

Wipeout
#1 OFFLINE
Posted 12 December 2017 - 08:53 AM
When I tried a restart I got as far as the welcome screen and then a blue screen with a cursor. I left the machine running about 5 hours with no result. There seemed to be some disk activity but nothing else. I booted the machine with Linux off a USB stick and everything looked fine. I was able to connect to my network via wifi in both cases.
I have never seen anything like this. At the end of the day I did a system reset, reinstalled Windows and got the desktop back. Of course all her software (browsers, Libre Office, CCleaner, Malware Bytes) was lost So I need to reinstall all that, get her back on her network and reinstall her printer, log her back into her websites, bookmark them and so on.

#2 OFFLINE
Posted 12 December 2017 - 10:37 AM
#3 OFFLINE
Posted 12 December 2017 - 11:05 AM
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That's when he called me.
I asked how long did he wait before shutting down. "About 5 minutes."

So he let it be for a couple hours and woke the computer to see a screen that said, "reboot your computer to apply updates". After following a couple more instructions and one final reboot, his computer came up with all the updates properly applied and he was good to go.
Lesson of the day? "Patience Grasshopper!"
Heeding the notice, "Installing updates. Do not shut down your computer" helps too.

It is not uncommon for Windows to appear to be doing nothing when in actuality, there is a lot of activity going on between the CPU and RAM. I note too many computers and computer cases these days don't have drive activity indicators. I think that is too bad, but that's for another discussion.

Freedom is NOT Free!

Heat is the bane of all electronics!
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#4 OFFLINE
Posted 12 December 2017 - 11:21 AM
I left the machine to chug along for 5 hours. Then I felt there was no alternative but a Reset and Reinstall. Things are OK now except I have to reinstall and reconfigure all her software today.
There was no backup or image to reapply.
I do not understand why the most technically incompetent people (Shari or Lillian) manage to get themselves into the worst messes. I have worked with Windows for over 25 years (and DOS before that) and I have never seen anything like this.

#5 OFFLINE
Posted 12 December 2017 - 11:36 AM
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Sadly, by the time we are called into help, too much damage is done and drastic measures (like resets and reinstalls) are all that's left.
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Actually, I blame much of this on the bad guys - with help from the Internet. If so much code (deep seated code at that) and system resources didn't need to be dedicated to security to protect us from the constant onslaught from bad guys, and if computing didn't require our systems be "connected", many of these update problems would never happen.

Freedom is NOT Free!

Heat is the bane of all electronics!
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#6 OFFLINE
Posted 13 December 2017 - 10:44 AM
I can't figure out why people think it is okay to have just 1 copy of something important. <sigh>
#7 OFFLINE
Posted 13 December 2017 - 11:37 AM
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Look at the fires in California, or Hurricane Irma where entire homes (and neighborhoods!

I had a client whose house was robbed. The bad guy took the computer and the external drive sitting next to the monitor. They also looked in his computer desk drawer and took the index card of the users passwords.

"But I live in a safe neightborhood!"

I am not a fan of "cloud" storage. I don't fear my data will be lost, I just don't trust it will not be stolen or compromised by hackers. So for those irreplaceable photos and other non-sensitive documents, the cloud is great. For other things (tax records, business records, client credit card information, etc.) I recommend keeping a copy at your bank in a safe deposit box.

Freedom is NOT Free!

Heat is the bane of all electronics!
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#8 OFFLINE
Posted 13 December 2017 - 06:29 PM
raymac46, on 12 December 2017 - 11:21 AM, said:
Edited by ebrke, 13 December 2017 - 06:31 PM.
#9 OFFLINE
Posted 13 December 2017 - 07:30 PM
She has an old Gateway laptop which ran Windows XP so I have installed Lubuntu on it as a backup machine so at least she can get her email in a pinch.

#10 OFFLINE
Posted 27 December 2017 - 04:03 PM

#11 OFFLINE
Posted 14 January 2018 - 09:56 AM
After a nuke and repave he is back booting OK but of course all his apps are gone. I hope he synced his Chrome bookmarks. I'll spend a couple of hours today trying to get him back in business.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the patches for Meltdown and Spectre.

#12 OFFLINE
Posted 14 January 2018 - 11:22 AM
The only problem I am aware of with those patches is some users with specific AMD processors ended up with systems that would not boot at all.

Freedom is NOT Free!

