[aklug] Re: Windows question ... geez, sorry :(

On 03/19/2011 08:50 AM, Bruce Hill wrote:
> Hey List,
>
> Sorry to ask ... we just moved back to America after living in China for
> almost 9 years. I'm attempting to feed my homeless family by building and
> repairing computers atm, waiting for a job or if self-employment suffices.
>
> I have a customer's Compaq Presario CQ80 with an unusual problem. He said
> the kbd sometimes doesn't input all his key presses. After removing a lot
> of malware, I could not replicate this. He showed me that by opening his
> homepage to Facebook, then entering his username and password there was a
> problem.
>
> Using notepad, IE's address bar, MS Word -- there is no kbd error; so it
> is my opinion that his kbd is fine. He reported logging into his ISP's
> email interface (Frontier) gave that problem, but does not anymore. I've
> used my bank's login page and have no problem. It's just with him logging
> into Facebook afaict. (Yes, I tried it and it fails for me, also.)
>
> Does anyone know of this issue? We don't even have a Facebook account, or
> any other social networking thing. Yes, I'm an antisocial geek. My
> preference is face-to-face human interaction. ;)
>
> Thanks for any experience you can share with this Windows issue, or a
> shove in some direction. We are staying in a motorhome out in the sticks
> without internet connection, and the iPhone's 3G gets one bar sometimes;
> but is not feasible for internet browser searches IMO.
>
> Peace,
> Bruce

Welcome home Bruce. I presume we're talking XP here? What I'd do is
first make a new non-privileged account if there isn't one, and also an
administrator account that isn't named administrator. (IIRC the default
admin account doesn't appear in the login splash screen.)

First though, I'd go to Control Panel, and click on Internet Options and
empty the temporary internet files. Then set it to maybe 25 to 50 mb
instead of whatever it is. I think it defaults to 2% of the disk. (You
can fit an awful lot of 10k gifs into a 50 MB cache folder!) Lots of
evil stuff lives in the temp folder so keeping it small and maybe even
flushing it when he exits IE isn't a bad thing.

Next, go to Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and run Disk
Cleanup. Put a check on any non-zero entry *except* the compress disk
option. That'll clean up additional cruft.

Finally, change his account to a regular account now, log in as the
newly created administrator with shiny new secure password, right click
on Start, select Explore All Users, then browse down to the old user and
copy his Desktop, his 'My Documents' and his IE Favorites folder into
the new non-administrator account. That's really all he needs probably.
  Log in as the new non-admin user, and kick the tires.

Of course, you should also probably extol the virtues of a non-windows
based system while you're at it, but that may or may not get any traction.

All this presupposes that there is a current up to date antivirus
installed, and he's current on patches.

If all that fails, hopefully he has a system disk or a license key for a
complete reinstall. Once that malware gets in there it can hide itself
pretty well sometimes.

(BTW, I think I'd change your bank password. If it's a keylogger that
is interfering w/his Facebook login, the bad guys may now have your
credentials.)

HTH. Please post results...

...Kevin

-- 
Kevin Miller - http://www.alaska.net/~atftb
Juneau, Alaska
In a recent survey, 7 out of 10 hard drives preferred Linux
Registered Linux User No: 307357, http://counter.li.org
---------
To unsubscribe, send email to <aklug-request@aklug.org>
with 'unsubscribe' in the message body.