Today I had one so bad . . .

Post #214,524 by Andrew Grygus 7/12/05 5:22:39 PM Reply	Today I had one so bad . . . . . I cleaned it up on my own time just to see if I could - there's no way a home user can afford what it actually took - you could buy a new computer for less. Any more like this I'll just tell 'em it's a reformat and reinstall. It had about 10 "toolbar" and "search accelerator" programs installed, a bunch of "bargain" programs, several "anti-spyware" programs that were actually spyware, the protocol stack had parasites in it, plenty of trojans, hidden .dlls that regenerated themselves, plenty of worms, and on and on. Apparently something had hijacked part of Kapersky's anti-virus program - it claims to be kavsvc.exe but what it points to is kakkkk.exe (which doesn't exist any more). I also see parasites disguised as parts of Norton Antivirus, pretty obvious on machines that don't have Norton installed but hard to notice on machines that do. Looks like they'd already downloaded and run Microsoft Anti-Spyware 'cause it's installed with the icon on the desktop. Fat lot of good it did them. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #214,541 by Ashton 7/12/05 6:49:51 PM Reply	At $3-400, via those execrable Mail-in coupons.. I'm wondering if, Just Buy a New One is not the drug of choice? Are lots doing just that? (And then, presuming the worst case of default Doze 'protection' ==> same user - what does that buy next: 22 minutes?) Funny.. except for those who actually need a box - for something related to eating - and who believe they couldn't possibly learn/buy some old Mac, say. (I rate that as a less-brainer than their having someone install/tutor them on *nix du jour.) Nutzo. All around.
Post #214,554 by Andrew Grygus 7/12/05 8:07:49 PM Reply	Not quite so simple . . . . the typical small office user has 4 years of email in Outlook they just can't live without (and none of it backed up), and they "can't find" the CD for some important programs and they've got documents and pictures (seldom porn, more likely their kids' graduations or baby pictures and such). Getting everything up and running the way they liked it on the old machine costs more than the new machine. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #214,556 by Another Scott 7/12/05 8:58:18 PM Reply	Why isn't a thin client compelling in that situation? Years ago the folks at Serenity Systems would talk about the wonders of using OS/2 and Warp Server and some glue to enable booting over the network faster than booting from the local hard disk. It would seem to be an ideal solution to this problem. I assume that it hasn't taken the world by storm because: 1) It's not Windows. 2) Small businesses don't generally plan their computer infrastructure unless they have to. When they need a new computing box, they get a new PC. They don't worry about backups and data security until it's too late. 3) It's not Windows. 4) It requires a server and a decent network and someone who can get it all running. 5) It's not Windows. Sun and others were pushing thin clients for a while too. Do you think that the businesses you deal with are going to continue to use fat PCs over the next, say, 10 years? Will they trust Microsoft or Symantec or Google to do periodic backups of their systems over the Internet as part of Windows Update v 23 (for a "nominal" subscription fee, of course)? Or will businesses finally realize that the only thing that keeps them alive is information (with the corollary that offshoring of business functions is drilling a tapered hole in their heads)? Thanks. Cheers, Scott.
Post #214,559 by Andrew Grygus 7/12/05 10:04:18 PM Reply	Reasons 1 through 5 . . . . . but particularly that they have no system administrator. When they need a computer they just go out and buy it. They expect their camera interface and their Blackberry interface and now their wireless cell phone interface to just install by sticking in a CD. Particularly the camera interface can be critical. And in almost every small business there's at least one critical application that runs only under Windows, so a different OS is not practical. Most are too paranoid about their business data (could be for one or more of several reasons) to allow some outsider to back it up over the Internet. The favorite backup setup for a small business is a server with a tape drive and a receptionist who can be depended on to change tapes and a PC guy to check the tapes once in a while. Some with different requirements back up to rewritable CD, but Windows XP's built in "user friendly" CD software has made that a very iffy thing. If it decides it doesn't like a rewriable (often), it just treats the job as a write once and stores everything somewhere and then starts popping up messages about files waiting to be written to CD. The users don't understand any of this. Whoever designed that thing should impaled on a thousand shards of broken CD. Except for the accounting data on the server with the tape drive, backing up everything else is pretty hit-and-miss. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]

Welcome to IWETHEY!