Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Computer Problems Up The Gazoo....

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Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 06-25-2003, 06:27 PM:

McAfee Version 7.0

At the radio station, many of our computers were infected by tons if virus programs. We had an "Expert" from the local computer shop come in to clean up our drives. He took the drives from each machine and connected them to his machine he brought in and scanned the drives and removed virus programs. He was running XP Pro in his machine. He then installed Mcafee on some of the drives after they were re-installed in their respective computers.

Most of our junk has Windows 95 and 98 installed. Most of our machines are Pentuim 133's, except for a few.

So far, one machine had the printer drivers blown off. Another machine had the LAN card blown off. Two other computers were blown off the internet DSL. Two other computers lost some protocols for networking.

The boss's computer could not get on DSL this morning, and I could not run the network wizard because it "could not load its components." Winzip won't zip, and the computer takes about 5 minutes to boot. I uninstalled McAfee in that machine, and that didn't help at all.

Can someone give me some idea as to what the hell is going on? I have heard McAafee likes to munch on files that it has no business munching on. Apparently some files were removed or corrupted on the boss's computer. It appears the registry is screwed up as bad as Hogan's goat.

My machine (the one I am using now) had its drive removed for scanning, and I had to put it back together myself. The "expert" didn't complete the job. My computer is using Win 2K Pro, and no virus programs were present on this machine. But I did notice that it seems to run much slower than it orginally did before he yanked the drive to scan it.

What went wrong? I have been plagued with nothing but computer problems here at the station after the "expert" departed, and I am so frustrated I want to yank the whole damned computer systems and smash them with a hammer. [Mad]

[ 06-26-2003, 11:16 PM: Message edited by: Paul G. Thompson ]

Posted by Christopher Duvall (Member # 284) on 06-26-2003, 03:14 AM:

Looks like the "expert" [sex]

you. I run McAfee as well and it did have problem with XP-Pro. It seems that XP and some active virus scanners do not get along. I turned the live scanning off and I saw a tremendous boost in speed. I now have scheduled drive scans instead of active live scans. I say backup your essential files, wipe the drive and re-install everything and then restore the backed up files. Then break the fingers of the "expert" if he comes near the machines again.

Posted by Mathew Molloy (Member # 666) on 06-26-2003, 04:04 AM:

Paul, I've installed McAfee on several older (and my current)computers over and over again with no problems. I think Christopher has the right idea - if that's possible. The only thing that seems to slow the computers down is a background program called Alogserv that I disable in msconfig (and after I run McAfee).

It does sound like the expert screwed things up and perhaps he even used McAfee to do some data shredding or something incorrectly and really screwed things up.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 06-26-2003, 10:24 AM:

the problem may not be what the expert did but what the expert didn't do. That is check to see if any major system files have been damaged or corrupted. Virus scan programs can take care of getting rid of viruses but don't do a damn thing for the damage that is already done. The drive of your bosses computer may be corrupted to the point that it needs everything reinstalled on it. I would do a reformat of the drives and reinstalled all the software. This guarentees that all corrupted files are repaired and any leftover virus files that the antivirus program did not detect will be gone.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 06-26-2003, 10:50 PM:

I got all the computers (except one) up and running again, but I thought I "lost it" for a few minutes mentally. I was almost ready to go totally stark-raving sterile-assed NUTS! I just "quivered" and fought with my temper to hold my composure without blowing up, but I am still mumbling to myself....and answering my own questions. Thank God, I am not yet listening to myself. [Big Grin]

I had to format the boss's drive. It was too "lunched" to do anything but format it. But it is up and running now, and most things have been restored to the internet. The "used hub" our friendly "Expert" sold us crashed. Now we know why they had it laying around in their shop... [Mad]

One more computer to go......but I am not going to do it. Supposedly, it is under "warrenty" from our friendly "expert"....and I'll let him [fu]

with it. I had enough.

Seriously, practically every machine that had anything to do with McAfee 7.0 turned sour and crashed. I don't know if it was the cause.....if some of you guru's might re-read my post, maybe you can tell better than I can.

As for now, we are "holding off" on installing McAfee in the rest of the machines that use the internet until I can determine if it is causing problems. So far, all the machines with exception of mine (running Win2K and the boss's POS running Win 98) has McAfee 7.0 installed. I told the boss not to download anything or open any file attachments in his machine. The other machine in the front office has W2K Professional installed, and it seems to be doing OK so far.

When the "expert" removed my drive from my machine to scan in his, a few settings were somehow changed to default values. I was able to correct that, and mine is running much better now....so it seems. It got it's "speed" back, and I have not been insulted by errors of any kind.

Comments?

Then, the Associated Press computer took a dump. It is an old "386"...yes... a 386! The hard drive developed a bunch of bad sectors and interleaved and torched a bunch of files.

AP tech people are coming up to handle that one.....but I have to supply a DOS computer that works. (I have 6 of them for that matter so I can spare one) No biggie...I have a ton of that shit running around, and they are Pentium 75's with nothing more than DOS 6.22 installed. AP loves that idea. [Smile]

Edited for a typo.

[ 06-27-2003, 02:45 AM: Message edited by: Paul G. Thompson ]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-26-2003, 11:59 PM:

I don't like McAfee's stuff very much at all. I just wiped the OEM bundled version off the new Dell system hooked up to the vinyl cutter/plotter in our studio. On occaision McAfee would get in the way of networking connections with the other computers in the workgroup. More problematic is how it would block out the HASP and Rainbow drivers needed to see the FlexiSign Pro and EnRoute 3D security dongles on the parallel port. And then there was the especially annoying way how the program would always launch itself again after you exit out of it. Basically the app required itself to be turned off twice to stay turned off --and that was only good on that XP Pro login. Switch users and you have to go through the crap twice again.

I have a little more preference toward Norton Anti-Virus.

Paul, I agree with Christopher in guessing the "expert" computer guy [sex]

your office over. You can try to run all sorts of anti viral fix programs, but chances are very slim you'll be able to fix all the files or find all the virus infections. If I even slightly suspect my computer has been hit with a virus, I format the hard disc and start over clean.

Formatting and starting over clean actually takes less time than taking it to some "computer expert." This is especially true for newer computers that can boot directly from a Windows reinstallation CD. To me it seems like a better alternative than boxing up the CPU and taking it to the "computer expert" (where the machine will likely sit on a bench for a week before the guy takes a bunch of risky shortcuts, delivering a half-ass fix and possibly putting your machine into even worse shape).

Anti-virus software and software/hardware firewalls are great for Internet and network security. But they are only as good as the discipline (or lack thereof) on the part of the user. Everyone I know who has had a virus infection over the last couple years has gotten it out of plain e-mail ignorance. They see a strange e-mail come into Outlook Express. The unknown mail has a file attachment [Confused]

. And they click on it anyway! [Mad]

Just doing that can launch any number of script based virus programs. Even more crazy is how users will get a .exe attachment that doesn't auto-launch --so they double click the damned thing! [Eek!]

That sort of thing reminds me of that screwy statistic of how most stolen cars are unlocked and even a significant percentage have the keys in the ignition! [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 06-27-2003, 01:00 AM:

I'm with Bobby on Norton. I don't know much about those programs, but I have it on everything here... including WIN98/SE, NT4 and XP Home & Pro. Nothing's been hit since I put it on.

A larger concern might be how the virus is getting past your firewall (yes??). Your boss opening up some of those "I expect you would like this" files???

Nice to hear you got your gazoo cleaned out! [Big Grin]