Well, of course, on my family's 2007 Emachines PC running Windas Veesta, the included McAfee virus software is out of date. So, with Windas and my parents bugging me to update it, I decide to do so, using the free McAfee anti-everything suite Comcast provides.

Yeah, right.

I go to Comcast's site, log in and go to the anti-virus download page. It says to uninstall any existing anti-virus software on the computer before proceeding, so I do, and uninstall the old McAfee and restart.

BIG mistake. Naturally I now click "Download now" and get an error saying I cannot download it. I think the windows shattered when I yelled at the sight of that error. First they say I need to uninstall the old to install the new, then they tell me, after I've removed the old software, that I can't download the new one. Neither of our email accounts will work with it.

This all happened yesterday, and I told my mother to stay off the shut-down computer. Well, I guess she didn't tell my father, as he turned it on today while I was at school and went on his favorite motorcycle website. Can anyone say "Infected?" With what I don't know, but now Windas is going crazy with alerts, and nothing on the computer works at all. (Maybe next time I'll steal the power cord too.)

Oh well, now we have to go to Best Buy and buy a new AV program, when we're supposed to have one free. And I have to erase/reinstall Windows. (And then remove all the bloatware the restore discs install...) Well, I was going to a friend's 16th-birthday party this weekend.

Was.

Ian A.

Why do you think he is infected. I have been running without AV protection for years. I am just very careful about what I download and what I open. Occasionally I do a full system virus scan and it never finds anything.
I have a couple spyware programs but when I stopped taking cookies it doesn't find much either

I found McAfee WAS a virus. My system crashed more than Evel Kinevel when it was running in the background.

I'm surprised that you couldn't just update within the program itself... Generally, it's set to do this automatically; maybe someone who doesn't speak computer disabled the auto-update?

You could use something like housecall (http://housecall.trendmicro.com/) to check for viruses before installing the new AV. If you're not comfortable using MacAfee anymore, you could go with AVG, which is free. I use the corporate version of MacAfee VirusScan and haven't had many problems with it, other than it blocking my email--but I have a university IT department who fixed that for me.

Before I had the free software through the uni, I used PC-Cilin and had no problems with it. It was way simpler to use and almost totally unobtrusive (except for the scheduled full-disk scans).

I agree with a previous post that AVG is the way to go. McAfee is a terrible program and don't even bother trying to get help from them. Once they have your money you get the voicemail... Try adding the COMODO firewall. It's free too. And both programs will let you know when updates are available. Plus be careful where you surf..
Cheers,
Andy

Their online scanner found a few "bad guys" on it.



I gotta agree there, but I'm just following orders.



I was going from 2007 came-with-PC McAfee to 2008 Comcast-provided McAfee, couldn't find how to bridge the gap.

Ian A.

Can't you just go to a previous restore point?

With Vista, it would be a safe bet that the Windows OS itself is probably more than just a little at fault here as well. Especially with all the uninstalled critical patches and updates MS has out there since Vista's release.
I also switched from McAfee to AVG 7.5 Anti-Virus Plus Firewall two years ago and haven’t regretted it. Much better program than McAfee, less expensive license, simple interface, smaller update file downloads and less system resources tied up which means a faster computer and no obnoxious AV related crashes to deal with.

Isn’t it possible to restore the last known good configuration of Windows through the startup utility?

I wiped the hard drive and reinstalled Vista earlier, minus the old McAfee and all the other bloatware. Installed the free AVG 7.5 and their free spyware program. This computer runs faster than it did new.

I've had such headaches with the restore-to-previous-time feature I deleted it from the start menu.

Ian A.

I am not an XP guy, I still use 98SE on my machines but I have fixed a lot of problems for other people with the system restore.

If you're not going to use system restore, you can disable it in System Properties (at least in ME-2K-XP, not sure where it's located in Vista) and you will free up a hefty chunk (usually 5-10%) of hard drive space.