[JohnE]

My laptop has picked up a gnarly virus that seems to have won...and I am sick of screwing with it (Well, having my neighbor screw with it...). Right now she cant get it past the screen saver/wallpaper/front page. It is 3 years old, has had minor issues before, but has some important (Not super important...) stuff on it I dont really want to lose.

Waht are the pros/cons of having it rescued by some geek squad types vs. just cashing it in and buying a new one?

I dont game, mostly surf and shop and do online school over it. Plus music...

Ideas?

 

[$tinkle]

geek squad is over-priced & your problems are software-related, so the laptop is good. after you (or your neighbor) get your stuff off onto a thumb drive, just get your original operating system disks & reinstall.

there's other threads here about free anti-virus, too.

 

[syadasti]

geek squad is over-priced & your problems are software-related, so the laptop is good. after you (or your neighbor) get your stuff off onto a thumb drive, just get your original operating system disks & reinstall.

there's other threads here about free anti-virus, too.

One personal client of mine I only gave them one strike (reload). A few years later, at the beginning of this year, I agreed only to install Ubuntu on it (they can still boot to the malware infested Windows partition if needed). They are happy with it so far and their kid really likes it. It does everything they need it to do, even Skype for calls to Russia.

Besides free AV like Avast, I highly recommend PSI to any Windows user, regardless of experience. It runs in the background by default or you can disable autostart and just run it on command if you like.

PSI found an vulnerable version of msxml4 in Window 7 Beta that MS hasn't bothered (or realized) to push updates via Windows Update (you can manually update it, just look for the latest KB/fix.)

http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/

 

[IH8Rice]

one downfall is that they will see all your porn