Earlier in the week, one of my long time customers rang me up. His PC had suddenly developed a series of issues, and he was worried about things going from bad to worse. It’s at time like these, that I wish FOX TV had a series called “Tech 911.” OK, not as bankable as Trading Spouses, but I’d sure watch it.
One issue came about when he moved from Comcast HSI to AT&T DSL. He actually both HSI and Digital Voice Service (phone) from Comcast when he moved into his new condo, but had nothing but a string of service disruptions over the past six months that made him finally switch back to AT&T. After he’d run the AT&T DSL Setup CD, his PC was coming up with errors at every boot pertaining to this software (MotiveSmart). I know they have some troubleshooting tools embedded in the software that gets installed from their CD, but I’ve seen a lot of problems develop with this software, which is why I don’t recommend using it. Heck, you don’t even really need the software at all, if you’re willing to learn how to configure your DSL hardware from your existing browser.
What I find humorous (and sad) is that when he tried to elicit help from AT&T DSL support, they recommended that he download and run a tool called “PC Mighty Max”, a free PC troubleshooting program. I certainly don’t think I’m aware of every free (and legit) tool out there, but I found this program to be a little suspect. After he did install this program, he ended up with even more startup errors. Support techs from ISPs may have the best of intentions, but they can sometimes do more damage than good.
To make matters worse, my client had fallen into one of the more common traps of responding to some pop-up touting some other free security software tool called AntiVirus Golden. You know the browser pop-ups that try to get your attention by claiming “You have 13 problems with your PC, click here to download a tool that will fix them.” This one most assuredly is bogus software (or worse). And what’s funny is that it reports itself to be an anti-spyware tool – not antivirus. And don’t confuse this software with the well respected AVG Antivirus tools from Grisoft. To add insult to injury, this wasn’t a free download… he actually paid for it. Makes you wonder what will happen to his credit card info, because the download site seems a little shady. I told him to, at the very least, demand a refund and to keep an eye out for any false activity on his card.
So I used my trusty Fog Creek Copilot service to remote into his PC and start getting rid of these issues one by one. I finally get all the crapware removed (including the lame AT&T DSL software), and his PC begun to behave better. I download and install the AVAST Home Edition free Antivirus tool, then Adaware and Spybot and clean out a fair amount of assorted nasties.
The only issue that remained is an annoying Windows Installer glitch, with a dialog box asking for the disk containing PhotoGallery.msi. My research has pointed to a Windows Installer cleanup utility issued by Microsoft. I will soon be giving that a whirl on his PC and hopefully it will take care of that issue.
But the whole episode emphasizes some valuable lessons. Question everything that goes into your PC. Be leary of pop-ups claiming to identify problems that they can fix. I know I’m preaching to the choir. Most of us know this… but not everybody else does. We can only try to right the wrongs we encounter, and to educate those we come into contact with.