The Geek Squad will be coming to my office for a two hour house call tomorrow. After taking a look at my computer, the diagnosis was disturbing. WinFixer is so severe that it is going to take a lot of work to get it up and running again.
Until this morning, I've been eagerly checking Symantec's website to see if they had developed the magic patch. Every time I've called they've said, we're working on it --call us back in 48 hours.
Paul, who is with the Geek Squad says the virus is so nasty and so specialized that it would almost be impossible for Symantec aka Norton to fix this one.
So Paul will be make a $200 return visit tomorrow and hopefully I'll be back in business. Can't be soon enough for me. Working with an infected computer is like doing everything in slo-mo--the computer version of walking mono.
The question I asked was, How did I get itwhen I have been so very careful. I have Norton. I have Microsoft antispyware. I don't open email attachments from people I don't know and I don't download weird stuff. I practice safe computer.
I don't open attachments in email and I haven't downloaded anything weird.
Here's what he said and here's why WinFixer is so brilliantly evil.
According to Paul at the Geek Squad, when the WinFixer message popped up on my screen I made a strategical error-- I closed the window thinking that by closing it I would not bother me. Oh, it popped up even though I block pop-ups.
Turns out the X in the close box is actually how the virus activates itself. How tricky is that? I would never have guessed that by simply clicking on the X I was infecting my computer with a killer virus.
What I should have done is hit CTRL, ALT, DELETE. So please, pass this on to anyone you know. WinFixer looks very official but it's a computer terrorist.Don't close it. Just repeat after me CTRL,ALT,DELETE.
This little lesson is going to cost me $200 , hopefully you won't repeat my rather expensive mistake.
Addition December 1, 2005
If you are getting WinFixer popping up all the time, the CTL, ALT, DELETE doesn't work. It only works the very first time the window appears on your computer. Again, but thinking you are ignoring the "offer" and closing the window you've activated it. The only way to get it off is to (A) know what you're doing with computers or (B) hire a very good technician.
After fixing my computer, The Geek Squad recommended SpySweeper.
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