Heat is the bane of all electronics!
____________________________________________
#13 OFFLINE
Posted 14 January 2018 - 11:42 AM
He has Norton Security as his AV but as far as I can see that has not caused problems with the Microsoft update.
As I am never around when this stuff occurs it is pretty hard to speculate why. If the user is smart enough to tell me what caused the issue it probably would not have happened at all. Problems others run into with Windows don't happen with me.

#14 OFFLINE
Posted 14 January 2018 - 12:28 PM
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Freedom is NOT Free!

Heat is the bane of all electronics!
____________________________________________
#15 OFFLINE
Posted 14 January 2018 - 08:07 PM
For some reason he was running both McAfee and Norton. I suspect McAfee came with the PC in the first place. Uninstalled it and he can use Norton. Since I had to re-download I am pretty sure he has the latest version. BTW he does have an Intel processor.
And so it goes. I'll report back if anyone else in the hood borks their Windows 10 installation.
<Edit> Forgot to mention that Al had signed into Chrome and synced his bookmarks so he did not lose anything when we reinstalled the browser.
Edited by raymac46, 14 January 2018 - 08:24 PM.

#16 OFFLINE
Posted 15 January 2018 - 12:59 PM
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As far as the Intel processor, I note many motherboard makers have released new BIOS update. See Corrine's post here.

Freedom is NOT Free!

Heat is the bane of all electronics!
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#17 OFFLINE
Posted 15 January 2018 - 07:02 PM
His desktop is an Acer and as far as I can see they do have McAfee Live Safe included with their software package.

#18 OFFLINE
Posted 16 January 2018 - 10:20 AM
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They can strongly desire you use their bundled security package but, at least in this country, they can not force you to install 3rd party software you don't want (unless, maybe, your entire Internet service is totally free).

Freedom is NOT Free!

Heat is the bane of all electronics!
____________________________________________
#19 OFFLINE
Posted 16 January 2018 - 01:14 PM
The other big ISP in town (Verizon/FIOS), has the exact same McAfee package (with the Verizon co-brand), at extra cost. My wife has FIOS at her business. I've installed (and uninstalled) both.
It's not going to get installed by mistake, nor by accident.
It doesn't "play nice" with other "real-time" anti-virus products, so making it mandatory would be a bad PR move for the ISP.
Edited by Pete!, 16 January 2018 - 01:16 PM.
#20 OFFLINE
Posted 16 January 2018 - 01:36 PM
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Now granted, there are a couple "ifs" in there, but most users will not understand they don't need to use the disk.

Freedom is NOT Free!

Heat is the bane of all electronics!
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#21 OFFLINE
Posted 16 January 2018 - 05:31 PM
I didn't use an installation disk to set up my router/gateway even though it is supplied by Rogers.
If you do choose to use the premium package the installer will remove other competing security suites, according to the literature about it.
Edited by raymac46, 16 January 2018 - 05:33 PM.

#22 OFFLINE
Posted 16 January 2018 - 05:52 PM
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Other programs are not designed to be disabled. And no way is their package going to "remove" Windows Defender or any other decent security program. They are purposely designed so they cannot be removed, except by their own uninstall routines.
If any 3rd party security app can remove any other 3rd party security app with such ease, there would be constant turf wars going on and the bad guys would be having a heyday too.
So either the literature is lying or there is some other misunderstanding going.

Freedom is NOT Free!

Heat is the bane of all electronics!
____________________________________________
#23 OFFLINE
Posted 16 January 2018 - 10:06 PM
You must remove the other antivirus software yourself as a condition of using Rogers software for security.
You must install Rogers Online Protection Premium using Rogers Hi-Speed Internet.
Your PC must meet these minimum requirements:
- Microsoft Windows XP SP3 (32-bit)
- Microsoft Windows Vista SP2 (32 and 64-bit)
- Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 (32 and 64-bit)
- Microsoft Windows 8 (32 and 64-bit)
- Microsoft Windows 10 (32 and 64-bit)
- 1 GHz processor or higher
- 1 GB of RAM (1.5 GB for Windows Vista, 7 and 8)
- 1.8 GB of free hard disk space
- Removal of other antivirus software
Edited by raymac46, 16 January 2018 - 10:09 PM.

#24 OFFLINE
Posted 16 January 2018 - 10:14 PM
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Freedom is NOT Free!

Heat is the bane of all electronics!
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#25 OFFLINE
Posted 16 January 2018 - 10:29 PM
Personally I prefer to choose my own security suite and I have not been pressured to use Rogers' product. Sometimes they offer it as a freebie in certain Intermet/TV packages but I just decline and they don't insist.

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