Removing xp,vista, win7 antivirus 2012

Right after the new years the place were I work got hit with computers all having different variants of the fake antivirus 2012. This variant renames it self depending on which version of windows you have. But like most fake antivirus software they try to steal your credit card info and personal information. So here is how you remove it.

This is what you may be seeing depending on the version of windows you have.

1. So if you see this don't try to manually remove any of the files it lists. They are fake and you could be removing non infected files.
So what we will need is a few programs. on a sperate computer download these programs to a flash drive.
Malwarebytes
Spybot Search & Destory
SuperAntiSpyware
RKILL
ComboFix
TDSSKiller

Once you have your software downloaded and on a USB.

2. Start the infected computer in safe mode with networking. (hitting F8 during start up)

3. run RKill and wait for it to finish

4. then install malwarebytes, spybot, and superantispyware. then update and run full scans this will take a few hours.

5. Once scans are finished and items found are now fixed we can restart the computer into normal mode.

6. Run comodofix... this will take a while and it will tell you when it is done. if you need help they have a guide to walk you through it (http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/combofix/how-to-use-combofix)

7. once that is finished you can run TDSSKiller to make sure everything is clean.

8. Run Registry cleaners CCleaner and Registry Mechanic

9. Uninstall malwarebytes, spybot, superantispyware, comdofix, ccleaner, and registry mechanic. Less you want to keep some of them

10. You now are finished.


I hope this helps you get your computer working again.
if you are wanting to help prevent these things in the future. keep windows updated, use firefox or chrome, install WOT plugin, and keep your antivirus updated.
If you need an antivirus software one of the top rated by AV-test.org is Bitdefender for xp,vista, and windows 7 beating away the competition.

if you rather have a free antivirus check out Avast

Thanks for reading,
Local Tech Repair Admin

and leave a comment...

Avast Free AntiVirus Results

Avast is a low powered power house when it comes to virus protection. First off I don't know if results are fully accurate as some of the virus links went dead sense the first part of the tests but after adding more it still did well.

Avast performance wise is not that bad as it runs at ~50mbs of ram while idle and does not very much while actually scanning. The software did well when I was surfing the net trying to download viruses using IE8 though on known bad sites the software would block the download of the known viruses not even giving it a chance to get in temp directory to do havoc. On top of that avast redirects you to their page telling you that you just dodged a virus and tries to sell you on upgrading your free version to a version with more bells and whistles. Though on the positive note avast did not allow me to bypass the block like some other virus scanners did when they did warn you about a site.

On scan it did not pick up any viruses which surprised me a little though sense it did block downloads it did not allow many to get a foothold. While in herins boot cd avira did not pickup anything though SAS did pick up 2 variants of a fake antivirus. While malwarebytes did not pickup anything spybot did pickup a pup that every other virus scanner also did not pick up.

Overall avast did well enough to go to round two with the other better virus scanners to go in to more testing. AV-Test.org has their results here if you want more information from their tests.

So far avast has done the best out of the virus scanners both detection rate, prevention, and performance in low memory situations.

Hope this helps and will do more testing later,
Local Tech Repair Admin

Avira Antivir Personal 2011 Review – Benchmark Windows XP

Today I am testing out Avira Antivir Personal and seeing how it holds up compared to other anti-virus suites out there. Avira AntiVir Personal has a fairly simple display and for a free anti-virus it I was hopping for a ok performance both detection rate and also hopefully having a low resource requirement.


I just want to start off by saying that I am not really impressed with how well it works. Avira is the software the company I work for uses for their virus removal off of Hiren's Boot CD. So I figured it be good for a dedicated virus scanner on the windows side.

Results:

While testing Avira with their Guard activated I used IE8 to surf the web to known predetermined websites that hosted a wide verity of bad software. Most the sites that I downloaded viruses from did not get stopped by avira in their active scans I only had 1 active block from an active x virus sense active x was enabled across all websites. Avira only stopped one virus from installing and only one virus from running after it installed. Which total 3 viruses in all during avira's active guard.

On the other hand during the scanning Avira did pick up one more virus in a 14min scan. This is not the best seeing that the computer still has many more viruses installed and spyware and spamware. So lets compare this to others to see how much they truly did miss.

Hiren's Boot CD
avira: 0
superantispyware: 3
normal mode:
comodofix: to many to count over 20
malwarebytes: 1
spybot S&D: 1
Sophos: 0


Conclusion:
Avira did protect against some of the more nasty viruses on the list though did miss many adware and rootkits and fake anti-virus software. Though sense it was able to pick up active x viruses and stop a few of them it is on the same level as AVG but with out a any warning on the web for if your going to a bad website or not. Still this is still better than what we have on our low end of clamwin.

Thanks for reading,
Local Tech Repair Admin

AVG Internet Security 2011 Review for Windows XP

AVG is a popular anti-virus software along with others like Norton and McAfee. So I decided to see how well it did compared so some other anti-virus software. I decided to test the AVG Internet Security 2011 instead of the free version because they gave a free 90 day trial to see how well it works and I wanted to see if it worked. I will go back and try again later with the free version to see the difference between the two.

