Computer Hardware Servicing NC II Tutorial

Installing an antivirus is essential specially if your platform or operating system is Microsoft Windows based. Having the right protection for your computer ensures that your system will work at its fullest without compromising your security. Keeping your files from being stolen or destroyed by viruses, trojans, and worms.

Almost all computers are vulnerable to virus infection from downloading pictures, music, documents, and other forms of downloadable media. Since you can't live having all downloading stuff restricted, we can still do so as long as your protected by a dependable antivirus.

Today, viruses are getting smarter as they can infect other computers across networks and can even replicate among themselves and wreck havoc on the infected computers. Some viruses are even capable of monitoring your internet activity and records your keystrokes then sends the recorded data to the attacker's server via ftp. Trojans are the most common methods of delivering the virus into the victim's computer.


So How Should We Protect Ourselves From These Attacks?

The best solution aside from limiting our internet activities such as emailing, downloading, or streaming and others; is to install a good antivirus that can protect your desktop in real-time and protect your computer when you are online.

There are so many antivirus products online and many other utilities that search for malwares and rootkits. So many choices that sometimes will just leave us a decision to just choose any of the antivirus online - preferably the free ones.

Here is a short list of the most notable antivirus for 2012

• BitDefender Antivirus Plus - buy here


• Kaspersky Antivirus - buy here


• Panda Antivirus Pro - buy here


• Avira Antivirus Internet Security Premium - buy here


• AVG Antivirus - buy here


• Avast! Pro Antivirus - buy here


• ESET NOD32 Antivirus - buy here

My personal favorite is Avira Antivirus as it allows users to enjoy the premium version for a trial period of three months plus it can also be used with full functionality for 180 days or six months using a special link.

So all in all, I am enjoying Avira's full version to about seven months including the 30-day trial period. So in this example, we are going to install Avira Antivirus. Here is the detailed procedure on how to install an antivirus and how to enjoy the full version for half a year legitimately for free.

1. Go to Avira's website to be able to get Avira Premium 2012 downloaded.

2. If you are using Win Xp SP2, you must upgrade your system to SP3 as this is Avira Premium 2012's requirement. You can get the service pack update here then install the service pack update. Computers with Win 7 or Windows Vista operating systems won't be needing to have Service Pack updates.

3. Upon completing to install the service pack update, run Avira Premium 2012's setup icon and fill in the appropriate user details.

4. On the process of antivirus installation, it prompts to ask you but the product or continue installing it using the 30 days trial license. Restart the computer. As the antivirus update is automatically completed, you can now enjoy your 30 day period of free Avira Premium 2012 antivirus.

5. As your 30 day period expires, you need to have another key to extend your free trial. You can do this and have a trial not only for 30 days but for six months!


How To Extend Avira Premium 2012 Free Trial For Half A Year

1. First thing to do is go to the website as posted below:

https://license.avira.com/en/promotion-pu9jja4s67tguz2zd7w5


2. Fill up the necessary details asked in the form and confirm by pressing the "Request license now" red button.

3. After that, the page will let you see the License Overview. You can see two keys with a green arrow down just below the "Download" heading. Click that to directly download Avira Premium 2012 license keys.

4. In your desktop, open Avira Premium 2012 antivirus dashboard and go to the license setting. Change the current license key with the one having been downloaded earlier by browsing it.

5. After having the new license, you can now enjoy the full Avira Premium 2012 good for six months and for free!

This detailed instruction for antivirus installation is easy to follow. And the Avira trick as well is perfectly simple and nifty. Software installation is just one things you should be able to learn here. You can learn more about computer servicing by browsing and reading our tutorials and tips.

In this troubleshooting example, an EMachines D725 laptop can recognize USB devices but refuses to load it up. When a Globe Tattoo was plugged in an error message of the dialog box appears as : "The file or folder 'himipx.exe' that this shortcut refers to can't be found" and the dialog box can't be closed. This restricts the USB device to be loaded. The laptop has Win 7 operating system with an expired Avira Antivirus - which I suspect caused the problem. I was able to remove and deactivate the himipx.exe (himip.exe) but I suggested that the laptop should be reformatted as soon as possible. The fix made was not full because they need to have the laptop sent to the school just half an hour when I was "fixing" it.



