AboutCarolyn Meinel Expertise I cover Windows, Unix, TCP/IP and Ethernet security questions. I do not cover Mac, Palm Pilot, or other networking issues.
Experience Books by Carolyn Meinel: wrote a chapter for The Hacking of America book (see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567204600/happyhacker)
My article Code Red for the Web for Scientific American was reprinted in the book Best American Science Writing 2002 (see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060936509/happyhacker). My book The Happy Hacker: A Guide to Mostly Harmless Hacking is now in 4th edition with a Japanese edition (see http://happyhacker.org/hhbook/).
Question Hi! One of the computers here at work has spyware, wherein it will not even open. What can we do to fix this problem.
Answer First of all, there are many things beside spyware that could be keeping your computer from booting. Following are some techniques that might fix this computer regardless of what caused it to fail to boot.
1. If you are using Windows XP, NT or Vista, try hitting F8 repeatedly while it boots up. This should bring you to a screen that gives you the option to boot up using what Windows has recorded as the last known good configuration.
2. If this doesn't work, reboot hitting F8 again and this time choose Safe Mode. If this works, first you should take advantage of this to back up all data on the computer. This is important because the problem might be caused either by the hard disk going bad or by a virus or worm that could destroy data. One of the easiest and fastest ways to back up is to use a flash drive (also called thumb drive).
3. If you can't get into Safe Mode, try using the repair console from your Windows operating system installation disk.
4. If you can get into Safe Mode, use System Restore to reset its condition back to a time before this problem began.
5. If this doesn't work, reboot again into Safe Mode, uninstall its current antivirus program and install F-Secure Internet Security, which offers a free trial version at http://www.f-secure.com/home_user/support_and_downloads/evaluations/ . If it is able to fix your problem, you can either uninstall it and reinstall the old antivirus program, or get your company to buy F-Secure Internet Security.
6. If this doesn't work, reboot again into Safe Mode and install Norton System Works. It often is able to repair automatically all sorts of obscure Windows problems.
If none of this works, please let me know and I'll try to help you diagnose and fix this problem.
