shadowbearer's Journal: MS "Malicious Software Removal" tools

Still. Doesn't. Work.

  In the last two weeks, I've had one Windows 7 machine, two Vista machines, five MCE machines, and 10+ (see below*) XP Pro machines with the MS MSR installed which were hosed to the point where I had to struggle to get them to boot into the GUI so I could run conventional tools against them.

  * The windows bootloader would run, but no splash screen, blank or with a blinking cursor. Safe Mode only sometimes worked. For the XP/MCE machines, doing a repair from disk would at least get one a GUI long enough to run tools like combofix and fix it.

  Inspection of the copies of the registry hives of the above installs showed that all but two of the above machines had the MSR tool installed, and updated. That did not stop those systems from being invaded, and in at least one of the Vista instances, rootkitted.

  I have to conclude that the people here who think that Microsoft's MSR tool works are either astroturfers, or naive.

  I'm tired of this shit.

  Some people would say "Hey, it bring you $income"

  I would rather be doing hardware replacement and teaching people how to use computers.

  At least there, I can say that I did the work.

  Virus removal, when they get infected again, despite how I secure their system, despite how much they follow safe surfing, makes me look like a charlatan.

  I've been moving the most badly affected customers over to Ubuntu for about a year, and THEY don't call me so often. It just works.

  I've been doing this for more than two decades, and I'm tired of the consumer approach to software.

  FIx your shit, Microsoft. (Oh, and you can damned well support the XP variants better, since that is what a large majority of your customer base is still using.)

  Posted Angry as I've spent too much damned time this week doing the same damned thing I was last year... and the year before that... etc... ...

  This post may contain potentially incoherent ranting and/or opinions. Read it at your own risk. No lawyers were harmed during the production of this post; although it's my sincere wish that some of them would have been thru circumstances outside of my control.

    SB

 

MSR is not an antivirus

[emeraldd]

When running a windows box, you either have to keep it off the net completely and hope for the best or run a real antivirus. That MSR tool is pretty much a waste of time. Forefront, AVG, or Comodo are a few I've seen used reasonably well. I can't really speak to their effectiveness though.

Dot Dot Dot

[Haedrian]

"You should also use up-to-date antivirus software to help protect your computer from other malicious software."

Wow, someone just discovered that MSRT only runs once a month and only finds a small subset of malware - and is not intended as a replacement to an anti-virus product.

Please take care of my computer too. K thnx.

Re:

[shadowbearer]

    Funny, I had some people trying to tell me that it gets nearly everything, not very long ago.

  Since MSRT is pretty much useless, what's the point of Microsoft trying to push it? It's just more junk that really doesn't need to be on the computer.

SB