Rich-M

Not with the Kickstart Dougie and BTW I have used it again after the 30 days on another pc I had done once before. Not quite sure how that is meant to work.

Pete the ransomware I have seen allows no bootup, not even to Safe Mode so without HItman Pro, which allows you to boot into it in Windows using the kickstart I see no way to proceed except reinstall Windows. http://www.surfright.nl/en/kickstart

Most backup programs allow you to use a basic "Explorer" where you mount the drive and then can copy and paste whatever you want.. It only ever helps me when I want something old as I have file and data backup from the same day where I use that feature way more often. I have restored image files recently more often that I have in many years pointing out that I need to go back to making files weekly as I used to. Not sure exactly why that is but in the last 2 weeks I have restored image files to systems at least 3 times including today when all of a sudden all my printers disappeared and I have no idea what happened.

That is one of my favorite subjects donetao and I have been around backup techniques for many years but like you I am not native to this stuff. I started late also in the early nineties and knew from nothing originally. Between some radio show experience, contacts and forums like yourself comes most of my experience. I was fortunate enough to know a young high school student who taught me how to build a computer so my background is more hardware than software and to make up for that I became a software reviewer on several forums after my experiences with backup software companies and Antivirus Programs and soon hope to get back to that here once we get established.

You can use JV16 Power Tools for that, the very first screen shows every single registry entry for all programs installed and I used to use that to pull out "danglers" however these days I very seldom find anything that Revo and Wise Uninstaller don't remove and I use them almost exclusively now to uninstall programs.

Great Job Pete, that was a great comeback to a long thread. What are your feelings today about Mbam as I know I am one of a growing number who never bothers with it any more. And if you don'r use Hitman Pro for Ransomware, what do you recommend when encountering it as I don't know of anything else that can boot though the newer versions.

OK here is the answer from Emsisoft as to the differences in how MBAE and Emsisoft work so once again now in order to have this coverage at Mbam you are up to $50 a year vs $40 as you need both there: "For those of you who are unfamiliar with exploits, we put together the video below. Basically, these threats abuse vulnerabilities in everyday software applications such as browsers, office documents and PDFs and use these to download malware. Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit wraps these applications in three layers of defense, monitoring them for suspicious activity and stopping it at source. I bolded the interesting line in the quote above. What MBAE does, is that it blocks vulnerability exploitation in software (the pro version monitors more applications than the free version). So, it interferes and interrupts exploitation before any download attempt is made. That is effective, but also means that, whatever malware is dropped differently (for example using a malicious email attachment) will be ignored, because that is not what MBAE monitors. Our behavior blocker will not always detect the vulnerability exploitation, instead it will alert the user whenever actual malware or malicious activity is detected (to stick with the quote above, it will warn you whenever a malicious file is downloaded/dropped/executed as result of the exploitation). This means that MBAE will block a bit earlier, but Emsisoft products will not allow the creation/execution of the actual malicious files and actions (payload of the exploit kit) on the computer and the results will be in both cases a clean machine. On top of that, contrary to MBAE, Emsisoft products monitor for this kind of activity, no matter if it originates from an exploited Java version, a malicious email attachment or a drive-by download." I hope this clarifies things, if you have further questions, please let me know." From Emsisoft Blog

Dougie is right in that we seldom use even 20% of these bigger hard drives and someone explained to me years ago the more on the big drive the faster it moves. It's the downhill rolling a rock vs a boulder theory in that once the big drive gets moving it has the momentum to move faster the more that is on the drive. I know you are not saying to run reg cleaners "willy nilly" thorugh your system but I share Dougie's concerns that we not accidentally pollute a newbies system by suggesting such things. The best way to do what you suggest was really in your suggestion which was use of Revo though I recently learned it is not full featured on a 64 bit system so as Dougie suggested "Wise Uninstaller" is and does the same things quite nicely. I have never seen a system warped out using one of these but I have seen that using reg cleaners for anything, though I am sure donateo himself will be just fine using same the way he states.

