Linked by David Adams on Fri 25th Sep 2009 16:17 UTC
A non-OSNews-reader asks: "I've got 5 PCs that I'm trying to use to train disadvantaged young people. The problem is they are riddled with viruses and a firewall blocks me from updating them. The people in charge of maintaining the
PCs won't fix them or give me the admin password (Win XP) to let me
install a new or updated antivirus. The centre is being shut down in a
few months. If they were working, I could still do a lot with them, so I've been
looking for a good online virus scan - but they all try to download a
little .exe onto your PC first, and the settings on the PCs won't
allow that. Suggestions? Solutions? Links?" Read on for our recommendation. Update: It appears that this question is part of an elaborate email scam designed to propagate malware. See here for details.
Permalink for comment 386266
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:
2006-03-30
Can these machines boot from USB? If they can, and you can afford a few cheap 2-4GB thumb drives, you have a few options. First, you could install one of many available Linux distro's that can boot off a thumb drive. I like Slax! Then you could boot all the machines up and have a go.
Second, if you really want to get back into the existing Windows install, you MIGHT be able to install ClamAV on the USB drive's Linux, boot into it, then run ClamAV on the hopefully mounted Windows partition and theoretically clean them up...I've never done anything like that, its just an idea and there may be very good reasons why that won't work.
Finally, if you can't boot from USB, you can always use a Linux Live CD and go from there, you just won't have any ability to save anything, unless you boot from CD and also plug in a USB drive from some storage space.
Anyway, it sounds like a great thing you're doing. Sorry to hear your admins are no help. A non-technical suggestion might be to try to go over their heads. Who's _their_ boss? Does he know he's stopping these kids from having useful computers?? Best of luck!
Edited 2009-09-25 16:46 UTC