Expert: Carolyn Meinel - 7/3/2009

Question
McAfee pop-up pops up several times a day and says "You're not covered". When I go to the main program it tells me I'm not covered for viruses, and that if I click "fixit" it will fix it. I've done this numerous times, and it hasn't fixed it. I've looked in vain for troubleshooting on McAfee site to no avail. I have HP Pavilion Desktop with Windows XP

Answer
Something like this happened with McAfee about a year ago, it was a bug in its update feature. If this is a similar problem, you might be able to fix the problem by uninstalling McAfee and then reinstalling it and downloading the updates again. By the time you do this, McAfee should have fixed the bug in that update.

If this doesn't work, another possibility is that you might have recently installed something that is incompatible with McAfee. See http://service.mcafee.com/FAQDocument.aspx?id=TS100376&lc=1033 for a list of incompatible software and what to do about them.

If neither of those work, and if McAfee tech support is still unable to help you, here's what will almost certainly work.

1) Download either Kapersky Internet Security, which offers a free 30 day trial at http://kapersky.com or F-Secure's Complete Internet security suite, which offers a free thirty day trial: https://store.f-secure.com/cgi-bin/dlreg/ml=EN?ID=FSISTB&desid=TRIAL

2) Disconnect from the Internet.

3) Uninstall your current antivirus. This is absolutely essential because otherwise it and F-Secure or Kapersky will fight each other and might crash your computer. It isn't good enough to just turn off your old antivirus because it probably has been crippled by your virus infection.

4) Install your Internet Security product. Download any updates available.

5) Run a complete scan of your computer. Follow any instructions it might give you.

6) Reboot.

If this works, you can either keep your new Internet Security product or uninstall it and reinstall your old antivirus from either a download of the latest version from their website (if that's how they sell it) or from the disk it was on when you bought it. Be sure to get all the latest updates right away. Usually antivirus companies are pretty good about updating their programs whenever some new attack becomes able to evade or cripple their product.

If you weren't running an antivirus program that includes antispyware protection and a firewall, then I recommend that you not reinstall your old program. Nowadays we need total protection, and this includes antispyware and a firewall.

7) To prevent future infections, don't use Internet Explorer, as it is susceptible to introducing viruses, adware and spyware into your computer. Instead you could use Firefox, free from Mozilla.org . Instead of using Outlook for email, you could use Thunderbird, free from Mozilla.org, or Eudora, free from Eudora.com