Be Excellent To Each Other

I've noticed my parents' Windows 7 Aspire Revo is creaky, and it shouldn't be. Very slow to boot, to load programmes, and to do internet. Speed tests suggest it's not the internet connection itself (as does my MacBook), so it seems maybe virusy or malwarey.

Every so often it tells me MSE and Defender are off. I can turn on Essentials, and scan, and it reveals nowt. I gt this if I try turning on Defender:


I'm the closest thing to an admin they have, and I haven't instigated any group policy. I googled the error code, and it said something about a terrifying Alureon malware thing, but this isn't giving me an Alureon message, thankfully (assuming that pops up in the header).

There is a slight delay in me hitting the key and the letter appearing. Duno if this is due to being mallled on, or whether the computer is just virusly sluggish.

Spybot and Malwarebytes seem to run without reporting any shit.

Any ideas or similar experiences would be appreciated. I'm hoping it's fixable, as I fear even connecting an external HD to move files, in case shit gets infected.

Apparently you can force Windows Defender back on by editing a registry key, AFAIK Windows Defender was superseded quite some time ago by Microsoft Security Essentials, and therefore will be turned off (or not even installed) if MSE is on there. (That's my understanding of it anyway, none of our PCs have Defender installed and I honestly can't remember the last time I was aware of its presence.)

As such I'm not sure you should even try to turn Defender back on.



I'd be inclined to reboot in safe mode (keep tapping F8 from the BIOS screen onwards) and once in Windows run any and all AV/anti-malware software you've got against it, rather than from within 'normal' Windows. Spybot Search & Destroy and Malwarebytes which you seem to already have should support this, and MSE with the latest definitions.

If everything comes up clean after full scans in safe mode there's probably something else going on.

Looking to the future, a great way to keep Windows PCs clean with non-computer literate types is to give them normal user accounts and not Administrator accounts, which massively limits their ability to fuck things up. Just get everything installed that they need with an Administrator account, and then give them a normal user account for everyday use.

EDIT - I assume Windows Update is turned on and the laptop is fully up to date with all Critical and Important Windows updates?

Cheers, dude. I'll give that a go. I'm not overly fussed about Defender when I have better software on there to do that stuff. It's more the fact I can't turn it on (as a side effect of something else) that is worrying me.

It seems to be fully updated, but I'll have a look.