"It is quite a serious one and it usually takes a couple of days to remove it."

NO virus takes 2 days to remove. Especially not if you are dealing with it as often as claimed here.

I wonder if West Wilsthire Micros or Adam Drury have the slightest clue of what they are rambling on about or have any idea of how computer viri spread? They are certainly not confined to West Wiltshire lol.

"It is quite a serious one and it usually takes a couple of days to remove it."

I've fixed one PC with this virus at work. In all it took 1 hour and that was to find out what it was, google for the name on the pop up box adding remove after it in the search box and follow instructions, remove the files running on the laptop and do a system restore from a previous date before infection.

I reckon 2 days is their backlog of work and with a little expense ($15 or £7) you can purchase a program to remove it automatically!!

Yes its a problem for anyone without an indepth knowledge of pc's, processes and registry editing skills but 2 days for a business when automatic removal tools are available is over hyping it all.

I'll fix it for £10.00, turnaround 30 inutes or £5.00 turnaround 2 days, let me know if you want me to help.

Yeah that's what it sounds like to me Necker. West Wiltshire Micros is trying to screw customers as well as the virus writers. 2 days my eye!

Here's a link to a free remover for Antivirus 2008. Takes a few minutes.

http://www.malwareby
tes.org/mbam/databas
e/mbam-rules.exe

Necker wrote:

"It is quite a serious one and it usually takes a couple of days to remove it."

I've fixed one PC with this virus at work. In all it took 1 hour and that was to find out what it was, google for the name on the pop up box adding remove after it in the search box and follow instructions, remove the files running on the laptop and do a system restore from a previous date before infection. I reckon 2 days is their backlog of work and with a little expense ($15 or £7) you can purchase a program to remove it automatically!! Yes its a problem for anyone without an indepth knowledge of pc's, processes and registry editing skills but 2 days for a business when automatic removal tools are available is over hyping it all. I'll fix it for £10.00, turnaround 30 inutes or £5.00 turnaround 2 days, let me know if you want me to help.

£20 quid an hour Nuckles?? and that's obviously 'mates rates'.
Very nice indeed. Dont know what it is your so bitter about.

Alex Zivojinovich wrote:

Necker wrote:

"It is quite a serious one and it usually takes a couple of days to remove it."

I've fixed one PC with this virus at work. In all it took 1 hour and that was to find out what it was, google for the name on the pop up box adding remove after it in the search box and follow instructions, remove the files running on the laptop and do a system restore from a previous date before infection. I reckon 2 days is their backlog of work and with a little expense ($15 or £7) you can purchase a program to remove it automatically!! Yes its a problem for anyone without an indepth knowledge of pc's, processes and registry editing skills but 2 days for a business when automatic removal tools are available is over hyping it all. I'll fix it for £10.00, turnaround 30 inutes or £5.00 turnaround 2 days, let me know if you want me to help.

£20 quid an hour Nuckles?? and that's obviously 'mates rates'. Very nice indeed. Dont know what it is your so bitter about.

West Wiltshire Micros came on here trying to impress would be customers. To be honest a business who knows what they are doing would not take 2 days to sort out a simple problem like a virus infection. The problem is that any business pretending to be respectable will not survive charging customers £20 a time. This seems to have rebounded on the company who should have kept their head down.

I'll have to side with the Wiltshire Micro guys. Yes, removing this pesk is easy, but my experience is if this guy is there, there are more problems lurking. I have fixed this several times myself with about a two day turnaround. In every case, anti virus was out of date or missing, updates not performed, garbage and never used programs launching at start up, and a highly fragmented hard drive. Yes, it took two days, but my customer got back a computer that wasn't just "fixed", it was like a new machine ready for battle with all of their settings, favorites, documents, etc, all intact.

I had this 'virus' a couple of days ago - I made (in restrospect) the mistake of trying to fix it myself following info on the symantec website, anyhow I must have messed up the registry as I eventually lost the use of windows altogether. I had to do a total system restore which meant I lost all my data. I wish someone would show me how to retsore to a couple of days ago - is this an easy task/ any links anyone knows on the web of how to do this? I have windows xp.

mummybear wrote:
I had this 'virus' a couple of days ago - I made (in restrospect) the mistake of trying to fix it myself following info on the symantec website, anyhow I must have messed up the registry as I eventually lost the use of windows altogether. I had to do a total system restore which meant I lost all my data. I wish someone would show me how to retsore to a couple of days ago - is this an easy task/ any links anyone knows on the web of how to do this? I have windows xp.