If you have not read the first review check out it here:
http://localtechrepair.blogspot.com/2011/07/clamwin-and-clam-sentinel-review-on.html
this gives detail on what links I used for the malware.

Performance:
I just wanted to start out by saying that AVG Internet Security 2011 did not pick up every virus and malware so even the paid version still needs help by other things like spybot, malwarebytes, or/and superantispyware. But it did do a lot better than clam did to say the least.

AVG has some nice features like integration into the web browser to help warn people of virus infected sites. This should help some of the less techy people out there see a visual sign that something is wrong. Though only one of the sites did it not let me at all go to the site where the others gave me an option to bypass the warning.

AVG was able to block some of the applications from installing in the first place with is good for prevention though it did not prevent all of them. It was only able to block 4 while they where trying to install. This is better than nothing but not perfect either. It was able to detect running processes after some of the viruses where installed (5 of them). This is nice but I would rather of had it block it before it was installed but still did not make me have to scan for them.

While scanning it did a whole system scan and was able to find 1 infected file and 4 warnings which where corrupted exe from viruses that tried to download. The scan for a 10 gb hard drive took ~13mins.
AVG gives you the option of the priority that you want the scan to go I left it at the default for the scan though giving it high priority would probably speed up the time but make it less likely for the user to work on the computer while scanning.

Though AVG did not pick up everything and could not uninstall everything.

While running in Hiren Boot CD I ran different tests to see what it missed.
Superantispyware was able to find 4 adware and 1 rootkit and remove them.
Avira was able to find 5 infections.
Normal mode:
Malwarebytes found 12+2 = 14
Spybot Search & Destory found 1


AVG Internet Security 2011 missed a total of ~24 malware/virus and possible more that the programs above did not find.



Conclusion
AVG did a fairly good job and probably would have don't a lot better if we listened to the warnings that they gave while on the Internet we may have been in a better place. Though this still has room to grow in its protection of viruses sense the internet is not the only one place that can give you viruses. The performance of the scan speed was not bad at all compared to that of clam. Though on the performance of the the software on the ram side while idle the software was using 230MB of ram while scanning on default mode it was using 334MB of ram and while on High Priority scan it used 375MB. For a slow computer this may be acceptable but it depends on the users. Though for a windows xp computer with a half a GB of ram this and other things starting up this may be little to ram heavy for those computers.


Thanks for Reading,
Local Tech Repair Admin

ClamWin and Clam Sentinel Review on Windows XP

Clamwin is a version of ClamAV for windows. Though clam does not have active protection this is where clam sentinel comes in providing active protection for the clam definition database. So trying out clam to see if it really holds up to some of the things that viruses can throw at it we will see if it is worth even trying.

The list of viruses are from the following links.
-----WARNING REAL VIRUSES-----
adeliminator.net
http://www.thevalidatecheck.com/fr_ipd3/MjAxMTA3MTAtNzYuMTE1LjI0OC4xNjk=/index.php?web_id=CD4099&muid=MT-4e1a64ed4d383-3659
http://www.anti-spyware-101.com/download-sph
http://www.top20free.com/wallpaper.html
http://www.keygenguru.com/
http://spywarezapper.com/
http://www.rocketdownload.com/program/serial-keys-recover-215490.html
http://www.topwallpapers.com/
freevirusprotection.org/
www.free-antivirus.info/anti-virus/avg-antivirus-free-edition.html
www.newfreedownloads.com/find/adware-removal.html
www.freechristmasscreensavers.com/animatedsavers.htm
www.ihateadware.com/
www.freechristmassavers.com/
www.fasterpccleanclean.com/remove-rootkit-win32-agent-pp
http://www.reimage.com/lp/nhome/dyn.php?tracking=ga1&banner=6.1_Content_US&adgroup=Malware&ads_name=728x90_spyware_new_lp8&keyword=Spyware&lpx=LP-8
www.handyarchive.com/free/rootkit-web-bug-worm-eliminator/
---------WARNING REAL VIRUSES DON'T GO TO--------------


So while visiting these sites and and allowing the active x to run all these sites. I never received any popups warning me of possible infections or any warnings on a default install. This could possibly been fixed if I turned on warn on suspicious activity though this is not turned on by default. After trying to run in normal mode spybot, malwarebytes, and superantispyware and all of them being killed by the viruses I decided to try safe mode to see if it made any difference. And it did not.

Detection Rate for Default mode for clamwin is 0%


To see if clam will pick up any off them I tried to run it under hirens boot CD to see if the definitions would work. While in Hirens Boot CD Clamwin was able to find 1 virus after a ~31min scan of a 10GB hard drive. Where by comparison avira picked up 5 in 9 mins from hiren boot cd. And superantispyware found 5 more on top of that in 14mins. ClamWin is a non effective virus protection it could not prevent any viruses from being installed and it could barely find any when there was some.

My Rating of this small virus scanner is a complete fail for both boot scanning and active windows scanning.

