Skip to main content

Recovering from Windows XP virus annihilation

Recently, several members of the family have had their computers "owned" by viruses or spyware. At my house, I'm more focused on prevention but if all else fails, here's a great write up of using Windows XP Recovery features to repair your down and out home computer.

Also, a correspondence with one of my pals (a conversation I've had many times with lots of folks):

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Nope. I think you're on the right path. Good write-up:

Afterwards, I would recommend the following:

1. Set only 1 person within the household as an Administrator...I've found the Mom is usually best. Disable the ability to install software for all other users (i.e. they only belong to Users group)
2. Install virus scanning software; set to update nightly, scan nightly
3. Update Windows with all patches from www.windowsupdate.com. Set Windows to update automatically. Make sure you install SP2
4. Enable the Windows firewall from SP2
5. Download and install the latest Zone Alarm firewall
6. Run a hardware router with a built-in firewall in front of your cable/DSL modem
7. Install and set to run regularly a spyware checker such as Ad-aware
8. If you/they are using a wireless network, use 128-bit WEP encryption with a 13-bit passcode.
9. Enable the pop-up blocker within IE6, Windows SP2
10. Don't use Outlook Express but rather a standard browser for email
11. Don't use file sharing programs
12. Don't use chat programs like AIM or Yahoo messenger without a scanner

Also, from my blog:
http://effectivethoughts.blogspot.com
http://effectivethoughts.blogspot.com/2005/01/preventing-spyware.html
http://effectivethoughts.blogspot.com/2005/03/security-guide-for-smb.html
http://effectivethoughts.blogspot.com/2005/06/avoiding-phishing-attacks.html
http://effectivethoughts.blogspot.com/2005/04/michael-howard-keeping-home-computer.html

Jeff...

On 6/14/05, wrote:

no luck...won't even boot up in Safe Mode...just loops through and says Windows could not start, please choose a mode to boot up in...any option you choose loops back around to same screen. couldn't find his rescue CD to boot from, so I need to order one from HP today. Any other advice? (besides using it as a boat anchor)



-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Hunsaker [mailto:]
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2005 9:19 AM
To:
Subject: WinXP repairs

How did you fare?

--
Jeff Hunsaker

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TFS Reports Out of Date

You may have noticed it takes a while for Team Foundation Server (TFS) reports to reflect changes you've made to work items or builds. Let me guess...about an hour, right? Out of the box, TFS is set to refresh the data warehouse from its transactional store every 60 minutes. How do I change the frequency of the data warehouse refresh? Browse to the TFS Controller Web Service on your TFS application tier server within IE at: http://localhost:8080/Warehouse/v1.0/warehousecontroller.asmx Select the ChangeSetting option Enter RunIntervalSeconds for the settingId and the desired number of seconds for newValue (300 for 5 minutes...5*60) Select Invoke How do I force a data warehouse refresh? Two methods here: either via the above web service or using SQL Server Management Studio. Via the web service: Browse to the TFS Controller Web Service within IE at: http://localhost:8080/Warehouse/v1.0/warehousecontroller.asmx Select the Run option Click Invo...
6 comments
Read more

Certified or Certifiable?

As a senior technology professional, I interview a lot of candidates. I also maintain solid relationships with other folks in the community. Frequently, the topic of certifications arises: A good investment? Valuable? A clear measurement of skill? Consensus appears to draw the line related to one's seniority. If you're (for example) just out of school and looking for an instant creditability boost, by all means pursue a certification. Likely, this credential will assist you in overcoming the "junior" tag and likely land you more interviews and client roles. (Note: I'm going to use the terms senior and junior here...no offense to either. Can't think of a better one word description. I was a junior once too.) In stark contrast, the value of certifications drops off the table around the 2-3 year mark. Some in my circles even perceive certifications as a negative for the senior professional. They think, "If this guy is so solid, why is he wasting valuable...
5 comments
Read more

VSTS Tester Demo Follow-ups

Last week, I delivered a VSTS 2008 Tester Edition demo to a prospective client. Following up on a few questions to which I didn’t know the answer: Q. Can I use Subversion with TFS? A. I get this question all the time from developers. It’s a perfectly valid question. The answer is no…but yes…sort of. The version control repository (and all data) must remain SQL Server. Yes, it’s proprietary. Further, if you plan to use TFS in your software development environment, but choose not to leverage it for version control, it severely limits the usefulness of the information elicited from TFS (because you’re not feeding in the crucial VC data). If you’re not leveraging VC in TFS, you’re probably not leveraging Team Build either. That said, while a fully-integrated TFS for ALM and SCM is the ideal, there’s a compelling argument to leverage TFS as a repository for requirements, scenarios, test cases, functional and load testing as well as defect tracking. TFS is an excellent repository to s...
2 comments
Read more