A system restore to a point a few days before the virus will indeed bring the pc back to life.

Mummybear. Start/All Programms/ Accessories/System Tools/ System Restore.

Itchy Harris wrote:
Mummybear. Start/All Programms/ Accessories/System Tools/ System Restore.

Well done Itchy. Nuckles wants 20 quid an hour to come and do that. Bleedin scheister she is.

I suffered the same probelm and it took a computor expert 3 days to repair mine and in the end he have to wipe it all off and start again I loss everything

daisy wrote:
I suffered the same probelm and it took a computor expert 3 days to repair mine and in the end he have to wipe it all off and start again I loss everything

An 'expert' you say Daisy? PMSL.... I eat them for brekky.

Glad everyone can see that although this can be a serious problem it's not insurmountable without profesional high street intervention.

This story is really a long winded advert for WW micros with a fear factor spin.

I'll now fix it for £3 let me know if I can help. ;)

I wasn't for one minute knocking the genuine need for such retail outlets to offer a service to sort out problems that people not computer aware run into and I am sure that being a business it would need supporting by a fee disproportionate to the actual cost of the equipment. I was more concerned with such an apparently professional busines not having a clue what they are doing even though they are getting 50 identical problems in a month. I'd never heard of this virus but got an answer from Google in minutes. Why cannot West Wiltshire Micros sort it out in less than 2 days? Absolutely p1ss poor show by them I'd say however it's looked at.

Ive currently got a dead laptop wish i knew why lol it just crashed then we restored it to a previous date it was fine then it totally crashed and now it wont do diddly squat thankfully its my sons laptop so nothing vital is on there but thats not the point. If windows stopped ripping people off maybe they wouldnt get attacked by all these viruses in the first place. I now have to either pay for repairs or buy a new windows system even though i technically already own it on the laptop to start with or get another laptop Great innit

donteventhinkit wrote:
Ive currently got a dead laptop wish i knew why lol it just crashed then we restored it to a previous date it was fine then it totally crashed and now it wont do diddly squat thankfully its my sons laptop so nothing vital is on there but thats not the point. If windows stopped ripping people off maybe they wouldnt get attacked by all these viruses in the first place. I now have to either pay for repairs or buy a new windows system even though i technically already own it on the laptop to start with or get another laptop Great innit

Kids have an uncanny knack of 'inviting' nasties onto your PC's.
Not deliberately but the horrible people out there know how to make you click things unwittingly and therefore allow their naughty software to install itself.

The biggest problem is when the 'pop up' looks like a genuine windows XP/Vista message box, this has nearly fooled me a few times.

Be paranoid of anything that says you have problems. If you are not experiencing any especially.
Today the operating systems xp/vista are quite robust and will only have problems if the user creates them, normally by installing software that is designed to do so from the internet.

Here is a massive tip.

Before you install anything off the internet which you have not bought from a shop go into google and do 2 searches.
The first search type
the programname you want to install and then review
e.g.
Napster review
or
Limewire review

read what people say..

Then the second search should be the program name and virus
e.g.
Napster review
or
Anti-virus 2009 virus

Normally these two searches will let you know if the program is OK or dangerous.

ALWAYS DO A REVIEW SEARCH
ALWAYS KEEP YOUR ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE UPTODATE AND DO WEEKLY FULL SCANS

Make sure the review site is a bona fide one, these can be spotted as they have review in their website address or there are 1000's of reviews on all sorts from lots of different poeple.

Kids... can you buy Anti-kidware protection once they have installed themselves into your family... nope.
Bless them.

Then the second search should be the program name and virus
e.g.
Napster review
or
Anti-virus 2009 virus

Napster review should say Napster virus

Just do these few things and rather than relying on the antivirus software to protect you retrospectivley you can stop it ever reaching your PC with these few simple actions.

Itchy Harris wrote:
Mummybear. Start/All Programms/ Accessories/System Tools/ System Restore.

