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laebedahs · 10-23-2005, 05:32 PM

I understand what you mean, tw. But it is far more practical, at least with Windows computers, to take the quick route that will get you pretty much what you want, rather than the "correct" route of finding the exact problem and fixing it (this is true mostly for when you can actually sit down at the computer with virtually unlimited tools at your disposal, however when doing tech support over the phone it may be somewhat true).

#1 rule if a computer (Windows-based or even Linux-based) has been compromised (most Windows machines experiencing slugishness have been, one way or another), is to completely format it, wipe it clean, and start over (or restore from a known good backup). You don't know WHAT has been changed, replaced, removed, mangled, or corrupted, as such whenever you "clean" a computer, you never really know it's clean/working properly (you just gauge the cleaniness/proper working order by using it and make an assumption). Unless you want to go line by line through each plain-text or encoded-text files (not to mention you can't really do this effectively with binary files, even with all the text files you can't)? Now, I understand most machines probably won't have problems this deep (most compromised windows machines have been automatically compromised by a virus or trojan and are being used as zombies in a network).

10-23-2005, 05:32 PM	#7
laebedahs Abecedarian Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 172	I understand what you mean, tw. But it is far more practical, at least with Windows computers, to take the quick route that will get you pretty much what you want, rather than the "correct" route of finding the exact problem and fixing it (this is true mostly for when you can actually sit down at the computer with virtually unlimited tools at your disposal, however when doing tech support over the phone it may be somewhat true). #1 rule if a computer (Windows-based or even Linux-based) has been compromised (most Windows machines experiencing slugishness have been, one way or another), is to completely format it, wipe it clean, and start over (or restore from a known good backup). You don't know WHAT has been changed, replaced, removed, mangled, or corrupted, as such whenever you "clean" a computer, you never really know it's clean/working properly (you just gauge the cleaniness/proper working order by using it and make an assumption). Unless you want to go line by line through each plain-text or encoded-text files (not to mention you can't really do this effectively with binary files, even with all the text files you can't)? Now, I understand most machines probably won't have problems this deep (most compromised windows machines have been automatically compromised by a virus or trojan and are being used as zombies in a network).