I don't think people realize the importance of image files donateo until they lose everything unfortunately. I know for me I started with Drive Image way back in the 90's and in the days when Windows 98 wasn't resilient like newer versions are,one big mistake and you were back spending the whole day redoing your system, and Drive Image gave me the freedom to push that button and be back in 8 minutes. That for me was freedom to learn without fear of blowing out Windows and I took that ball and ran with it. It wasn't long before I became a beta tester for Power Quest and later after Symantec bought them and dismantled all their great work, Acronis appeared on the horizon so I went there. I never managed to get but a handful of folks to realize that importance, even when they lost everything!

From the Emsisoft Forums it appears these are "policies that enabled sometimes makes Malware removal more difficult to remove and are perfectly safe to remove", N3. http://support.emsisoft.com/topic/13694-disabletaskmgr-and-disableregistrytools/ This software is way ahead of the conventionals folks we have been using, part of why I am trying to make you all question what you are doing right now as things are changing out there.

One of my favorite "Shark Tank" responses from Kevin O'Leary "you are dead to me"! I love it Gimbo! This should be a wake-up call folks, we are watching the demise of this once great product!

One of my favorite discussions is Norton Av. One night on Linkedin Biz Forum I belong to we did a survey of those who ever used a Norton AV and I did use it years ago...."has anyone ever seen Norton Av remove anything" was the question. 137 responses all said the same thing and that was no one we knew has ever seen a Norton Av product remove anything.

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The paid version but when you look at what the free one does, its almost meaningless and as I said what the free one does I know Emsisoft does also. I have asked them for an answer to the rest which knowing how quickly they respond, I will have real soon.

I see you are right Cindy no more Beta! The free version is really meaningless as the paid version handles the difficult issues like Ms Office, Pdf readers and custom settings. Emsisoft includes the same browser protection and also for Java and Readers. I am not sure about Office but I think that too.I am checking that out. I fail to believe they want $24.95 a year for that coverage also.

I installed Adaware Antivirus on a few systems where I had issues with Mse or Avast gave me registration issues but I don't know if it was good or bad though generally I have never seen a product that was really good, ever make a come back from death of software so I don't have much hope for that or Sas. Sas supposedly came back to life a few years ago but that was the version that hosed two of my systems so I doubt I will be trying that anytime soon. For rootkits I use Gmer and Rogue Killer of course is good for rootkits as well. No way I am using beta software on a client system, I was trained better than that and Mbam Anti Exploit is beta software. One thing you should know as well if you install Mbam Beta Exploit on client setup, they will call you in a few months when the test is over and they are being bombarded with nag messages to uninstall it and no matter what you tell them, they most likely will uninstall Mbam and not the Anti Rootkit product so you will wind up going back anyway. I won't use it.

Combofix is not for the faint of heart and actually is for specific infections but the nice thing about it is it also repair Windows in many cases where the infections have crippled Windows. When Vundo infections were more common I used it a lot more. Let me explain why I would rather repair the pc rather than reinstall Windows as my reasoning is a bit different from many.I work on location. I cannot carry everything into the home and the client seldom has the software they need. I have no clue what they do with it. If I reinstall Windows I have always returned to the shop for that which adds another day wasted to return it so I would rather spend more time there cleaning the pc rather than waste a day bringing it back and then returning with it. I can see more people this way.

Let's get his opinion of everything and I would be surprised if there is any other way yet to remove ransomware but I am here to learn also. As I said these guys have it down to a science and can bring a system back completely new in under an hour. Now they charge for any extra installs of programs as they only do basic drivers and Windows. The save out drivers and files and then restore an image file in any system.

