Jay Daniels wrote:
There are virus/spyware/trojans that have tiny triggers that even if they are deleted will reinfect and reactivate.Thanks duncan and everyone.
After I explained to her about the Microsoft license agreement, she seemed more inclinded to install Linux but yet has her doubts that everything will work. I also explained about the kernel 2.4 ACPI issues and that FC2 had kernel version 2.6.* and that may solve those issues.
Still, I am going to give Windows one last chance. We will purchase a commercial anti-virus today and see if it fixes the virus/trojan problems.
The real problem is she let's other family members use her laptop and they probably open some attachment that was infected that the free webmail service did not detect. Windows updates are run nightly and her system should be up to date, but it was infected anyway and AVG didn't work. It detects but does not get rid of the virus. She seems to have multiple virus' that replicate themselves.
Often if this kind of software gets on your machine the ONLY fix is a full format and reinstall.
Some packages that might help (in addition to the virus software and keeping it up to date) is spy-bot and spy-scanner. They were rated the best in a recent PC Magazine article for monitoring and cleaning many of these types of packages.
In my case I have been running McAfee virus scan for years. Recently I installed Norton as well and it informed me that 2 files never hit by McAfee contained trojans. Go Figure!
If that doesn't work, I'm trashing XP and will attempt to install fedora Sunday.
Although galeon is not included in fedora, that's usually the frist thing I install on my linux boxes. She has used Galeon on my box and really likes this browser. Perhaps this is the first step to converting her to Linux. She also likes all the free games and oowriter.
I'm so tired of her asking me how to do this or do that in Windows XP. She knows linux has it's quirks but she also knows I have files on my box which I saved years ago and never seem to lose anything. I attribute that to Linux being a rock solid os!
Let you know how it goes.
jay
