We can tell you did it.

[Bob The Random Boy Wonder]

Inspired by TechieGirl87's thread and a post I made in that thread, here's a little something that irks me.

Person brings you their computer to rid it of 10 billion viruses, rootkits, malwares, and general crapware the person doesn't need (whatever that might be, since virus removal also included a full system optimization). You return the computer to said person in perfect condition and explain to them how you saved their computer from the brink of death. In the process, you explain that they might not want to do what they were doing again. All seems to be well, you think, because you're getting the computer back out to them so they can enjoy it during their weekend.

Fast forward to Monday morning, and the same person brings the computer back to you with the same issues complaining that their computer is still running slow, you have no idea what you're doing, and you should be ashamed for ripping people off. You check the list of installed programs in Control Panel only to find the person reinstalled all the crapware you removed on the Saturday after you returned the computer--which would make it pretty impossible that it's your fault, considering your shop has never been open on Saturday, ever.

Frustrated with this little tidbit, you call the client up and tell them that the computer is running poorly because someone reinstalled some malware and crapware over the weekend, only to be told that's impossible because the computer was never booted up that day.

People, we can tell if the computer's been used on certain days when you bring them to us for support--and I know in cases like this that I always check the Windows system logs for logon attempts. Computers do not magically install viruses, malware, and crapware when they're powered off, so either you or someone else had to do it. The computer has four different logons for one user recorded on this date. Just admit you put the crapware back and make both our lives easier.

I can think of at least three different occasions when I worked for my previous boss when this happened. Despite my showing him the system logs to prove how wrong the customers in question were, he made us "fix" the systems again for free to avoid losing clients.

I've never owned a business myself, but aren't the dishonest clients like this the exact ones you want to lose? Either lose the fraudsters, or plan on losing lots of money. Your choice.

[emax4]

BTRBW, when that happened, did you inform the customer(s) of what specific software programs were installed by the user and removed by you after being found to cause damage? If so, was the customer(s) given a warning not to install those same specific programs? Obviously if a customer isn't informed, then they don't know what's good and what's bad, which is why they're in the store. If the dangers aren't explained in a way that's comprehensible to them, then they'll be repeat customers (in a bad way). I'm just thinking that if the customer keeps making the same mistakes because they're not informed, it's going to cause issues for the staff, partly because the customer may not follow directions.

That's where money will cause them to pay attention. A computer repair business should be able to tell a customer something along the lines of:

"We removed xxx, yyy, and zzz because they were the culprits causing slowness and trouble, and this is the second time in a week you've been in for the same issue. Be aware that some programs may seem legit but are really malware in disguise. Now if you return later this week for a similar issue and we determine that the slowdowns are from reinstalling xxx, yyy and/or zzz, then we'll have to charge (rate * x) for this repeat issue.

At that point it would be a good time to upsell the custy on reliable anti-virus software and such, much lower than what the price of a repeat visit would cost the customer. I may be talking out of my butt because I've never owned a computer repair business but have done tech support for point-of-sale machines before.

[dalesys]

...on reliable anti-virus software and such...

That crap keeps my BeFeweled© games from running.

[taurinejunkie]

I facepalmed so hard when i had to relay this on a call to an ISP: "so i set it up the way i think it should be so why isn't it working?[...]" and my mental reply was: "well there's your problem, of course it can't possibly work if you do what you think you should" but the tech (whose response i did have to relay to the caller) was far more polite.

[Bob The Random Boy Wonder]

BTRBW, when that happened, did you inform the customer(s) of what specific software programs were installed by the user and removed by you after being found to cause damage?

Yes, I always made it a point to make a note of what we removed on the printed invoice so the user knew it probably wasn't a good idea to reinstall that program. One client had a list that spanned half a standard letter size piece of paper in 10-pt. font (read: I ran out of room on the invoice, so I had to open up Word to continue the list of bad programs).

Situations like these were always well-documented and filed away in the customer database. Basically, my former CW's and I always knew who our problem clients were going to be.

At that point it would be a good time to upsell the custy on reliable anti-virus software and such, much lower than what the price of a repeat visit would cost the customer.