"I couldn't get rid of Hitman Pro quick enough after the first scan. I researched what it found and it's garbage. IMO. It has always been a snake oil program and still is." I totally disagree Dougie and I have been using it about a year now. It could be in my estimation now the best scanner out there because it is the only one other than Rogue Killer that finds Trojans and Rootkits. I really never ran across it before I had a few FBI Virus last year and I would have had to reformatted those pc's, none of which I had to do because you boot to "kickstarter" and any system will boot right into Hitman and then it's an easy 1,2,3 removal. It was the advent of Ransomware that made this such a valuable tool and if you guys don't know that, then you aren't finding the really bad Ransomware, the first of which was the FBI Virus. Originally when FBI came out you could boot to Safe Mode and then run RKill but not any more. They got smarter. I bet none of you have seen Crypto Locker either because there is no other tool to remove that because you cannot get past it or around it so when you see some of the real serious issues of today you will get it. Mbam against Cryptolocker? That's like David and Goliath so you better get enough Windows disks because when this stuff finally reaches you, you will be doing a lot of unnecessary reinstalls, believe me and wait till tyou see the fun that is Windows 8 with reinstalls. Seriously ask Dan or Gimbo Wed night. Any of you who see really serious Malware would never even try Malwarebytes any more, it is a second rate product imho. I PM'd Pete to get in here because we need to square off this point and he can tell you about Emsisoft as well. "How long do you spend on a badly infected computer before you suggest a reformat?:)" I have only done that 6 times in 13 years Dougie and the answer is way too long. I pride myself on being able to clean almost any pc. The one I gave up on 3 weeks ago was just short of 3 hours. What usually tells me is when you start cleaning no matter how bad the pc is, it will usually start to get faster as you clean and uninstall scumware. Then about 2 hours out if it starts to slow down again all of a sudden, that is usually the sign to give up cleaning and start reformatting. Most of the techs I talk to on my Linkedin Forum and Tony D can tell you that, wipe and load after a half hour. Some of the highest paid ones don't even try to clean a pc but have the "wipe and load" down to a science and do it right way and claim to never lose anything in doing so. They use Acronis Universal restore as their main tool. They claim and are probably right that no matter how much time it takes to clean the system, a new install will always run faster so they became pros at doing that perfectly.

All good reasons Donateo but of course most could also mean something else is wrong. Cindy, move on for goodness sake, Hitman Pro was never considered Malware and without it you will never get through Ransomware as there is no other way except reformatting the hard drive. RKill will not work as you will not be able to get into Safe Mode either so you will need to understand "kickstarter" from Hitman Pro and you can always use it free for 30 days to simply scan a system. And BTW boot to "kickstart" and no need of regsitering or giving an email to use Hitman Pro as you boot right into it. No problem at all sometimes it asks for an email addy sometimes not but ask Dan this week if you don't believe me on Paltalk. Two extra steps to ask for free license and possibly give email address and you can run it for free scanning. Mbam is past its prime folks get used to it programs become important and then they fade. This one is a fader! You guys all argued with me on Sas when that died and after I hosed 2 systems with Sas I was gone and how many of the rest of you are still using it may I ask? Mbam still works but just know you are not using # 1 any more because Mbam is not what it was, imho! And in time will be as useless as SAS now is. Eset online scanner is a great product but I see no reason to use it as all the other things I mentioned will remove just about everything I come across and in less time. Emsisoft Emergency Kit is also a great scanner but I can be gone half way through the time it takes to complete that scan and it won't find anything different.

Nod32 is from the same maker as Eset Online scanner but it is not the same. Nevertheless it is probably the best online scanner. I probably am the one who brought NOd32 to everyone if we go back far enough and the only thing I can tell you is it does blow "hot'n'cold" in that there are times when the online warnings are outstanding and times they don't work at all so I have at times left it and then come back so keep your eyes open and the idea of blind faith is never a good strategy with Anti Malware programs. For now I find HItman Pro to be the most comprehensive and therefore the best in my arsenal especially with the kickstart function which is the only thing that walks you through Ransomware. Then Adw Cleaner, JRT, Rogue Killer and Combofix once I know the type of Malware and in that order actually. I also use Autoruns, Shortcut Cleaner, and Toolbar Cop for cleanup afterwards. I never bother with Mbam anymore as it seldom finds much of anything unless they have the Pro version installed, then I run it as the last thing I do or a final check! I like Emsisoft Emergency but it takes way to long to run at a client and if I am ending up with an Emsisoft sale, assuming they don't already have MBam Pro which I have sold a lot of, then it is the final scan I run. If they have the yearly Mbam then I am converting them to Emsisoft when the renewal is up as I am convinced Mbam is at the end of its useful cycle.

I bought the one from yesterday also Bob! The one thing I am liking on all these besides the price is the built in mic but of course it remains to be seen how that works out. I also invested in a new soundcard for Paltalk as I was having issues with the Creative X-Fi card so I thought I would try an Asus Xonar. Not a huge choice out there in soundcards. While I am at it I got out the shovel to bury my 11 year old Yamaha Speaker Set which those who know me well will find hard to believe but I am tired of pinning the wires up and to the wall to make it work. When it finally does work the sound is like being in Concert Hall at the NY Philharmonic. I found an unused 5 year old system on eBay for $35 and oh yes, Yamaha also!

