[kwlug-disc] [way OT] how to de-virus someone's windows box?

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Mon, 19 Jul 2010, Johnny Ferguson wrote:

> I think the only humane thing to do is take it out back with a
> shotgun and put the poor thing out of its misery.
>
> Alternatively, I used to swear by Avira Antivir. Viruses are nasty
> though. I was hit by one that corrupted every archive file on my
> system. I lost quite a lot of important stuff, and was finally
> pushed into using linux.
>
> I think the basic steps are:
>
> 1. Find out what the virus is
>
> 2. Find out what it can do
>
> 3. Salvage data accordingly
>
> 4. Get out the windows CD and get ready to spend the next hour
> clicking buttons and installing drivers for everything.

  and that's a road down which i really don't want to go.  i mean, i'm
fairly smart and i'm sure i could figure out how to be moderately
helpful, but unless i *really* know what i'm doing, there's a good
chance i can make things worse.  so i'd rather be able to just give
some generic advice -- perhaps a utility that simply *identifies* the
viruses -- then point the person in the direction of someone way
better at it than i am.

rday

-- 

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Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

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