Stopping VirusRemover2008

Once again some major fool has created more work for me…this time, a client intemperately clicking a link in Huffingtonpost.com’s comment section has installed an app called ViruRemover2008, supposedly an antiviral program, but in reality an annoying piece of malware.  Pop-ups continually distract you indicating that there are viruses on your computer.  To ‘fix’ this problem, you are advised to purchase the full version of VirusRemover2008.  VR2008 will never stop asking you, and will not allow itself to be uninstalled.  This is a business model?

So I spent some time trying to remove the program fragments in the manner suggested at Symantec.com, but I never did find them.  SAV might have found and deleted them by the time I arrived on the scene, or the VR2008 author may have read the same page and changed his code.  The virus was only active in a single user’s profile, so the actual fix was:

• let Symantec AV do its thing
• copy the user’s profile
• delete the user’s profile
• after making sure the problem is gone, restore the user’s desktop items and internet favorites.

So far, that has worked.  Try not to get too angry.

How to be a computer expert, or at least smell like one.

So now you’ve graduated from college (or maybe dropped out), and you’re working in computer support. Not phone support, which is less a job than occupational water-boarding, but having to interact with people in person. I’ve noticed a few failings in my young male colleagues that I wish to address in a series of Support Tips:

1. Wash. I was once described as “one of the more pleasant support people, as I ‘bathed regularly’.” I bathe every day, as a matter of fact. I use deodorant and everything. People don’t want to gossip about your scent…they prefer not to smell you at all.
2. Wash your clothes. See #1
3. Wash your hands. You’re walking around all day long typing on other people’s keyboards. You’re a walking, talking disease vector. Wash your hands after you use someone else’s keyboard and mouse. That way you might also skip getting their 2-year-old’s pink-eye. I’ve used keyboards so thick with finger goo I could barely keep down my lunch.
4. Answer your e-mails in a timely fashion. Please. Pretty please. And remember to set your ‘Out-Of-Office’ message when you go on vacation. You know what sending an email to some IT support people is like? Screaming into the abyss. All you hear is the wind.

…more to come.