The Best Free Anti-Virus Comparison - Clamwin VS McAfee VS Norton VS Avira VS AVG and More

I have always wondered if clamav is really that bad of a virus scanner compared to others in the industry. Researching on the web I hear a lot of people bashing their definitions database saying that it is worthless but I could never find any comparison between it and other virus scanners. When virus scanners are compared I normally look at av-test.org to see which one is the best for the year. But they don't test clam in their tests. So I figured I do my own test.

So here is what I am doing. I have a virtual machine with windows xp fully updated to the current updates (7-10-11). I will have one antivirus on the OS with nothing else. So it is only the virus scanner and the OS fully updated. I will be using IE for getting the viruses and then doing a virus scan with the virus scanner and seeing how many it picks up and how many it actively blocks. Then I will delete the Virtual Hard drive and start over with a new .vdi (I am using Virtual machine for the VM).

The First Anti Virus I will be testing is Clamwin with clam sentinel for the active scanner sense clamwin does not have a real time scanner. After that I will test it against some of the most common free anti-virus software out there so the free version of AVG, Avira, McAfee, Norton, and More (Post a link to one if you want it tested). After all the tests I will write a conclusion article summarizing the statistical information. All virus tests will also have the same viruses installed (or tried to be installed.)

If you have any suggestions let me know and I will try to do what I can. Each Anti-virus scanner will get their own post with their results.

Looking forward to your commons,
Local Tech Repair Admin


Test Results:
Avira
AVG
ClamWin and Clam Sentinel

How to Prevent Viruses in a Low Memory Situation

Lots of older computers have a problem with memory. I am fixing a computer right now that had malware on it and only a half GB of ram. This computer was running a full antivirus suite from McAfee though the only problem is the computer was incredibly slow.

I mean really really slow. The OS was windows xp and the OS it self was taking up ~200 MB just to run the OS and on a default start up with McAfee running it was running around ~600MB which is a bad thing. McAfee was taking up almost the whole ram that was on the computer leaving nothing to be used by the computer OS or any application.

So after uninstalling McAfee the computer ran a lot faster probably 10X as fast. But the only problem is the computer did not have any anti virus software anymore. So I looked for a alternative antivirus that offered real time protection. What I cam with is clamwin this uses a lot less ram than Immunet 3.0 that you get from clamav.net which used 200MB of ram so still to much for a computer with only a half GB of ram in them. The only problem is that clamwin does not provide real time protection. So I needed to fix that to help pro actively prevent viruses.

So the solution is Clam Sentinel. This solution is not the best seeing that the clam database is not the most complete but it is the only low memory solution that is fitting for low memory computer. Running clamwin and clam sentinel only uses ~20mb of ram this helps the computer be able to do other things like running firefox with out having to use the hard drive as virtual ram which slows the computer down a lot.

Hope this Helps some,
Local Tech Repair Admin

Rootkit Removal Tools By Wonky

When your computer gets a virus, that virus tries to spread, and eventually it will damage the host making it much easier to detect. A rootkit on the other hand is designed to hide certain elements such as files, processes, registry entries, or network connections, from the user and other programs thus making it very difficult to detect. This technology can be used for good as well as malicious purposes so it is important to be familiar with your computer to avoid deleting these legitimate objects. Within Windows rootkits are used to hide malware so that their execution goes unnoticed by your security applications. So imagine that a rootkit has been installed on your computer and that its purpose is to hide a virus, thus giving the malware time to complete its goal, steal your data, and damage your system all the while going undetected. Unfortunately, rootkits are extremely effective at this, which means that even though you may believe your PC to be totally clean, some of you could be infected right now.

Most of the anti-virus vendors have integrated anti-rootkit technology into their more recent products. However, this is not a fool proof solution against rootkits because just as the AV companies improve their products detection abilities, so the malware creators find new ways to avoid detection. So as security conscious users we must rely on third party tools to help us, and there are several free applications which specialize in the detection and removal of rootkits. Keep in mind that none of these products will detect every single problem, so it is always a good idea to keep more than one of them to hand.

here are a lot of anti-rootkit programs available, a lot of this software is very advanced and requires an experienced and technical minded user who is familiar with computers and operating systems. However, there are a couple of options that do not require much technical ability and are also very effective.

At the top of the list is Sophos Anti-Rootkit. The program has a small but easy to use interface with no options other than choosing where you want to scan. As it scans it opens up to a slightly larger interface where it lists the results of the scan and gives you information about each result as well as a recommendation for them. Additionally, a small help file is available that explains the program in a little more detail and gives directions on how to use the command line anti-rootkit tool which is also included. For all Windows users, Sophos offers an easy and very effective choice in rootkit removal, that is suitable even for beginners.

I have two top choices for all the experienced and technical users because I find it impossible to choose one over the other. GMER and RootRepeal are very popular applications, and they are definitely my favorites, but it takes someone pretty knowledgeable about computer systems to be able to interpret the results. You can find a lot of documentation on both programs but if you are the type of person who likes to click the scan button and simply wait for the results, you would be better served with either Sophos or F-Secure Blacklight.