Date Fixed : December 12, 2010


Problem : When a flashdrive or a USB device is plugged in an error message appears as : "The file or folder 'himipx.exe' that this shortcut refers to can't be found"


Owner : Gwen Amante
Unit : Emachines D725 T4400 2 GB RAM
Operating System : Windows 7


Technician : Drokz
Weblog : http://clhidohsr.blogspot.com


INTERVENING FACTOR :

- The laptop needs to be fixed around 30 mins


OBSERVATION :

- The laptop just boots fine and there seems to be no problem. But when a flashdrive or thumbdrive or any USB device is being plugged in, an error message appears and the dialog box could not be closed and likewise the USB device is refused to be recognized.


TROUBLESHOOTING PROCEDURE :

- Since the antivirus has already expired, I have a suspicion that a virus must have caused the problem. So I plugged in a wifi kit (Globe Tattoo) then a dialog pops up and shows the himipx.exe error. So I checked in the task manager if the himipx.exe is active in the memory but what I found out was its process name is himip.exe. So I need to find himip.exe in the registry and manually delete it.

- To be able to find himip.exe in the registry, press Win+R and type in "regedit". As the registry dialog box appears, click or highlight "My Computer" and go to the "Edit" tab then to "Find" then type in the text input box "himip.exe" and press "Enter". A few seconds after, it should display in the left pane of the registry dialog box a string value entry named "himip.exe" then click right on it then choose delete.

- You have just deleted the first himip.exe and you need to find the other string value by going to "Edit" tab again then to "Find Next". It should reveal another himip.exe string value entry and delete it.

- Now the known registry values has just been deleted, we need to disable the startup item for "himipx.exe" or "himip.exe" in the System Configuration Utiity. In order to do so, press "Win+R" then type "msconfig". As the System Configuration Utility appears, go to the "Startup" tab and uncheck the the item for "himipx.exe" then click "ok". Restart your computer.

- As I have accomplished this and had the computer successfully boot up, I tried to plug in a USB drive (Globe Tattoo) and the error message did not come out! I was already able to use the wifi kit then later uninstalled the expired Avira Antivirus and replaced it with the 1 year trial of Avast Pro. The laptop is now ok but I strongly suggest that it should be reformatted.


SUMMARY :

The Emachines D725 laptop virus infected by the malware "himipx.exe" or "himip.exe" could not be able to use a flashdrive or a thumbdrive or any USB device. The only way to do this aside from having your computer scanned by a good and updated antivirus is to manual deletion of the registry values of the "himipx.exe" and its derivative "himip.exe" and disabling its startup item in the System Configuration Utility. I also found no other problem made by this type of malware so far.

Just this morning, one of my students approached and asked me if can I help to get her Digicam pictures from its memory card back. Without hesitation I asked her back rightaway what has happened and when did it happen. She told me that she has used it earlier and was still able to see the pictures but when her digicam's memory card was plugged in to the other pc, everything that was in the memory card where replaced by folder links. All the files in the memory card where replaced by files with .lnk file extensions indicating that they are link shortcuts. Obviously, the digicam's memory card is virus infected. My student then asked me if can there still be a chance to get her pictures back and I just answered "We'll try".

So I plugged in her memory stick to my computer while pressing the "Shift" key. Pressing the shift key avoids autoruns. Upon checking the contents of her memory card (do not click on the memory card's icon in "My Computer", Use the folder tree at least)I noticed that there where six lnk files with zero bytes of file size. But I checked properties of the memory card , it shows more than 400 MB of used file size out of the total of 2 GB capacity. This is odd, so I checked on for the folder options if there are hidden files but I found none. The other option to check if files are given with attributes is by using the NT Command Prompt.


To Use the NT Command Prompt

1. Press "Win+R" then type in "cmd"

2. Once your are in the command prompt, go to the root directory of your memory card and in my case it's on dive e:. So typed in "e:"

3. It should now display E:\> and type "attrib/s". You should see some files with attributes like "r","a","s","h". If you see such attributes, remove them by typing in "attrib/s -r -a -s -h".

4. Once the attributes are removed, type "dir" to see all files. As I executed this, I found seacao.exe and jauaco.exe. These files are not familiar and just as I suspected. I found out by searching on google that these are worms. So I deleted them by typing in "del seacao.exe,juauco.exe".

5. As I deleted those files, the lnk files still remained and still not pictures found. So I decided to to check each lnk file to be treated as a directory.

