Post by shinyjiggly on Nov 10, 2010 2:32:37 GMT -6
Earlier today, my mom was on her computer, just on facebook like she usually is, when apparently something popped up and told her that there was something wrong with her computer and that it could fix it. Mom wound up clicking it and it X'd her out of Firefox to do some scans and stuff.
The computer must have shut down as part of the process because she told me that when she turned the computer back on, this new "antivirus software" popped up and started doing some more scans and stuff. Because she couldn't find the "allow computer to start while not in safe mode option" (or something like that) in the settings menu, she decided to cut the power by flipping the switch on the power strip. When she turned it back on, she got the same result as the time before. Luckily instead of shutting it off hard again, she asked for my help. I found the little box in the settings menu that let her "get out of the program". Little did we know that we were far from over from dealing with this thing.
Soon after, mom called me in again because the program had blocked Firefox and IE (it said that those programs were "infected" or something.) I was all like -_-; because I totally didn't believe that they were really blocked for that reason. We decided that we wanted to get rid of this program at this point. I tried to find it under the add-remove programs but couldn't find it.
I then decided that I would try to at least stop it until next time with the task manager, but that was blocked too! By that time, I KNEW that that program definitely was NOT a real anti-virus program at all (despite how professional it looked). At this point I decided to try to take it out by going though the program files folders. I felt like Dave on his way to deactivating HAL... kinda. Too bad it didn't work. Since it was still running in the background, I couldn't delete it. (And since task manager was blocked, I couldn't stop it.)
At this point, I had exhausted my arsenal of tools against this thing. Since I only know enough about these kinds of things to troubleshoot to a certain point, I can get to the point where I need help with helping my mom out.
Also, FYI: My mom isn't a ditzy 'tard as the rest of my post colored her as. She's actually pretty awesome, just a little clueless on how to solve computer problems. And no, I don't remember exactly what the program is called. All I remember is that it was a combo of two words with no space between the two and that it might have started with an S.
We would check right now but it also blocks the shutdown sequence and we don't want to have to shut it off the wrong way again.
Sorry for the long explanation. I felt that maybe if you guys knew everything, you might be able to help me out more.
Please help us fix this problem!
If this were a testimony, it would have been objected due to gratuitous amounts of narration, hearsay, and opinions. Darn you Government claaaasssss!
The computer must have shut down as part of the process because she told me that when she turned the computer back on, this new "antivirus software" popped up and started doing some more scans and stuff. Because she couldn't find the "allow computer to start while not in safe mode option" (or something like that) in the settings menu, she decided to cut the power by flipping the switch on the power strip. When she turned it back on, she got the same result as the time before. Luckily instead of shutting it off hard again, she asked for my help. I found the little box in the settings menu that let her "get out of the program". Little did we know that we were far from over from dealing with this thing.
Soon after, mom called me in again because the program had blocked Firefox and IE (it said that those programs were "infected" or something.) I was all like -_-; because I totally didn't believe that they were really blocked for that reason. We decided that we wanted to get rid of this program at this point. I tried to find it under the add-remove programs but couldn't find it.
I then decided that I would try to at least stop it until next time with the task manager, but that was blocked too! By that time, I KNEW that that program definitely was NOT a real anti-virus program at all (despite how professional it looked). At this point I decided to try to take it out by going though the program files folders. I felt like Dave on his way to deactivating HAL... kinda. Too bad it didn't work. Since it was still running in the background, I couldn't delete it. (And since task manager was blocked, I couldn't stop it.)
At this point, I had exhausted my arsenal of tools against this thing. Since I only know enough about these kinds of things to troubleshoot to a certain point, I can get to the point where I need help with helping my mom out.
Also, FYI: My mom isn't a ditzy 'tard as the rest of my post colored her as. She's actually pretty awesome, just a little clueless on how to solve computer problems. And no, I don't remember exactly what the program is called. All I remember is that it was a combo of two words with no space between the two and that it might have started with an S.
We would check right now but it also blocks the shutdown sequence and we don't want to have to shut it off the wrong way again.
Sorry for the long explanation. I felt that maybe if you guys knew everything, you might be able to help me out more.
Please help us fix this problem!