Last night I had a very regretable evening. A friend of my son came
down from Alaska for a vacation. Unfortunately for me, Sunday was his
last full day here, he was driving back sometime Monday morning. So
about 5pm my son shows up with his friend and wants to know if I can
clean out his laptop for him...it was full of virus and spy programs.
Well like a dork, I agreed. I have a cd with copies of Spybot and
Adaware and AVG burned into it just for such occassions. I ran Spybot
without any updates just to get a feel for the system. Then I did the
same with Adaware...ooooh man...did that open up the devil's toolbox.
The un-updated new version of Adaware(v1.05) has a problem with one
paticular toolbar/spyprogram. BlazeFind is a tricky little program in-
that it changes the name of a file inside the windowsXP registry. So
when Adaware removes the BlazeFind trojan...the improperly named file
gets left behind. Ok here comes the *** part.
Adaware automatically creates a restore point when you get ready to
exit and restart your system. Then XP,I'm told, does the same as you
reboot. Ok, Adaware restarts your system and it comes to a stop at the
logon screen. You can't logon..it won't say why, the Desktop flashes
onscreen for just a brief instant as XP tries to log your user on. But
it can't because of the supposedly missing file that BlazeFind altered.
No problem, I thought, I'll just use those dos boot options that XP has
and restore the last good save. As we now know, the last retore INCLUDES
the altered registry entry so even restoring won't help. Alright, I
think..SAFE MODE will save the day...wrong again..I can't logon in safe
mode either.
I then spent a goodly chunk of time tracking down the problem with
several long Google sessions. I found this problem attacked Adaware last
summer and caught them by suprise. They have fixed later versions of
thier spybot updates to avoid this mess, but they had little info on how
to UNDO something that had already been messed up. Several users found a
solution, using the XP recovery Console..(more research to findout what
that was). I tracked down my son's college version of the XP install
disk and followed instructions to get to the recovery console. EVERYONE
agreed this is the simple part. Well...XP wanted an admin password. The
Laptop owner said...
"A WHAT?" He had bought the laptop with XP installed and had no clue
about any passwords.
So more internet sluething..ahah! linux programs that erase admin and
all other passwords from XP...<dloading, burning, trying trying trying>
those didn't work either.
I even tried hooking the laptop up to my LAN and entering his system
via my son's XP. <PASSWORD YOU NIMROD>
Finally in desperation I went to his own SONY VAIO recovery disks..but
these had one HUGE drawback. The Sony recovery disks don't just re-
install windows...they ERASE the BOOT drive, AND THEN re-install to the
original Storebought state. I called him and informed the Laptop
owner of his options. Go home with a broken computer or let me wipe out
the boot drive and redo everything..(everything that is except his
updates, his user-installed programs, his ISP stuff.) So he said go for
it. He had left after about an hour for a farewell dinner with my Son's
family. So I began the long process of re-installing XP...that CDROM/DVD
drive sure was slow. After about an hour the process was completed...or
so I thought..Next I had to grab his APPLICATION recovery disks and
install those(the stuff included when the laptop was sitting on the Store
Shelf.
another hour crawls by.
I finally get into XP and get updates for Spybot and Adaware and AVG.
Those are progressing when the owner calls back and says he has TONS and
TONS of digital photos scattered all over the computer.
KEE-HRIST! I said. "Why didn't you tell me that before?" So now I've
spent close to 6 hours detoxifying his Laptop and all I managed to do
was destroy about a third of several year's worth of Alaska photos..At
least he had saved the bulk of them on his D drive.
If this had been Win98, I could have have at the very worst, just re-
installed Windows and not lost any other data on the boot drive. GAWD
what a pathetic recovery system Sony and Microsoft cobbled together.
Now I fully know I was at a disadvantage due to his lack of password
knowledge, and his general poor internet habits that messed up his system
in the first place(nearly 500 spyprogram listings the first time thru and
4 or 5 trojans) But DANGIT!! Adaware should, by now, have had a nifty
little boot disk to fix this<they didn't>. Windows should have had
SOMEWAY to logon after a file was corrupted. And this Bozo should have
had burned CD's of his photos a long long long time ago AND known about
his freekin passwords. Sony's website was no help...If I wanted to talk
to a human, I had to use a credit card and pay 20Bucks in advance.
Thanks alot...
I've noticed over and over again..that the XP systems I've seen just
seem to run slower(even on beefier systems than mine)...the Windows don't
SNAP OPEN like my win98se windows do..(I'll bet there is a tweek for
that..but I haven't seen it yet--there always seems to be Harddisk access
before anything happens) The easy LAN connection was neat, but it did me
ZERO good since I couldn't get access to the laptop remotely.
This is a overly long and wordy whine and I appolgize for taking so
much time...But this event has convinced me even more, that until 98 is
dead and buried by MS, I'm sticking with it...
dave henrie
Pee-oh'd...or why no good deed goes unpunished.