MS Antivirus

[Ian Robinson]

My wife told me she was told there are were viruses on the desktop , I didn't see how she was told this , and assumed Sophos Antivirus detected them. WRONG !!!

I believe it was the auto update by MS Update that tried to install MS Antivirus automatically . Which would be fine if this was provided free like other updates for XP , but it isn't .

I did a deep scan of the HDD with Sophos (took the trouble of getting their latest update) , not a single infection found.

I later , just now as a matter of fact, discovered this was the likely problem as ,my note book automatically tried to install MS Antivirus and I made the mistake of hitting the run button.
When it detected some infections (yeh sure ,I did a deep Sophos Antivirus scan on Friday and it gave a clean bill of health ,so I know that's BS) anyway hit delete them button it promptly asked me to register the application.... AND NOW THE RUB .... IT requested about $50 to do this... no way Joseh !!!:mad2:

So I did the uninstall + warm boot , thing ... nope go good :sadeyes:... still interferring and stopping me from visiting sites I know are OK.
SO ... brought out the big guns , SYSTEM RESTORE to a point a few days ago .... seems to have got rid of this BS program.

Hopefully for ever.

Hopefully that's all I need to do never to be bothered by this insideous and nasty bit of software (MS's latest nasty).

[nightsky]

G'Day
I can honestly say that has never happened to me,there are 2 way's to stop that happening again, turn of auto update and just go to MS yourself and pick the updates you want,or if you want to keep getting auto updates,before it updates click on "custom install" then you decide which updates you want installed.
Cheers
Arthur

[rogerg]

I didn't realise MS had an anti-virus tool. Searching their site I see they have something called "Windows Live OneCare". Is this what you mean was installed?Reason I ask, is I'd be very suspicious of if the program really is what it says it is. Sounds odd to me.Having said that, I have auto updates turned off and do them manually. Suits me but doesn't suit everyone.Roger.

[Ian Robinson]

Well considering all other MS XP updates have been FREE , I became instantly suspicous when it demanded payment to register it , umm , my XP Pro and Home are both already registered and this is part of XP.

I smell a big skinky rat and I think this is a scam.

I don't use MS AntiVirus anyway - I've disabled it from day one - I have a better package called Sophos AntiVirus which is superior and I get for free from my uni.

[AstralTraveller]

I just asked someone who should know about this (he does the IT for a medium-sized company) and received the following reply:

"Dave,
This is a virus.
It posts a false report.
Going to the web site is not the thing to do.
I will do a little digging tomorrow and advise you further"

This sounds reasonable and is very similar symptoms to a problem I had recently. In my case several AV and spyware programs didn't find it but it was clearly a scam. It seems to be a case of the scammers being one step ahead of the good guys. In my case the 'solution' was to give 'doze the flick and I now mostly use Ubuntu Linux.

[Jen]

:hi: i love the system restore button it gets me out of trouble all the time :thumbsup: