One of the problems of serving as the resident geek, is that people routinely bring computers running windows which are totally overrun with trojans, virii and other assorted adware. It does seem that the majority of the work, I have been getting of late is related to restoring WinXP machines to working order.
*Sigh*, if I could just educate and convince parents not to let kids use that crap..
I have already explained my reasons for not teaching children to use any variant of M$ software. People complain that children barely can clean and organize their rooms, how the hell can they be responsible enough to vigilantly monitor and thwart trojans, virii, and adware on their computers running windows operating system? Does not seem logical.
Recently, I was asked to rescue a machine running WinXP Home. The machine had 373 variants of adware which had corrupted the system registry. The machine was still running SP1, as the trojans prevented the software updates.
So, as customary, I grabbed Spy-Bot Search and Destroy, and began to methodically remove the crap from the system registry. I also ran the Windows Update, so that I could upgrade the machine to SP2. Bare in mind that had the system not been so-called M$ genuine, the service updates and patches would not be available for install through conventional means. Yet another reason, that I strongly discourage the use of this software. Because the machine was a shrinked wrapped variety, I also grabbed the 3rd party virus and adware protection package. It seems that M$ acquired a company to help it better manage adware attacks on its system registry.
Receiving these updates took nearly 4.5 hrs (constant reboots), I then removed the very annoying Norton Anti-virus software and replaced it with Clam-Win a GPL'd anti-virus software package for win32 platform.
At the end of this entire ordeal, there was still one very pesky adware program that was embedded in the registry. Even booting in safe mode and running Spy-Bot from DOS shell did not remove it. The job was actually a freebie, so I left it there. Simply did not wish to waste further time. It is clear that the cost to maintain a windows box is extremely high considering the constant effort to thwart attacks on the system registry. My expectation is that I'll see the machine again in 6mths - 1yr.
The Redmond woolly mammoth claims that the registry will be restricted from 3rd party software. We'll see. Until then keep your children away from this software, instead introduce then to FOSS programs.
I'm in the same situation you're in - fixing WinXP that's overrun with crap. Might be time to go back home to Linux.
I'll have to plan it out because my goal is to turn that machine into a music and video library. It has to be able to convert to/from many video formats, such as 3gp (Treo), mp4 (PSP), avi, mov, and other standard Windows stuff, and even DVD when we eventually get a DVD writer. As long as I can find Linux solutions for all of that stuff, I'll set it up, back off the data currently on windows, and reload the thing cleanly.
Any further suggestions from the group?
mplayer will decode just about any audio and video codec you throw at it. Additionally, most modern Linux distros contain ffmpeg which will encode .3gp, .mp4, and many other video formats.
It sounds like the problem has nothing to do with windows but rather a lack of knowing how to apply updates.
Good luck teaching them:
apt-get update ; apt-get install bind; etc;
and explaining dependencies as well as make clean; make build; the next time there is a linux kernel security patch. Please don't fool yourself into thinking your precious operating system is fault tolerent from security.
K:
Perhaps I wasn't clear. The adware and trojans which attacked and corrupted the registry made it impossible for the machine to run any automated updates. For the life of me, I have never understood why the windows kernel (ie registry) is directly coupled to the software application layer. Can you explain this to me? While I'm not a software architect, this design seems troublesome at best.