Geez, my AV just ate my homework, er, my email INBOX!

[Steve A.]

With my trial edition of Kaspersky due to expire in 3 days, it was scanning my computer this afternoon (unscheduled) and was alerting me to all of these imminent problems which required my immediate attention. The filenames would not fit in the dialog box so I'd take a good look and then tell it to delete the file in question. It had found some 600+ items so I selected them all and told them to neutralize them all. Most of them looked like my old email folders which I have backed up on CDs and DVDS through July 2005.

It was only when I fired up my email client Thunderbird that I realized that my entire Inbox had been cleared out... some 1500+ personal messages and forum posts that I had received since July 2005. Awwkkk!!! I think that I am obsessive compulsive about this stuff and it was like my security blanket was GONE! (In most cases, if I replied to an email the original quoted message -sans attachments- was saved in my SENT folder.) One of my concerns was email acknowledgements of on-line orders, which I would usually move out of the Inbox sooner or later, but I hadn't done this for awhile.

In any case, I look up this "terrible" email virus (Email-Worm.JS.Yamanner.A) through Google and one site deemed it "harmless". It has been around since last June so why the big importance NOW? (This is the email virus that was affecting Yahoo Groups last summer, sending out mass emails titled "New Graphic Site".)

Oh well, I was going to get around to cleaning out my Inbox one of these days anyway. (I have saved all of my personal emails going back to 1997- they have been archived in folders that I can load into Netscape Communicator and now Thunderbird... I recently had to look something up from 2003 and it came in handy. Had I known that I was allowing KAV to delete my entire Inbox I would have first archived it and then let it do its thing.)

Well, it's gone and that's that...

Steve Ahola

P.S. I *HAD* been very impressed with Kaspersky AV, but after this incident I think I might just go back to AVG since its free, and KAV still hasn't competely rid my computer of the browser snatcher that keeps screwing around with my Toolbar!

[Edit: I thought that KAV was just deleting individual emails that it thought was infected, not the whole f*ckin' Inbox... LOL And why NOW when this virus had been around for 7 months? After going through all of that I *STILL* have the darned Spyware thing that reconfigures my browser toolbar... ]

[Brad1]

Steve,

You and computers! Sounds like you have kind of a love-hate relationship with your little beasts!

Sounds like you need someone to write a script that pops up anytime you want to install, delete, uninstall or change anything...maybe a big window that says something like:

WARNING! You are about to delete a file...are you SURE you want to delete this file?

You hit "Yes".

Are you ABSOLUTELY, 100% POSITIVE you want to delete this file?

"Yes".

Have you made SURE that this file deletion is SAFE?

(Sigh)..."YES"!

OK. Click "YES" then, but don't say you weren't warned!

"Yes"

Ummmm.....Uh oh.........

Just razzin' ya!

Actually, one of the best ways to learn what NOT to do is when you do something, and then say to yourself...."hmmmmm....I shouldn't have done THAT!"

I've said that many, many times .

Brad1

[Rob Mercure]

In Steve's "defense"

Brad, part of the problem, I would think - can't talk for Steve - is that MS products usually ask you far too many times - "is this what you really want to do?- until the point that we've learned to just click through excessive warnings. Not that your suggestion isn't useful but it's sort of the "boy that cried wolf" story all over again. And maybe not but if Steve's anything like me Microsoft's continually bashing the user with what amounts to "hey, dumbass, are you sure that you know what you're doing? No, really are you sure? Not that we the uberprogrammers don't trust you but are you really, really sure?" ad nauseum has made it hard to know when to heed a "warning" and not

Having given up computer programming in the mid 90s I'm far below the curve but perhaps more meaningful warnings could be green-yellow-red coded and depend on the number of files/bits/nibbles/bytes/gB about to be altered with the user being able to set/reset these parameters for the programs. Or perhaps this is a dumb idea - there is the old computer/money adage "save early and OFTEN."

Rob

[Brad1]

I know. I was just ribbing him Steve A. is a seemingly endless source of amusement with his computer exploits...and I can relate.

I just now finished recapping my old PIII Internet/MIDI computer. I'm testing everything right now. Thing started getting lock-ups and blue-screens a couple weeks ago. Did all the spy/ad/ware/virus stuff, and it was clean. Then I decided I'd re-seat the cards and blow the cobwebs out. That's when I saw them. Bulging 1000uF and 1500uF caps. I've recapped hundreds of boards, from about 8 different products, at work, and about 98% work afterward. Some wouldn't even boot up or beep when we got them. Mine worked...kind of...so I knew the chances were good. (And no, they didn't give me a raise for getting more life out of $800 front desk, or $8000 A/V servers...instead of buying new ones)

"WHY" you may ask, "do you want to mess around with a PIII?"
Because it has an ISA slot. And I like the crisp, clear, punchy sounds of my old Roland Rap-10 card. Mix'n'match sounds from it with SoundFonts in the Audigy, and perhaps virtual instruments on the synced-up audio computer...with a keyboard or outboard module...and I can get some pretty convincing MIDI sounds. I like the RAP-10. I'll try to keep it going as long as possible. Call me crazy..

I do have a backup motherboard, but I didn't want to fuss with stuff changing, unless I need to. When reinstalling, or if settings change, if I leave the RAP-10 set to what it was, the SoundBlaster then thinks IT needs those IRQ's...so I have to set the RAP-10 to what I know I DON'T want, and fool the SB into claiming it. Then I reset the jumpers on the RAP-10 to what I REALLY want, and everything is cool...just a hassle.

Planning on getting an Internet/general duty computer soon, to save from having to use this one all the time, and try to prolong it's life. And I don't want to use my beefy, well-oiled DAW computer for anything else. Keeps it clean, and running well.

And, you're right about Microsoft. It is annoying. I was just taking it a little overboard. My pet peeve with XP, at work anyway, is the engineers leave those stupid little balloons active, and we have to endure them when we repair computers. "New hardware has been detected"..."USB device is detected"..."your USB device is ready to use"...

I asked them to turn those off in any new images. Get into the registry, make that "1" a "0", and MAKE THEM STOP!...Please? Ha-ha. We'll find out soon enough if things are working, and if the guys in the field need them, they should probably be doing something else.

I was just kidding, in sympathy. I'm sure a lot of us have been there.

Brad1

[bob p]

Steve, Steve, Steve. You do have your critical information backed-up, don't you???

Now let me ask, did you ever get that email that I had sent yesterday about the Acronis software for backing up your system, or did that get blasted in your most recent accident?

Lemme know if I need to re-send.