Even if the customer had 150 viruses and a ton of rootkits, we were told not to sell any extra AV software if we found a record of an active AV on the computer--and believe me: there were instances when a computer had more than 150 different viruses but still had something like Norton or McAfee installed. That rarely stopped me from slipping a copy of Microsoft Security Essentials on the machine for extra protection. Despite explaining to everyone the purpose of MSE, people had a habit of uninstalling it and reinfecting their machines. These were the same people that gave us an earful about how we didn't fix their computer and there's no way they installed that program on a computer that was never powered up on a day we're closed.

(I'm pretty sure I know why MSE was axed by these users on these occasions: it has an active agent built in where it physically notifies you why what you're installing is bad, and then it blocks the process. After most people see these popups, they simply uninstall the entire program and keep installing the questionable programs.)

As far as what you've said about your father, patiokitty, it's almost as if you're describing my mother. She wonders why I've taken to password-protecting everything and locking down all the nonessential functions of her computer with SteadyState (she can still get to her documents and access all the programs she uses...she just can't get to the C:/ drive now to eff with/delete the Windows system files). Sometimes you just get so tired of explaining to the Microsoft phone people why you're installing that copy of Windows for the fifth time this year that you have to take preventative measures.

[artcurmudgeon]

Lets take this from the individual screw up to the enterprise level screw up...

About six months ago we had a virus infect about 60% of the company.

How did this happen? We have what is called a common drive, everyone has access to it and on top of this, auditing is turned off. What is auditing you ask? It is when Windows server is enable to log who wrote what files and when. So basically, we got infected and in no way could we determine who infected us. And on top of this, we got told that because this happened we would not be turning auditing on because it would make people feel like they are being scrutinized.

WTF?!?

And on top of all this, every other one of our 100+ sites world wide have auditing turned on, but not here, not the global headquarters where people get really upset if you tell them they have storage quotas or that you cant store 10 years of email your inbox.

FFS.................

[Ophbalance]

As far as what you've said about your father, patiokitty, it's almost as if you're describing my mother. She wonders why I've taken to password-protecting everything and locking down all the nonessential functions of her computer with SteadyState (she can still get to her documents and access all the programs she uses...she just can't get to the C:/ drive now to eff with/delete the Windows system files). Sometimes you just get so tired of explaining to the Microsoft phone people why you're installing that copy of Windows for the fifth time this year that you have to take preventative measures.

It is for this reason that the kid's PC is now running Ubuntu. A year ago I built them a machine to replace an aging Dell that they had been using. The old machine was on WinXP, and so I made the new machine Windows 7 (as the new machine was 64bit). Now, I'm a bit pissed at MS as they really dropped the ball for home users and security. Yes, you can turn on UAC. And it was turned on. However, without a server to run policies against there's not much in the way of control you have over a basic user. I told the kids that they have just ONE chance on this new machine. If I have to disinfect it, they're going to linux. We didn't make it 6 months .

Honestly, I'm happy with the change. I can admin the box from my laptop. I was able to put in a time keeping app to limit each child's time. The kids can still play minecrap, and I no longer need to blow a weekend every six months rebuilding a PC.

[sms001]

I've never owned a business myself, but aren't the dishonest clients like this the exact ones you want to lose?

Yep, they sure are.

I did own my own business and fortunately only ran into it twice, and one of those was client's kid lying to them. (And the client believed the logs and paid me again - a reduced rate at my insistence since the labor wasn't nearly as extensive.)
I accepted the other's analysis of my incompetence and then referred them to the local PC shop that I was draining customers from because his (PC shop owner's) business model was "fix it, but don't install or describe any prophylactic measures, cause 'hey' repeat customers." Figured they were made for each other.

[ender]

It is for this reason that the kid's PC is now running Ubuntu. A year ago I built them a machine to replace an aging Dell that they had been using. The old machine was on WinXP, and so I made the new machine Windows 7 (as the new machine was 64bit). Now, I'm a bit pissed at MS as they really dropped the ball for home users and security. Yes, you can turn on UAC. And it was turned on. However, without a server to run policies against there's not much in the way of control you have over a basic user. I told the kids that they have just ONE chance on this new machine. If I have to disinfect it, they're going to linux. We didn't make it 6 months .

