Serious Internet Explorer Flaw?

[kittkatt]

Originally Posted by strange_wings

No. I think I confused you. You do need to restart your computer from time to time, normal restart. You tell it to restart, walk off and go do something - go get something to drink, use the bathroom, watch some tv, ect (usually takes a couple minutes for XP to shut everything down and restart everything again anyways

).

Booting into safe mode is only if you have a problem that cannot be fix in normal mode.
You should restart your computer, into normal mode, after running your virus software or spyware remover - if it finds anything.
Avast should give you a little message saying it moved the virus to the quarantine chest and that it will be deleted after you restart your computer. You can't click ok and ignore this, you need to restart so the anti virus program can finish.

All standby mode does is save some power by shutting of the monitor and shuts down a few other things. It does not restart your computer and it does not clear out memory like restarting your computer will. If you do not restart your computer every now and then you'll have errors, stuff will corrupt, and you may find yourself needing to completely reinstall windows or at the very least going back to restore points sooner then you'd like.

That said, I've left a computer on for 3 months straight without problems but I took measures to clear out memory. (And to anyone else reading, did you know you can throw off some of the trial timers on software that way?

)

Well, it doesn't take much to confuse me - especially when it comes to computers.

I think I gotcha now, though. Thanks again, Strange_Wings!

 

[kittkatt]

Originally Posted by strange_wings

Avast should give you a little message saying it moved the virus to the quarantine chest and that it will be deleted after you restart your computer. You can't click ok and ignore this, you need to restart so the anti virus program can finish.

Which reminds me - I don't know how to "clean up" any viruses if they're are any - or how to run a scan, either.

The lady who set up the computer told me not to worry about any of that, and that the antivirus program automatically does all that on its own....

I'm surprised that the lady who bought us our computer told me that she always leaves her computer on, and never shuts it down. I guess she probably doesn't know any better - I don't know. Her son is supposed to be a computer "expert", and she gets all her information from him. When the first computer crashed, he said it was toast and couldn't do anything with it. But my son was able to get it running again when he came to visit last summer. It makes me wonder just how much of an expert our friend's son really is..

 

[coaster]

"Safe Mode" was probably inappropriately named. "Core services" or "Minimal configuration" are probably more descriptive. Leave it to Microsoft to figure out yet another way to obfuscate their software.

 

[strange_wings]

Originally Posted by KittKatt

I'm surprised that the lady who bought us our computer told me that she always leaves her computer on, and never shuts it down. I guess she probably doesn't know any better - I don't know. Her son is supposed to be a computer "expert", and she gets all her information from him. When the first computer crashed, he said it was toast and couldn't do anything with it. But my son was able to get it running again when he came to visit last summer. It makes me wonder just how much of an expert our friend's son really is..

He probably knows enough to keep his computer running, but not how to fix more technical stuff.

Your virus scanner will automatically monitor some things, but you still need to do a thorough scan or set it up to scan when the computer is not in use (at night/early morning). What you do go to start menu > all programs > avast! Antivirus, click on that. You can let it run the memory test or you can cancel that and skip ahead. Read the "simple user interface" instructions in the window that pops up, they will help you. Behind that window will be the scanner gui - it's skinned to almost look like a music player, most of it is self explanatory, but click on stuff to learn where everything is. Tell it what and where to scan, choose a thorough scan, then go wander off to do something away from the computer.
Follow instructions after or if it finds anything. Restart your computer. Done.

Since you seem to run into trouble, do this at least once a week and make sure to restart after.

Look up how to use "restore points in xp", this can let you back up to a safe point if something happens. But you must make sure you're virus free when these are saved.

Do you have a spyware remover? If not, AVG makes a decent free one. Again this should be run once a week or so.

Talk to your son. He may be able to suggest or send you an easy to understand book for learning how to use your computer. Chances are you'd probably learn a bit better if you have it in a book format that you could reference and read while away from the computer.

 

[kittkatt]

Originally Posted by strange_wings

He probably knows enough to keep his computer running, but not how to fix more technical stuff.

Your virus scanner will automatically monitor some things, but you still need to do a thorough scan or set it up to scan when the computer is not in use (at night/early morning). What you do go to start menu > all programs > avast! Antivirus, click on that. You can let it run the memory test or you can cancel that and skip ahead. Read the "simple user interface" instructions in the window that pops up, they will help you. Behind that window will be the scanner gui - it's skinned to almost look like a music player, most of it is self explanatory, but click on stuff to learn where everything is. Tell it what and where to scan, choose a thorough scan, then go wander off to do something away from the computer.
Follow instructions after or if it finds anything. Restart your computer. Done.

Since you seem to run into trouble, do this at least once a week and make sure to restart after.

Look up how to use "restore points in xp", this can let you back up to a safe point if something happens. But you must make sure you're virus free when these are saved.

Do you have a spyware remover? If not, AVG makes a decent free one. Again this should be run once a week or so.

Talk to your son. He may be able to suggest or send you an easy to understand book for learning how to use your computer. Chances are you'd probably learn a bit better if you have it in a book format that you could reference and read while away from the computer.

I really think I ought to buy one of those "Computer For Dummies" books for future reference.

The very first thing I do now when I go on the computer is run the antivirus program through Avast: I don't even wait till I go online anymore where it's done automatically. So I'm somewhat aware of the "music player" thingy that pops up. I did play around with it a little and opened up the virus chest thingy to see if there were any viruses in there, but there wasn't.

I don't want to play around with it too much though, b/c I don't know what I'm doing.

I don't know if I have a spyware program or not.

How do I find that out?

Everytime I ask my son about something, he says, "Mom, you worry too much!" (like when I informed him of the IE flaw). Yeah, well, what's your point? That's what mothers are supposed to do!

This coming from the same guy who probably won't let his daughter/my granddaughter date till she's thirty-something..

Originally Posted by strange_wings

He probably knows enough to keep his computer running, but not how to fix more technical stuff.

He's now working for the Army, doing that "technical computer stuff." Isn't that a scary thought!