F-Secure Blacklight Rootkit Eliminator is another great tool for rootkit removal. Unfortunately, support for it ended a couple of years ago or it might have been my top pick. However, you can still download it on the F-Secure web site and it is compatible with Windows Vista and XP.

Windows Vista and XP users should download a copy of this great program because even though it is not supported anymore, it is still one of the best rootkit removal applications available.

The next product that I looked at is one that I always keep in my toolkit. Dr. Web Cure It is not a standalone anti-rootkit tool like the other tools I recommended, rather it is a free malware scanner and removal tool that happens to be pretty effective at removing rootkits. It is always a good idea to have more than one tool capable of removal, so Dr. Web's freeware scanner is a great addition to anybody's arsenal because it removes more than just rootkits, and it does this very well.

Sometimes the only symptoms you will get from rootkits is an increase in network traffic, or a decrease in performance, and maybe an unknown process running. So with today's high bandwidth networks, and high performance computers it can be very hard to notice any signs. Prevention is always the best practice, but detection is just as important so make sure your AV has anti-rootkit capabilities, and make sure you have a good Firewall and HIPS combo. This and a combination of the tools I have mentioned are the best approach toward keeping your computer free of rootkits.

The free version of Prevx offers the same class leading real time detection of the full version, unfortunately it doesn't offer much more than this. Prevx Free is only capable of cleaning select infections, such as Adware, the ZEUS banking trojan, and MBR rootkits. When dealing with rootkits detection is definitely very important, so even if you can't clean all infections you might at least be alerted, enabling you to take further action and manually remove the rootkit or seek help in doing so. As hard as it is detect the newer, ever evolving rootkits and viruses, Prevx can be a very powerful and informative addition to your regular anti-virus software.

Additionally, Prevx Free can run customized scans from the context menu and also gives you the ability to schedule scans in the GUI to help assure that nothing has gotten by your normal security software. On my 320 GB hard drive a deep scan takes about three minutes on average. The free version also offers protection of stored cookies as well as protection for all of your saved credentials. There is also a browser protection component in the free version but it only offers custom protection on only one web site of your choice. It does however, give the full Prevx Safe Online protection, which includes anti-phishing, protection against hijacks, keyloggers, and cookie stealers for a number of popular websites such as PayPal, CleverBridge, or Amazon and of course the one website of your choice.

While the free version of Prevx can not clean a lot of rootkits, it can effectively warn you about new infections. Prevx is inherently built on their anti-rootkit technology, and has consistently been one of the first vendors to detect new rootkits. I believe that this application can play a very important role in keeping your computer clean of all infections, after all, you can't remove what you can not find.

Please note: Some of the free version component features in Prevx/SafeOnline are either restricted or disabled altogether. Users should read the vendor's description carefully for the version they are downloading before deciding if the program is suitable for their own needs.

Written by
wonky
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-rootkit-scanner-remover.htm

Keyboard Only Putting Out Numbers on Windows XP

I recently have gotten a computer in that would only type numbers no matter which keyboard you put on it and no mater what key you pressed it would only press from asdfghjkl;' it would type 34567890123 or something very close to that.

Sense I had never seen anything like this before the only thing I could think of is that some malware must have over written the keyboard layout keys so that they where only numbers. But after doing a full virus removal and hardware checks making sure it was not the computer it self having a problem and it not fixing it. Though the computer did have a lot (ish ~500) of adware, virus, rootkits, and the bunch of other things I was wondering if one of these things reset the mapping on the keys in windows. So in doing so I tried to reset the key mapping back to US under the control panel >> Region and language settings

Though that still did not fix it so I was left with only searching the web to figure out if anyone else had this weird problem. And not to my surprise I noticed a lot of people complaining about their Comcast software and Norton software causing the problem. Most people just needed to uninstall and then reinstall the software to get rid of the problem.

The software from Comcast was called Comcast Constant Guard. So after using the Norton removal tool and uninstalling Comcast Constant Guard I noticed the keyboard started working properly again. On the uninstall of the Comcast Constant Guard I noticed one of the reasons why your dissatisfied and uninstalling it is because it would only type 0-9 on the keyboard.

So if your having this problem I don't know if the software started doing the only typing from 0-9 to help protect the user from the malware on the computer collecting the users passwords or not. But it is a good thing that it did mess up for this user because they needed to have those removed before they compromised their bank info or anything else.

Hope this helps resolve the problem,
Local Tech Repair Admin

Remove Viruses

Online File Backup - Business

Businesses need a good disaster recovery plan and in that is data backup. I use this when I was in school to make sure my research papers did not get lost because if I had lost a 25 page research paper it would kill my grade and make me loss a lot of money. So how can a company effectively keep their data backed up at the minimal cost.

There are now many different online backup solutions for businesses and home users out there today. But they all cost different and offer different features. And some do it by strictly amount of space and some do both amount and computers.