UAC isn't a security feature - it's main purpose was to force developers to start writing Windows programs that'll work properly when run with limited privileges (UAC forces all programs to run with limited privileges by default, but still lets programs and user easily elevate when the account has administrative privileges).

Also, Windows 7 lets you have all the control you had with XP. Without a domain controller, there's still local security policy for fine-grained control. Of course, you do have to give limited accounts to the users you wish to limit - an administrator can always bypass limitations.

[Ophbalance]

Also, Windows 7 lets you have all the control you had with XP. Without a domain controller, there's still local security policy for fine-grained control. Of course, you do have to give limited accounts to the users you wish to limit - an administrator can always bypass limitations.

Not sufficient for my needs. Even locked down, basic accounts were still able to execute crap code to the point that the machine got infected. Every .com/.exe should have prompted for admin override, but they still managed to kill the machine.

[Bob The Random Boy Wonder]

^Are you and Ophbalance talking about group policy? If so, there is some truth to what's being said. gpedit.msc was never present in XP Home, but it was there in Media Center Edition starting in 2005 because MCE runs on the same kernel as XP Pro (if you use TweakUI to show the version of Windows on the desktop in MCE, it will say "Windows XP Professional"). Since the majority of computers produced after 2005 included MCE, most people had these controls.

Fast forward to the release of Vista in 2007, and Microsoft pulled gpedit.msc out of the OS for Home Premium and below. This same practice carried over to Windows 7 when it was released. I don't know if that's the case for the released version of Windows 8 since I'm staying far away from it, but that was the case in the developer preview.

I love Windows 7, but this situation is why I'm a little hesitant to upgrade my users on XP right now. You can get software for 7 that serves the same purpose as XP's group policy editor, but who wants to pay over $400 for licenses of Clean Slate or Fortres 101? I'd rather stick with XP and use SteadyState (or even the archaic Shared Computer Toolkit, which SteadyState replaced). It's unsupported, but it's free and still gets the job done after all these years. You can still find both online if you look around.

[Ophbalance]

I guess maybe I'm a bit odd. My background is NT 4.0 and Netware, Win Server 2k - 2k8... realms where you can lock everything down to very small minutiae. That's just not possible with Win7, unless you're running a standalone domain controller based on what I'm seeing within the OS.

[wolfie]

At that point it would be a good time to upsell the custy on reliable anti-virus software and such, much lower than what the price of a repeat visit would cost the customer.

That crap keeps my BeFeweled© games from running.

What type of software does an ANTI-VIRUS program stop? Malware. Maybe there's a REASON why it keeps some games from running.

Even if the customer had 150 viruses and a ton of rootkits, we were told not to sell any extra AV software if we found a record of an active AV on the computer--and believe me: there were instances when a computer had more than 150 different viruses but still had something like Norton or McAfee installed.

WTF? If they've got a pile of malware on their machine, that's a pretty good indication that their AV package, even if it's active, is a steaming pile of shit that's not doing the job. It's clear that they need a GOOD AV package. Sucks to have paid good money for crap software, but which would be better - pay for a new AV package THAT ACTUALLY WORKS, or pay to get rid of the next batch of malware their BadJokeAV lets through?

[Chromatix]

Worth noting: Avast is one of the better ones, and doesn't cost anything for home use. If I ran a computer repair shop, installing Avast on otherwise unprotected machines would be policy.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

What type of software does an ANTI-VIRUS program stop? Malware. Maybe there's a REASON why it keeps some games from running.

Though just because the AV says/thinks it's malware, doesn't mean it is. I can't tell you the number of times where I'm getting legit games and my AV was all "OMg THIS WILL BLOW UP YOUR COMPUTER I'MMA NOT LET YOU PLAY IT." So I would run exceptions, saying FU to the AV, and played the game with absolutely no issues coming from this action. (AKA; the game wasn't malware.)