Thanks Itchy Harris :)

£3.00 to get rid of the virus. how much will you charge me to get rid of this pesky pox I caught at a local nightclub.

For those of you with a curiosity about why this particular bit of scumbaggery has snuck under so many radars - there's a pretty good report here:

http://www.theregist
er.co.uk/2008/08/22/
anatomy_of_a_hack/

A tad tech but - well... it's not like it isn't known about - if it were a phone scam - the phone companies would soon shut it down - blocking an IP address isn't that difficult - ISPs and internet carriers should be far more proactive about swatting these creeps.

Jesus poor old west wilts micros.
Have a story and get absolutely slated, a shop like theirs might not be to everyones taste nor liking but i am sure their prescence has helped quite a few people over the years - as a company owner in trowbridge myself you always will have those saying "how much??"!! And my mate can do it for 95% less - well thats fine go and sort it and waste peoples time - my mate can fix my car but my car still goes to the main dealer for service for guarantee's etc etc. There's more to actually supporting local business, just cos it doesn't suit you it suits a lot of others...

just to add - another point if anyone realises sometimes what you read in the press is written out of context, for example the point of taking 2 days to complete - maybe it was supposed to be 2 days including taking the PC in and them getting around to yours ready to be collected? lol, oh so many 'experts' on matter of fact!

Disgusted of wrote:


"It is quite a serious one and it usually takes a couple of days to remove it."

NO virus takes 2 days to remove. Especially not if you are dealing with it as often as claimed here.

I wonder if West Wilsthire Micros or Adam Drury have the slightest clue of what they are rambling on about or have any idea of how computer viri spread? They are certainly not confined to West Wiltshire lol.

Ok allow me to clear a few things up here.

2 Days is our Worst Case Scenario, We DO NOT just look for that one infection, we run complete and thorough checks over each PC that comes in as this spyware infection usually comes along with a load of other nasty infections. We prefer to do a complete job on customer PCs rather than focusing on the one infection and then sending it straight back out to be reinfected.

If we do work on a customers PC for 2 days we DO NOT charge them for 2 days labour, instead we charge a maximum of £75 which is 3hrs labour. So we are losing out on money but would rather help customers in need than to charge them rediculous amounts of money.

If we kept quiet on this issue then a lot more people would have been stung by this infection, we would rather people know about it than to let them pay $99 - $150 for software that has no use.

I wonder if West Wilsthire Micros or Adam Drury have the slightest clue of what they are rambling on about or have any idea of how computer viri spread? They are certainly not confined to West Wiltshire lol

In no point in that message did i state that it is confined to west wiltshire..I would love to let the world know about this infection so it can be nipped in the bud quick.

Yeah that's what it sounds like to me Necker. West Wiltshire Micros is trying to screw customers as well as the virus writers. 2 days my eye!

I am trying to screw the virus writers..would you prefer us pay them? We dont want to "screw" any customer and have made a big loss in dealing with this infection to show people that we are here to help with this in any way we can.

West Wiltshire Micros came on here trying to impress would be customers. To be honest a business who knows what they are doing would not take 2 days to sort out a simple problem like a virus infection. The problem is that any business pretending to be respectable will not survive charging customers £20 a time. This seems to have rebounded on the company who should have kept their head down.

How has it rebounded on us? We are proud to know that we have done customers a good deed here. And yet we are surviving charging them for 3hrs work!

To clarify, if we was to remove 'Just' this infection it could/would take about an hour. But would you rather have your pc back in an hour just to find more infections on there or even the PC running much slower than before? Hence why we spend so long working on them, to make sure they go back working as they did before with no infections.

I suffered the same probelm and it took a computor expert 3 days to repair mine and in the end he have to wipe it all off and start again I loss everything

We have only ever had to wipe a PC once in our time due to extensive viral/spyware corruption. Sorry to hear that.

As for system restore it is only useful as a last ditch measure and most of the time your PC either ends up being much slower or even worse than before. I always have SR diabled on my PC as its a waste of drive space. Hope system restore worked successfully for you.

Hope this cleared up a few things as i have been in the process of moving house so never had the chance to read these.

Cheers

Adam Drury (Engineer @ West Wiltshire Micros)