Dropbox is one of these services that offer backup service. Their pricing is based on amount of space. I personally have never used the service so I do not know if they allow you have more than one computer on the account.
*update*
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/06/21/dropbox-lets-anyone-log-in-as-anyone/
Dropbox has had a major security mixup so if you been using dropbox your data may have been compromised
*update*


Another well known company in my area is Carbonite backup. This is for small businesses if they are dealing with lots of documents or needing lots of space. Their Business plan allows as many computers as they need on the plan starts at $230 a year for 250GB which is by far cheaper per GB than Dropbox is. But their house hold plans limit you to only 1 computer and cost a lot.

The solution I personaly use is an Open source one that comes with Ubuntu called Ubuntu One. They are like dropbox, they give you the first 2 GB free, but they allow as many computers as you need on the plan. You buy size of space type of plans. In comparison to drop box Ubuntu One is half the cost and they are nicer as you can just add 20GB more if you need more and if you need more than 22GB then you can add another 20 GB. They also allow you to buy their MP3's from their store and they don't count it as space against you the same thing that Amazon adopted after they did it and then Apple with their iCloud.

So for a small business that does not need that much space but just enough to backup their small database files, word documents, spreadsheets, and what not the best choice I see for the cheapest price is Ubuntu One not only is it cheaper but your supporting the Open Source community when you do use their service and spreading the knowledge of Ubuntu.

I hope you try out Ubuntu One it is available for Windows and Ubuntu and mobile phones. Hope you go out and start your free 2 GB plan to give it a try. *update*
Ubuntu One now gives you 5 GB free
*update*

Local Tech Admin

Learning to Type - Software

Learning to touch type is one of the most effective skills that a child or worker can learn these days. Sense I have been learning a new keyboard layout called Dvorak I have been trying out a few different websites and open source software in my learning methods.

One of the programs that I have been trying out is one called Klavaro
It not the most graphical typing application but it works very well. They have builds for linux and windows. They support multiple keyboard layouts and different languages in each they support layouts that you want to build our self. It also supports graphing your progress. So you can see the progress of how well your learning and how accurate your doing. they give you words per minute and characters per second which is fun just seeing how well you do compared to the past. If your teaching a class this is an easy one for people to use.

the next would be dvorak7min this is a linux only program. The home screen gives you 29 different tests that work you through learning the whole keyboard in what I think is a very effective way. You don't have to be using a dvorak keyboard to use this program but it may confuze you if you have the keyboard layout above the text which I would just hide anyways. though one thing I like about this one is it does not allow you to make mistakes you must press the letter before it goes on to the next letter. so for instance if the line said 'ahha' and you you typed ahaa it would stop at ahh till you typed the h. the program also keeps Words per second, words per minute, misses, seconds, and your % ratio of misses to characters. I personally prefer this program because it is simple just black and white, or what ever terminal color you have.

Another good typing for Dvorak learning is
http://www.powertyping.com/dvorak/typing.html
they have a nice simple site and will grade you on how fast you type and you can keep trying till you beat your self and move at your own pace.


The nicest online typing to learn I would have to say is
http://www.keyhero.com/typing-tests-wpm/
it is very graphically pleasing to look at and they give you paragraphs from literature to type out. Though this may not be the very best for those that are starting out but it is a great place if your teaching a class and your wanting to use something that is random and use it for a test taker. It graphs the users progress and does not require you to register to use it. Though you need to register if you want your progresses saved from one visit to the next. This also does not matter which keyboard layout you may be using whether it be dvorak, qwerty, or colemak your system will translate it all for the website.


I hope this helps people learn typing and know that you don't have to spend a lot to get good free resources.

Parents teach your kids colemak or dvorak!
Local Tech Repair

Data Transfer

Many people will go to a computer repair shop to get their computer's data transferred to their new computer. Though even the average person can easily transfer their old data, pictures, documents, music, and etc. to their new desktop or laptop easily.

You don't need a big hard drive to transfer the information or even lots of dvds or cds but just the hard drive with the old information on it and the new comuter and a cheap little device.
that device is Cables To Go 30504 USB 2.0 to IDE or Serial ATA Drive Adapter (Black)

I personally use this device at work when ever we do a reinstall or need to do a data transfer from one computer to another. The only difference between you doing it your self and having a computer repair company doing it for you is that a computer repair company may charge you +$100 to do it and can do it for only 20 if you buy it your self and just take the hard drive out of the old computer and plug it in.

When using a device like that always remember to unplug everything first. Then take the old hard drive out from the computer. Now turn on the new computer into windows or which ever operating system your using. then plugin the usb transfer device and then plug the old hard drive to the usb transfer device then plugin the power to the hard drive. Depending on if it is a sata or ide drive they will be powered differently so make sure you put the right power adapter on the data transfer usb. It will take a little bit of time for windows to recognize that the hard drive is there but after it does it will look like another drive on windows just like and external drive does.

