Byte by Bite

Two sad tales today —one about a Trojan-laden computer in my shop, the other about problems upgrading an older computer.

by Marv Dealy

This machine—a PC—is getting on in years, but it still works just fine (most of the time) for keeping track of accounts receivable and payable and the like. I haven’t any plans to upgrade it—it wouldn’t even pass the minimum hard drive size or RAM test for Vista. In any event there is no reason to upgrade it—it does what it’s supposed to do. Until I came back from holiday and found it covered with Trojans, that is.

You thirty two regular readers know that Trojans in this context refer to bits of software that someone has snuck onto someone else’s computer and are named after the wooden horse that the Greeks gave to Troy on their “leaving the area.” Like the Trojan’s horse, our Trojans contain something bad that will eventually come out and do something you won’t like.

Trojans can come into your computer as part of free software, games, or perhaps from a malicious website that asks you to download a little snippet to help you out—perhaps to “scan your computer for problems.”

I tried the regular things that we do to combat bad stuff to no avail. Every time I sat down to use the machine there were new warning messages from Norton saying the Trojans were still there.

Prior to the Trojan problem on this computer, I’d observed something that I had begun to believe was the first actual haunting of a computer I’d ever personally seen. Both Jason “Tonto” Niedens and I had kind of given up trying to figure out what was actually going on when we’d observe what appeared to be my former bookkeeper Diann Tucker—who died sometime ago—working away in QuickBooks, the accounting program we and thousands of other small businesses use every day.

I know, you’re saying ah, just a little Halloween humor a bit early but it was true, we’d notice in the Windows Task Manager that an element of QuickBooks would be running merrily away, even though it wasn’t actually open on that machine, and further we’d see that several other processes were also running under the “Diann” account. We’d kind of gotten used to it—our office is also directly above the Misissippi mine in Big Oak Flat and who knows what influence it has on what goes on. The radon gasses alone may well explain any number of things.

Having tired of tinkering with the Trojan-laden computer I compared notes with Jason and we decided to delete the User folder labeled Diann from that computer once and for all, since that was where we were certain the Trojans were living and we figured that would take care of the problem.

Well, it took care of the Trojans all right. Deleting that folder also wiped out all the bookmarks in the browsers installed on that computer, as well as some desktop shortcuts. Not a really big loss, then Jason said that we never backed up that computer because, well, it didn’t have that much on it—the QuickBooks files reside on a server. Still not a problem, I thought, as I had an Excel spreadsheet that noted all the shortcuts and logins for the missing bookmarks in the browser—all links to online banking related websites.

I eventually got the browser set back up correctly. Deleting the folder called Diann from the Users didn’t remove her from the machine, which left us reeling a little bit and thinking about the haunted theory again. Then Jason asked, was that computer “registered” to Diann? We looked in Control Panels>System and right there the registration indeed showed Diann. That can’t be changed without formatting the hard drive and erasing all its contents, then reinstalling all software needed on that computer, and I certainly don’t care enough to do all that work, so Diann’s machine it will continue to be.

Apparently Diann was working there when we got this computer, and as a course of using it for the first time she just typed stuff in whatever forms showed up on the screen and became the registered user. So, on booting the computer, Windows would automatically make a Diann folder and would run a bunch of processes visible in Task Manager, and it was into that Diann folder that the browser shortcuts I lost went, as well as where the Trojans lived and also what caused her to appear in Windows Task Manager.

I was surprised that CouterSpy hadn’t caught the Trojans until I noticed that for whatever reason CounterSpy wasn’t installed on the bookkeeping computer. No, I still haven’t gotten CounterSpy installed yet—repeated attempts are interspersed with tech support from Sunbelt Software who by now think something has been corrupted in Windows XP. I’m sure eventually that we will get it installed as Sunbelt’s support has always been excellent.

Our second tale for the day is of a hardware upgrade to an older computer that didn’t go well. I’m often hesitant to tell folks that an older computer can be upgraded because it often turns into a black hole of time while we try to get older mother boards to recognize more RAM or a bigger hard drive. That’s what happened in our case, but due to miscommunication between the couple who brought the computer in the process has been made harder than necessary.

On receiving the computer back, the missus called to say on restart the computer went right to a “found new hardware” wizard and that further the mouse didn’t work. After a few questions, we learned the mouse and keyboard were plugged in backwards, and correcting that, plus changing the mouse out apparently got the machine to work as we didn’t hear back until the missus called again to ask where her Word and other programs and things on the desktop were.

Further questions revealed that the husband had been instructed to tell our shop all the minute details of what the missus wanted moved to the new computer, but as he wasn’t computer savvy he didn’t tell us enough for us to guess that stuff needed to be moved from the old hard drive to the new one and programs reinstalled.

I explained to the missus that according to our work order no request had been made to move anything from the hard drive and no request to reinstall software had been made either, but that we could happily help with both. Later that day—unfortunately while I was out—the husband brought the computer back, swearing something to the effect that he didn’t want anything to do with the rest of this entire process.

The lesson here is that if you’re considering upgrading an older computer you need to think about what needs to be done. It’s more than just taking out the old hard drive and installing the new one. You also have to move all your stuff from the old hard drive to the new one, and that isn’t all an easy “drag and drop” affair. You have to be aware that the older parts in the computer might not recognize the new parts without a bunch of time and effort being spent.

If you decide to go ahead with the upgrade, find all the install disks for all programs that you want on the renovated computer. If you don’t have them you’re going to have to get them somehow as it’s not legal for the computer repair person to just put software on your computer in many instances. All your documents, pictures and the like, plus your internet shortcuts and emails and email lists will also have to be moved as well, and a backup will help with that part.

And please, don’t yell at the repairman if your spouse didn’t pass along all the information necessary.