6. So I typed in "cd documents.lnk" where "document.lnk" is the name of one of the lnk files. To my surprise, I was able to enter "documents.lnk" directory. So I then checked for possible files by typing in "dir". Then I saw a lot of files with .jpg and .mov file extensions, at last I found them! And so I copied the files by typing in "copy *.* d:" where d: is the directory where I'll be placing the recovered image files so I can format the memory card.

I was then able to format the memory stick and transferred the recovered image files from drive d: back to the newly formatted memory card successfully and returned it its owner. If you feel this method is way too technical for you, you might want to consider using a good software to automatically recover your corrupted digital camera files.

Computer Owner: DILG
Unit: Full Tower ATX
Computer Description: Intel ® D850MV Chipset
Processor: Intel ® Pentium 4
RAM: 128 Mb (SDRAM)
Operating System: Windows SP 2


Technicians:

Mr. Ronald Suan 09269514596
Mr. Wilson Balbuena 09265150058



Observation:

>”Re-install a copy of the above file (Window root) system32\hall.dll” error report occurs upon bootstrapping.


Troubleshooting Proper:

>Re-installing Operating System (Windows Xp SP 2) without formatting the drives.

Computers with boot problem or operating system corruption due to virus infection can be resolved by running an antivirus or antimalware program to remove the virus infection then run a registry cleaner to roll back changes the virus has made. Boot problems can somehow also be attributed by a hardware failure like defective or failing hard drive, RAM, power supply unit or PSU, or the motherboard itself. To be able to fix such problem, one has to consider checking the most obvious and easier suspected troubles like programs than to that of the hardware. Safety and efficiency while troubleshooting a computer should be considered as well.


Date Repaired : October 21, 2009


Problem : Computer Virus Infected, CD ROM is recognized as DVD ROM in My Computer


Owner: Ms. Melchie Dorado, Dumaguete City


Motherboard : ECS Pentium IV 2.8 Ghz
Operating System : Windows XP SP2


INTERVENING FACTORS:

- Motherboard Support CD is lost


OBSERVATION:

- CD ROM wrongly recognized in My Computer
- Computer boots up so slow
- Task Manager has been disabled, likewise the folder view and Run
- Webcam won't work
- Computer restricts installation of an antivirus
- Cannot perform file backup, USB flashdrive is rejected to be recognized.


TROUBLESHOOTING PROCEDURE:

* Learn more about computer troubleshooting safety and safety do and no list before doing any fixes on your computer!

- Since we cannot install an antivirus and perform file backup because of the restrictions made, it is best to backup the drivers first then perform operating system re-installation but without formatting. We can do driver backup using double driver or driver backup pro.

- After successfully having backup of the drivers (which are of course virus infected but later be scanned), reinstall the operating system and choose not the format the partition.

- After successfully reinstalled the operating system without formatting, having file backup is now possible because the changes made by the virus has been removed through the re-installation of the operating system and renewing of the registry. After the file backup has been made, the final re-installation of the operating system with partition formatting now begins.

- Do operating system installation. While we waited for the os installation to finish, I had my file backup and the driver backup scanned with an updated antivirus from another working computer. * learn more about proper operating system installation guide

- As the operating system installation has been successful, the device drivers were installed and the backup was also restored back to the appropriate directory. Additional drivers were installed using a drivers pack for the webcam and the printer. * Learn more about device driver solution

- After installing the device drivers for the motherboard, we then tweaked the registry and performed disk cleanup. Basic programs were then installed like microsoft office 2003, adobe reader, vlc, flash, and many other programs.

- Additionally, utilities were also installed like teracopy, winrar, USB guard, regcure and smart defrag. Theses utilities will help the system run better and adds more style and functionality experience of the user.

- Smart defrag was launched to perform disk defragmentation and then later regcure to fix registry issues. These two programs were run to make files compressed and continuous and also make the registry run the system unit as a whole better. * Learn more about registry fixing

- An antivirus was installed and been updated as well.

- Computer was restarted and checked all the previously observed problems have already been resolved. The system is now ok.


SUMMARY

- Computer boot problems are generally attributed by computer virus attacks. The best way to keep your computer safe is to at least install an antivirus and if possible a good firewall. Boot problems occur when a virus attacks primarily the registry and boot files thus making the operating corrupted and useless.