If your wanting your old drive to be a external drive I would not suggest using that transfer device to do that which you can do. but buy and external enclosure. If the old hard drive is an old laptop drive then you will want to use 2.5" USB 2.0 SATA Hard Drive HDD Case Enclosure
or
USB 2.0 External 2.5" IDE HDD Enclosure Case Blue For Laptop

sata does not have pins but the connector looks more like what a USB connector looks like where IDE (old hard drives) use pin configuration like in the picture for the device.

for desktop hard drives they are probably the larger 3.5 in drives
Vantec NexStar CX NST-300S2-BK 3.5-Inch SATA to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure (Black)

or
3.5" IDE HDD Enclosure, Black



the transfer device will work on everything where enclosures are specific to the drive type.

Hope this helps get your data transferred
Local Tech Repair Admin

also check out
Data Recovery

Windows 7 Starter vs Ubuntu 11.04 Netbook

So recently I was working on setting up a netbook for dual booting both windows 7 starter and ubuntu 11.04 and noticed a large performance difference...

The youth pastor that I was setting up the netbook for wanted windows to run faster and windows out of the box was running around 650 MB out of its 1GB ddr3 ram which was slowing the computer down when ever he tried to do anything on the computer. With doing a little tuning up of the computer and turning things off of start up I was able to get that down to 450 to 550 at resting which was half of the memory on the computer.

On the other hand when i got ubuntu 11.04 installed and booted up it was running fast. The resting rate for the ram was ~175mb this is over half of what windows was at resting hart rate with out doing any tuning. Not only was the resting rate better than windows 7 starter but i tested to see how well the ubuntu side held up compared to the windows side. I was able to run firefox with over 4 tabs open one of them being pandora running and another one being youtube running and a few others. Also on top of that I had libre office running a presentation, hydrogen (drum beat mixer) running a beat, and libre word processor open. All this was around ~400 MB of ram that it was using with out any glitches or freezes in the process. Sense the person I was setting up this computer for was a youth pastor I figured it needed to be able to hold up to that amount of work. Which the computer was able to do well. The computer had a N570 processor in it also.

We had to upgrade the ram to a 2 GB ddr3 stick so that windows 7 starter could function the same as the ubuntu 11.04 side did.

Just this basic use test showed how well done ubuntu 11.04 is built and how much faster it is than windows 7 starter.

Thanks for reading,
local tech repair admin

Comparison between ipad 2 and netbook check out this link
http://localtechrepair.blogspot.com/2011/04/ipad-2-vs-netbook.html

Windows 7 Won't open exe file open with

Recently i had a computer that came in that was infected with a virus that loved to hide different files and also would not allow the person to execute files at all. so let me know how I fixed that.

Sense I could not open regedit or cmd to help change the file back. I needed to find a different way of fixing the problem. so what i needed to do is very simple on a separate computer I went and downloaded a registry fix for the computer and then started up in safe mode.

from there all I had to do is fallow these simple instructions
To fix the association for a particular file type:

1. Download the corresponding fix from the above table. (Use Right-click – Save as option in your browser to download the fixes.)

2. Unzip the file and extract the .REG file to Desktop.

3. Right-click the REG file and choose Merge. Alternately, you can open the Registry Editor and then using the Import option from the File menu, to merge the REG file contents.

Note that you need to be an administrator to apply these fixes.

for the registry file go to this wonderful site.
http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/file-asso-fixes-for-windows-7/


just make sure that you have removed the virus before you change the registry or you may have the problem of it not working again.

If you don't know how to remove viruses here is a good way.
http://localtechrepair.blogspot.com/2011/05/basic-repairing-of-virus-infected.html


I hope that this will help you fix your windows 7 exe problem. It is really annoying to get viruses that change your executable files.

later,
local tech repair admin

Basic Repairing of a Virus Infected Computer

So I have been working at a computer repair shop recently and fixing computers with lots of different problems. when we get a computer with a virus for service we throw in a free diagnostic in with it to make sure the computer it self is running fine. So let me take you through the process of how we fix most computers in the store.

The first thing that you will need is something called a hiren's bootcd which can be found this link
http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

Once you have that burned to a cd or USB you then start the computer your fixing up and open the boot menu (normally Esc or F12) from there we go in the the windows xp mini. We mostly use software that is easy to use and that does not take someone extremely knowledgeable about computers to run. This is why we use windows instead of linux and command-line.

so next once the hiren's menu opens up we got to testing and then we use a program called S&M Stress Test to make sure that the computer's hard ware checks out. for instance does not have a bad stick of ram.

then from there after that passes we go and use Avira AntiVir Personal and SuperAntispyware and you need to make sure they are updated. then after that you will find a few problems most of them will be tracking cookies which aren't really viruses.

From there we restart the computer and then start it up in safe mode. And run the avira, superantispyware, and Malwarebytes. After all that checks out we restart the computer in normally and then run the last 3 virus scanners again.(malwarebytes is most effective in normal).

