What a Nightmare for the average user!

[Abraxas]

The last 3 weeks have been a nightmare ! A friend's computer has been "out of action" ; as far as Internet use,  for that long . As I haven't had the time to constantly monitor the situation a pretty simple infection has turned critical. The virus I initially cleaned, with Avast! 4.5 boot Scan ; Win32:Mopy[Wrm] + a security hole in Internet Explorer 6 on a WinXP system has dragged out to the point where my friend has spent a couple of 4 hour sessions with Microsoft support on the Telephone. The culprit: an 11 year old boy who turned of, probably accidentally,  ???ZoneAlarm while downloading a game ROM. Once SP2 was mentioned, as it tried to download itself , again, they have been trying to fix the problem free of charge.
1. The person is not an advanced user; why should they be, it's just a home computer, for general use.
2. They took all the necessary precautions to safeguard their system, i.e. ZoneAlarm, SpyBot, Ad-Aware, SpywareBlaster, SpywareGuard, Avast!, Avast cleaner.
3.How can an average person be expected to have the skills to protect themselves from these malicious Spy/Malware attacks. I suppose the fact that a kid turned of the "protection", by disabling the Firewall, and downloading something he shouldn't is the bottom line. I'm not even sure if that's the case, it just seems the most likely.
Microsoft think it's a SP2 problem. They asked for a " Log " from    ' Hijack this'  ; ( which I installed ages ago  if such a thing as this occured ) . I'm a Technician, but time is hard to find.
I wish they (mIcrosoft ) would  get their act together as it's not fair for the general user to have to undergo the stress of going through all the troubleshooting involved to stabilise a "bad" system.
Sorry, I'm angry
 Fingers crossed that Microsoft can sort out the problem today, Monday,  Australian time.
 Is the  Personal  Computer becoming a sad waste of time for the average user ? 
 And a huge artificial economy for the industry as a whole ?

[Abraxas]

 Today I spoke to a Technician at Microsoft, as my friend has had enough. I won't go into the details of what they've tried to do, as they haven't lead anywhere, or resolved the problem of connectivity to the Internet, and stability of the system. As my friend hasn't advanced knowledge of computer sytems it seems they took a very simplistic approach to the matter.
 The technician analysed the reports We'd sent them and expressed to me today that ZoneAlarm has been the problem .
 The story is that after I'd cleaned the initial Virus, and reset all spyware and virus protection, and firewall ; that Microsoft got my friend to delete all the above posted utilities; ( ) and had her doing selective start ups, with Msconfig. This was through advice of lower level Microsoft techs.
 Today they said that it appeared that ZoneAlarm had not uninstalled, and has scheduled a senior technician to guide me through a manual uninstall. The initial virus struck on the 4th of Jan. this year. At least they've become conscious that the process has taken too long, and want to resolve the problem.
The file ZoneAlarm client.exe, is in the registry, and I haven't been able to remove it.
I've never heard that ZoneAlarm, "breaks easily", as they put it,  and is very hard to uninstall. It's a shame that  a  Senior Tech. was not consulted in the first place, as I feel the problem has been exasperated by the Microsoft support team.

 

[marauding]

Hello all !!!!  I'm actually back, now!  Abraxas was my helper with the "Nightmare for the average
user!" situation.
I really have to say that now all negative references to Microsoft were the result
of extreme stress and hair pulling out sessions on both of us.
They were so helpful and kind  , and comforting in such a time of distress (suckage)
Microsoft Rocks!!!!!      and may well be the answer to all our computer prayers   .
Such soothing words of comfort helped to assuage all our fears
and now we have downloaded their "Anti-Spyware Program"
and I've got your one back,  all should be reasonably well.
So hearts and flowers to them.   
Gee......what a relief, huh!
I shall now revert to my usual dry witted self.