With computers, bleep happens. (Part 1)
Well, over the last few weeks, I found myself with quite a bit of computer trouble. With both of my Internet capable computers, and due to some other time constraints, like work and sleep, it took quite a while to solve said problems.
Norton had expired weeks ago on my laptop, and so I temporarily installed AVG. Almost immediately afterwards my laptop slowly began to display more and more worrisome symptoms, reminiscent of the virus laden computers I had worked on in the past. So I slotted it for an OS reinstall. Unfortunately, before I got to -that-, my new Tower had a hiccup, and the RAID degraded, and then broke down.
Now, I had a choice. I could either work on my Tower immediately, and wind up possibly needing to use my laptop (virus infected as it was) to fix it, or have to pause mid way through, to change over to my laptop, possibly loosing my place on where I was on the tower. Or, I could try to fix my laptop first, even though it would likely take longer. Since either way, I’d be taking about the same period of time fixing my computers, I went laptop first.
So I reinstalled the OS, including a full wipe and full reformat of the hard drive. I had actually wanted to do this for a while, due to some networking troubles that I couldn’t figure out otherwise. Unfortunately, after installing the OS, there was an error where the computer had two copies of the OS registered, and if I wasn’t on hand to hit a key during boot up, the boot sequence would take at least 30 seconds longer. On a laptop, that’s never a good thing. So I reinstalled again. Unfortunately, I somehow got windows genuine advantage notification on my computer before SP2, and that’s when I learned the truth about this bit of windows Spyware*.
Now keep in mind, I define spyware as any piece of software which monitors anything on your computer, and reports it to a third party without passing the information by you first for approval, whether you know it is there or not. I know the Department of Homeland Security is there, and will be involved if I apply for a security clearance, that doesn’t mean they aren’t domestic spies. By the same token, just because you allow spyware onto your computer and know it’s there, doesn’t mean it’s not spyware.
Now, when I booted up my computer after a huge number of updates had been done, Windows Genuine BS informed me that I hadn’t installed SP2 (Service Pack 2) yet, and that I should, since it was free. It even had a little pop up indicator in my tray for it. Now, it’s been a while since I re-installed my laptop, who’s Windows CD only came with SP1 embedded in it, so I wasn’t sure if I should install all the updates available onto my computer, and then SP2 would pop up to be installed, then I would download more updates, or if I should go hunting for SP2. I tried installing the updates first. Well, it turned out I should have gone and installed SP2 first (a cleaner install that way) and then installed the updates.
So back I go, one more time, to reinstall the OS. But while it’s re-installing, I get to thinking about Windows Genuine BS (as most of my fellow techie friends call it). Now, how can it pop up that icon, and keep it there at each reboot, and check to see if my computer’s copy of windows is ‘genuine’ or not, without running in the background? And if it runs in the background, sends information to Microsoft, and I can’t get rid of it by uninstalling it (because it automatically becomes part of the OS), isn’t it spyware? The conclusion I came to is that yes, indeed, it is*.
So I resolved NOT to install it this time. That presented a problem, since Microsoft has flagged this bit of spyware, designed to make them feel better and hopefully prevent piracy, as a ‘critical update’ which is automatically downloaded and installed by Windows Automatic Update. “Well,” I say to myself “this just means that I have to turn Windows Automatic Update” off, since they give me that option, right?” Wrong. At some point, after installing updates, or the google pack, or some other program, automatic updates was turned back on, and Windows Genuine BS was downloaded and installed on my computer, and I only found out about it when windows automatic update informed me that it had installed all critical updates on my computer, and I needed to reboot to complete the update. In other words, after it was to late. At this point I was to fed up, and decided to let it ride, rather than reinstall my OS for a 4th time, and loose all of the programs that I had installed on it (due to going back to a previous service pack version of windows, which would have wiped out ALL Files and programs).
I have since found out that there is a page on Microsoft.com that will enable you to completely disable automatic updates. As my tower doesn’t have Windows Genuine BS on it (yet), I intend to use this on my tower. I don’t have the link handy right at the moment, but if I find it later, I’ll post it, possibly under comments.
By the way, I really do recommend, that if you reinstall your OS at some point, you save yourself some install time and
You can get that software all at once, and have a coordinated automatic update for that software. Some of this is stuff that everyone should have installed on their computer, like Adobe Reader, Adaware SE, and Firefox.
I personally use Firefox (without the Google Toolbar) for my general surfing, and also to have a standards compliant browser for web development in. IE decided to come up with their own unpublished non-standard, which makes development a pain. If you develop, viewing in a standards browser, it’s usually way easier to get your page to display correctly in IE than it is to fix your page so that other browsers can use it if you use IE while developing. In my opinion Firefox is the best browser on the net, and only gets better after some of it’s plug ins.
Oh, and as a last note, I don’t recommend that everyone run willy nilly and turn off their updates. Many users that do forget to install updates that really -are- important, by going to the windows update website and downloading them manually. Some people don’t want to make the time to keep their computers in lean trim, and others, like my mother, father, and grandmother, just aren’t technically skilled enough to make the distinction and deal with the mess.
However for most of my techie-friends, and readers, I say…
“Say NO to Windows Genuine BS.”
“Say NO to Windows Automatic Updates.”
The next installment (hopefully this evening) will include information about what I went through on my laptop.
*The classification of Windows Genuine Advantage Notification as Spyware is based on my opinion, and my definition of spyware. Windows specifically refutes the claim that Windows Genuine Advantage Notification is Spyware on their page of information about “The Windows Genuine Advantage” based on their own definition of spyware. I, however, disagree with them on this point.