a halt.

Sticking on Security Essentials and doing the occasional scan with MalwareBytes seems to be a good option.

[feral chile]

Hi Guys,

My husband's having big problems with Desktop Temperature Monitor, we've tried looking for help online but it keeps coming back. So far, we've uninstalled it and it's still there on restart, went into settings and manage addons and can't find anything recently installed that's not Shockwave, Windows or Google verified, and set popup blocker to High, but still the adware popups annoyingly appear.

He's had the problem for about a week, Norton's not picking it up, and he has no idea what he's downloaded, as he's a serial offender and doesn't know what he's doing. Since I have no idea what should be there and what's suspicious, I can't help. Most of the online help is asking us to download stuff, which there is no way I'm about to do.Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

(I've already considered banning him from 21st Century technology )

Edited November 16, 2014 by feral chile

[kaosmark2]

Hi Guys,

My husband's having big problems with Desktop Temperature Monitor, we've tried looking for help online but it keeps coming back. So far, we've uninstalled it and it's still there on restart, went into settings and manage addons and can't find anything recently installed that's not Shockwave, Windows or Google verified, and set popup blocker to High, but still the adware popups annoyingly appear.

He's had the problem for about a week, Norton's not picking it up, and he has no idea what he's downloaded, as he's a serial offender and doesn't know what he's doing. Since I have no idea what should be there and what's suspicious, I can't help. Most of the online help is asking us to download stuff, which there is no way I'm about to do.Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

(I've already considered banning him from 21st Century technology )

Downloading something to clean out your pc of non-essential running services and programs will definitely help.

I personally recommend ccleaner, but there's lots of programs that do it. Of course, having one that you know doesn't have other problems is the issue, so you're right to not just go with any random place recommending a program.

Other people might recommend similar programs, which will do the same job, and I imagine they'll be helpful, but just pick one of what people here recommend

And as I say, ccleaner is pretty good at it. You can get it here:

https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download

(the free version does everything you need)

[LondonTom]

Indeed Ccleaner is ace, but thats for more of finding stuff thats slowing a computer down. (Startup programs and stuff that are legimate when you install something else but get annoying).

Have you tried MalwareBytes? https://www.malwarebytes.org/downloads/, make sure to try the Anti Rootkit tool aswell (https://www.malwarebytes.org/downloads/#tools)

Quite often finds a few things and is able to remove them, even just the free version.

From a quick google, this seems quite a good guide to removing the ads from IE/Chrome/Firefox, seems like it might take over the browser to aswell as the software: http://www.pcrisk.com/removal-guides/8257-desktop-temperature-monitor-ads#a3

Windows Security Essentials/Defender is actually pretty good to, if you don't already have it: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows/security-essentials-download