We then run CCleaner and Registry Mechanic to clean up the computer.

we then update windows using the windows update manager. We then check to make sure that the user has some form of anti virus protection if they do not we install avira for them or AVG

That is a simple way of fixing a lot of your virus problems.


hope this helps,
local tech repair admin

Ipad 2 vs Netbook

I recently been asked which would be better to get for a youth pastor. An iPad 2 by Apple or a netbook computer? This is a very interesting cause as iPads are becoming very popular for business to think that iPads are the way to go right? well I personally think that a Netbook still out performs a iPad anyday. Lets look at why I think this

Lets first look at the positives for having an iPad 2

Advantages:
portable
good battery life ~10 hours
cheap apps
touch screen
"coolness" factor
some business apps (like keynote)
and its made by apple


Now the with all that it comes to around ~$615 price tag for all that for the lowest end model.
now lets look at some of the internals of the iPad.
It runs at ~.9 ghz slightly under that, which is 2 cores. It can run 2 threads which is not unusual for non Intel processors. And a half a gb of ram. They state that it is 16gb of ram on their site because they can because the hard drive they use is the ram.



now that we have covered iPads lets go on the other perspective on what businesses need.

A business person needs portable and powerful devices, they need cheap priced devices, and they need them to work and last long while using them.

Netbooks Advantages:
cheaper than iPads
have physical keyboard - though small
ability to install actual applications not built for iPads or mobile devices
more powerful
up to 2-4gb of ram
high end processors
cheaper repair costs
USB ports
SD card readers
possibly a VGA out

so this is what i suggested to my friend that was debating between the ipad 2 and a netbook

first of all I told him that he probably wants something that will allow him to do his work fast. He will be using his device for presentations, writing sermons, and other things.
he needs something that he can multi task on and not to mention use Flash on.

I suggested that he get a Atom n550 or a N570 preferably the later.

Here is one of the computers I showed him for his needs that would out perform an ipad and also have much more memory.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004SUO0SQ/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=httplocaltech-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=B004SUO0SQ

You can check out Netbooks Here

so the Asus eee pc
was only ~$330
then you can get a mini mouse for it costing around ~$10
portable keyboard for ~$60
and a 22 monitor for 150
external dvd drive for 33
upgrade ram for ~25

all this adding up to ~608

this is still less than a ipad but you get much more.

when your at home your able to have your stuff connected to your netbook and be able to do heavy processing with your netbook and making it act like a normal desktop computer. But also allowing you to take your netbook on the go and having portability of the netbook.

if your really wanting a touch screen there is always like Asus T101MT-BU37-BK
which is a touch screen netbook and the processor of the N570.

I also suggested that he look in to Ubuntu netbook remix. which with their next release will have multi touch capabilities.

If you have any questions or comments about the netbook vs ipad let us know in comments.
tell us your favorite business apps for the ipad 2 also.

thanks,
local tech repair admin

For a comparison between windows 7 starter and Ubuntu 11.04 check out this link
http://localtechrepair.blogspot.com/2011/05/windows-7-starter-vs-ubuntu-1104.html

Rootkits Understood

There is some confusion in some of the tech industry in what a rootkit is. and so i want to talk to our users about what rootkits really are and the different types of rootkits out there. I will try not to rewrite my research paper in this post but give you an over view of my research I have done over the years.

I was reading some tech blogs like I normally do and I ran across a post on rootkits and realized I have not posted any of my research that I did in college on here to talk about it. In college at my university we had a Directed research class which we got to choose the topics of our choice and then research them for the next 6 months and write a 25 page paper on that research it and present it to the school. I was able to do my research on a specific type of rootkits called VM rootkits or virtual machine rootkits. I will talk more about these later.

So for those that do not know rootkits are small peaces of code or a program that sole purpose is to hide it self from the operating system and user. Kinda like stealth technology that the US has in its stealth fighters. Rootkits is that technology not the fighter it self.

A rootkit is different in terms of a virus or malware. A worm, virus, and malware all use methods of self preservation either by coping code to other computers or making it hard to delete the software to preserve it self. On the other hand rootkits will try to hide it self from virus software so that it can preserve it self. It is common for viruses and malware alike can use rootkits in their programs to help keep their programs installed longer. For instance a Black Hat(unethical hacker) will use a rootkit to hide their code to log key strokes or open a back door into the operating system.

There are 3 many types of rootkits I like to categorized. A level 1 rootkit will be one that does not compromise the Kernel of the operating system but will try to compromise other files to hide it self. A level 1 rootkit is one of the easiest rootkits to detect on a system. A level 2 rootkit is one that will compromise the Kernel of the operating system. This means that the rootkit is using system calls to hide it self. For instance when a virus program checks the list of programs in memory it must ask the Kernel files for these lists. In turn the rootkit may wipe any reference of it self while giving the virus scanner the information and in doing so make the virus scanner think that there is no problem. These forms of rootkits are very hard to detect because the method that they chose to use to hide them selves get more complex than most of the basic virus scanners out there.

