Comments on: Users have trouble recognizing fake popups http://tips.vlaurie.com/2008/10/users-have-trouble-recognizing-fake-popups/ News, commentary and tips for safer and easier computing Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:15:10 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Vic Laurie http://tips.vlaurie.com/2008/10/users-have-trouble-recognizing-fake-popups/comment-page-1/#comment-4946 Vic Laurie Fri, 03 Oct 2008 01:33:17 +0000 http://tips.vlaurie.com/?p=2403#comment-4946 Thanks for the kind words. I wish you quick success in getting your system back up. Thanks for the kind words. I wish you quick success in getting your system back up.

]]> By: Susan Julia http://tips.vlaurie.com/2008/10/users-have-trouble-recognizing-fake-popups/comment-page-1/#comment-4945 Susan Julia Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:50:56 +0000 http://tips.vlaurie.com/?p=2403#comment-4945 This is a great site! Unfortunately, the reason I found it is that my pc (HP Pavilion, VISTA) crashed--first time in the 10 years I have been online...I have always been very careful about not opening anything I'm not sure of. On Monday I suddenly got an ALERT!! URGENT!!--that my computer was infected with 2 Trojan and 1 worm virus. It said I needed to act IMMEDIATELY!! I paused for about 10 secs since it DID say it was from Windows...but I reminded myself of all the scams and closed the msg and then did a "health" scan--results: no problems. Then I did a quick scan by AVG (NOT the comprehensive) and again no virus's, etc. A when I was in the middle of installing SP1, it suddenly shut down and that was it...I got the "blue screen" after starting it up in a very limited safe mode. I had no idea that you could tell the difference between a real alert and the zillion other "alerts" offering to scan my computer...so it's ironic that my pc crashed because I always follow the general wisdom of "Never open anything you're not sure of" --my computer crashed BECAUSE I didn't recognise that this was a real warning. I'm using an alien MAC so that I can keep researching ways to fix this...the article on "Command Prompt Switches" is fantastic! I think xcopy will be invaluable in saving my doc and picture files onto a flash drive and then I can be more adventurous about trying different things. At least I'm learning a lot more about Vista than I would ever have known otherwise, plus I'm determined and convinced I can fix this---thanks SO much! susan This is a great site! Unfortunately, the reason I found it is that my pc (HP Pavilion, VISTA) crashed–first time in the 10 years I have been online…I have always been very careful about not opening anything I’m not sure of. On Monday I suddenly got an ALERT!! URGENT!!–that my computer was infected with 2 Trojan and 1 worm virus. It said I needed to act IMMEDIATELY!! I paused for about 10 secs since it DID say it was from Windows…but I reminded myself of all the scams and closed the msg and then did a “health” scan–results: no problems. Then I did a quick scan by AVG (NOT the comprehensive) and again no virus’s, etc.
A when I was in the middle of installing SP1, it suddenly shut down and that was it…I got the “blue screen” after starting it up in a very limited safe mode.

I had no idea that you could tell the difference between a real alert and the zillion other “alerts” offering to scan my computer…so it’s ironic that my pc crashed because I always follow the general wisdom of “Never open anything you’re not sure of” –my computer crashed BECAUSE I didn’t recognise that this was a real warning.

I’m using an alien MAC so that I can keep researching ways to fix this…the article on “Command Prompt Switches” is fantastic! I think xcopy will be invaluable in saving my doc and picture files onto a flash drive and then I can be more adventurous about trying different things. At least I’m learning a lot more about Vista than I would ever have known otherwise, plus I’m determined and convinced I can fix this—thanks SO much!
susan

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