Beware Software Bearing Gifts

Free software often offers you additional "goodies" to download at the same time as your chosen item. These items are to be avoided completely. As I know to my cost!

The additional offering is usually a "helpful" toolbar; however, they often turn out to be malicious at worst and annoying at best.

I admit I wasn't concentrating as hard as I should have when updating some security software, but it still came as an unpleasant shock when my browser of choice decided that when I opened a new tab it would "helpfully" re-direct me to a website that was not my choice.

It took me a few frustrating hours to get rid of the offending download. I tried all the usual scans for malware, but nothing was detected. I searched for help on Google, and there was plenty, but none of it worked. This was a very clever piece of malware, that protected itself against all known dis-infections. That is worrying, and that is why I am alerting you to this threat.

The fact that it took me so long to remove it indicates a degree of maliciousness that is totally unacceptable.

In the end, only the complete uninstalling of the browser (Firefox) removed the infection, as the malware had deeply embedded itself into the workings of that browser.

Fortunately, I remembered to back up my Bookmarks/Favorites before doing a complete removal of the browser software, else I would have lost them in the necessarily complete uninstall.

This infestation ranks as reasonably annoying in terms of its effects on my computer use, but totally unacceptable in terms of not allowing me to decide where I want my browser to go. If it can control that, what else can the infection control?

You have been warned! You do not need yet another toolbar - trust me, you don't. Just say no, and you will save yourself hours of frustration trying to get rid of it, and possibly the cost of a computer engineer to do it for you.

Installing Windows 7

I spent a happy few hours yesterday installing Windows 7 on an IBM ThinkCentre. It's a big old brute of a machine, but it's been my workhorse PC for a few years now, used for scanning customer's hard drives, wiping disks - that sort of thing.

It came with Windows XP, and though I think XP is a superb operating system, there comes a moment when one has to move on. Microsoft will stop supporting XP in April 2014 - that means no more updates, which means you will still be able to use XP but it will increasingly become a security risk.

I felt the time had come to make the move to Windows 7.

I used Microsoft's Upgrade Advisor to check that Windows 7 was compatible with the hardware in the ThinkCentre (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/upgrade-advisor). A very full report indocated no likely problems.

XP to Windows 7 is a complete reinstall, which means everything on the hard disk is obliterated - yes, everything. To be safe, I decided to install a new hard drive in the ThinkCentre, so that all my data files and programs stay on the original Hard disk.

Everything went smoothly, and Windows 7 was up and running. Immediately there was a noticeable improvment in speed of starting and shutting down. But there was no sound.

The ThinkCentre has a built-in speaker as well as sockets for external speakers. A Google search revealed that there was no Windows 7 driver for the sound. Panic! I should have checked that there  were Windows 7 drivers for the ThinkCentre. Thank goodness I had installed a new hard drive.

I decided to persist with Windows 7 - after all, a silent PC would be no real hardship for me. So I carried on installing the inevitable updates. After a batch had been installed, the PC had to be restarted. When it rebooted, there was the familar Microsoft Windows 7 musical greeting! A look in the Device Manager showed that there was no longer a problem with the sound. And when I connected some speakers to the sound output socket, cheery music bubbled forth!

Somewhere in those updates was the software to make the sound work, most probably a recent addition to the list.

And the morals of this tale?

• Always do all the checks before embarking on a major project such as changing the operating system;
• Do the updates before panicking.