Now for the most dangerous type of rootkits are those that fall in to level 3. These rootkits are those completely outside of the operating system. There are various types of these also everything from boot loader rootkits to VM rootkits. The reason why these are so dangerous is because they are undetectable to any software you install on your computer. For instance a rootkit in a SMM (system management mode) of a CPU will be able to control all information going through there and a simple key logger will be able to send everything you press on your keyboard out to who ever they want. This is a dangerous thing found in some Intel processing chips.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.153.9106&rep=rep1&type=pdf 

Another type of is those that hide in the hypervisor world of the computer. The most prominent rootkit is that from Invisible Things Labs by Joanna Rutkowska. She developed a VM rootkit that would create a vm under any vm that existed or did not exist and then run on the hardware. This means the rootkit could monitor anything that the operating system was doing and in turn be able to do what every it wanted. Sense it was running on the hardware level it was able to hide it self from any calls and keep it self in restricted space. But not only that she built it to be able layer it self in a way. if the computer was already compromised it could be compromised again and have one after another on top of each other. This rootkit is called the Blue Pill.

So how do you protect your computer from these rootkits? The best way is to take a proactive approach to it. which is really the only way because if your computer is already infected you can't trust anything the computer is telling you. Some of the most trusted and some of the longest detectors that have been around are chkrootkit and rkhunter both for windows and linux. But they are not the only ones out there. Sense rootkits have been becoming so prevalent in viruses, worms, and malware most of the main security virus scanners out there come with their own rootkit detectors. Even windows has one called rootkitrevealer

I would suggest trying out some of the rootkit detectors out there and see which ones that you like. If you find one that you really like or one that you don't know is a real rootkit detector or not then post back here and I will check them out for you.

thanks for reading,
- Local Tech Repair Admin

Firefox 64 Bit Problems with Pandora

For those that have been using a 64 bit browser like that of Firefox 64 bit or others will notice programs like Pandora radio will not work because the browser will not recognize the flash player that it automatically tries to install.

The reason for this is that the browser doesn't naturally recognize a 32bit version of the flash player plugin that it tries to install on your computer. Though this is an easy fix. For instance you can make your browser only enable the 32 bit version but this would take away the advantage of using 64 bit. so the fix is using a 64bit version of flash player.

Right now there is no offical release of a 64bit version of their flash player but they are developing a 64bit version. So if you want to the advantage of the 64 bit you can always try out Adobe's test versions. Adobe calls their 64 bit flash player that is in their lab "Square".
if you install it you will be able to play pandora on your 64 bit version of firefox.

right now i am using the nightly version of firefox 6.0alpha on a 64bit windows 7.

You can use this on windows, linux, and macs.

here is a link to the download page for the test versions

http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10_square.html

i hope this helps you out in your figuring out why pandora and other apps where not working in your newer browser.

-local tech repair.

Firefox 6.0 Alpha

For those that don't know it looks like firefox 6.0 Alpha is being tested on in their nightly builds. right now i am using their 64bit version of the build and it is running very nice.
let me just use this as an opertunity to talk about open source and the importance of being a alpha and beta tester.

Testing open source programs is a very important thing to the open source community. it helps you and others get a better product. Anyone can help with testing products. Open source products need everyone from the security experts, coding gods, to those that know very little about computers. If the open source programs only got the security experts and coding gods then we may not get a very large user base or an easy to use program which kinda defeats a lot of programs out there. but on the other hand if we only have people that new very little of programming and security then we would have a very insecure program and still a very bad user interface.

so go out there and support your open source community and test their nightly builds.

you can find firefox's nightly builds here

http://nightly.mozilla.org/

Blue Screen of Death part 2 (Windows)

Some of you I am sure are having trouble starting up because of the Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) well let me help you again.

If you have not tried the first part of this then I suggest that you read it and try that.
http://localtechrepair.blogspot.com/2011/02/start-up-blue-screen-of-death-windows.html

but if your still having trouble read on.

so recently i had a computer that did not get fixed by just the general making sure the hard drive was fine. the User turned off the computer during a "long" startup and tried to start the computer up again and started to get a BSoD.  
So the first thing I did was the chkdsk to make sure the hard drive was properly written to and that it was not only partially written. when I forced the check it did find some bad sectors and fixed them. and it found quite a bit of bad indexs which was probably contributing to the problem. this never fixed the problem though so i had to go further in and check the actual system files to make sure they where ok.
so I tried to do a
 SFC /scannow
though this would not run because windows had something on start up that it was trying to run. so I had to find a way to run it even though there was something blocking the basic sfc /scannow from running. so I did.
sfc /SCANNOW /OFFBOOTDIR=c:\ /OFFWINDIR=c:\windows
this ran perfectly fine and did what it was supposed to do but for some reason did not fix all the problems  because it still gave a BSoD when starting up. 
but sense the problem most likely was fixed but the start up was trying to start something that did not exist I decided to try the last known good configuration for the start up to get to this you will want to hit F8 when starting up a few times till a black screen with a lot of different options on there shows up. 

should look something like this
but after that was done it started up perfectly and after that I just shut it down which took a while to do but the computer started up perfectly after that. 
hope this helps you fix your BSoD at start up

your friendly,
local tech repair admin