Customer Reviews ★★★★★ Features: Bluetooth stereo headset Built-in microphone for taking phone calls Auto switch between music and calls Comfortable fit for all ear types Compatible with all Bluetooth-enabled media players IPX 4-certified for sweat proof wearability Bluetooth stereo headset 3.0+EDR Description: These compact Nextware headphones pair up with Bluetooth-enabled devices, including smartphones and music players. Each sleek set of headphones comes with three different-sized pairs of earbuds for the most comfortable fit for any ear. The device automatically switches between music and phone calls so listeners won’t miss hearing calls during runs and can answer them using the built-in microphone. Tucked into the headphones’ core, the rechargeable lithium battery allows up to 6 hours of talk or music time and up to 120 hours of standby time. Specs: Operation range: 10 meters Battery: 120mAH rechargeable lithium battery Support profiles: headset, hands-free, A2DP, AVRCP Talk time: up to 6 hours Music time: up to 6 hours Standby time: up to 120 hours Dimensions: 1.5” (L) x 1” (W) x 2.2” (H) Weight: 0.2 pounds http://www.blinq.com/detail/electronics/headphones/nextware-sweatproof-bluetooth-headphones-with-mic-blue-white/181294?condition=brand-new&j=116110&e=rich@pcman1.com&l=2160_HTML&u=1702557&mid=6261914&jb=239&utm_source=exacttarget&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20150209&utm_campaign=pro

Better Yet reg $149 now $32.39 Earpiece Design: Ear-Cup (Over the Ear) Fit Design: Headband Connectivity: Wired Color: Black Highlights: Bold JBL design and premium ?nishing Rotating, 180° DJ pivot mechanism Premium drivers generate clarity and extended bass Soft leather ear cushions for long-wearing comfort Detachable, tangle-resistant, ?at elastomer cable Features: Bold JBL design and premium finishing From the brushed stainless steel headband and ear-cup accents to the matte black or white housings, from the embossed, metallic JBL logos to the cable that matches the ear pads, these headphones are designed to be as pleasing to the eyes as they are to the ears. Premium, high-performance JBL drivers JBL drivers deliver precise, powerful sound for an exceptional listening experience. Bass is pure, deep and accurately produced – the calling card of legendary JBL sound. As a result, J88 headphones outperform competitive products costing much more. Rotating, 180-degree DJ pivot mechanism Sometimes you need to be aware of more than just your music. J88 ear-cups rotate up to 180 degrees while you’re wearing them so you can keep one ear on your audio and one ear on external sounds or conversations. The ear-cups rotate under the headband for easy storage and transport. Soft leather ear cushions Our ear cushions feature a soft leather that provides longwearing comfort. It also helps maintain an acoustic seal on the ear, which improves the headphones’ passive noise reduction. And that means a purer listening experience. Closed-back design J88 headphones feature a closed-back design that blocks ambient noise and minimizes leaking. So outside noise stays outside, and your listening experience stays yours and yours alone. Single-side, detachable cable Tangled cables are a constant source of frustration. But not with the J88s. The tangle-resistant, flat elastomer cable connects to just one ear-cup, which further minimizes tangling. The cable detaches from the ear-cup for added flexibility. Cable-locking mechanism A unique, twist-lock mechanism keeps the detachable cable secure when it’s connected. When you plug the cable into the ear-cup, a simple twist locks it in place. Rugged strain relief A strong, secure connection between the housing and cable is critical for both durability and sound quality. Our rugged strain relief connector dampens vibration for enhanced acoustic performance. Gold-plated jack with extension ring The gold-plated jack incorporates an extension ring that works with most custom smartphone covers and cases. So you don’t have to slip off your protective case to connect the headphones. Description: Drawing on expertise learned from building some of the world’s finest loudspeakers, JBL® engineers have created lightweight, over-ear headphones with a fresh look and uncompromising sound. The J88 drivers generate pure, accurate, extended bass and their superb clarity enables you to hear the truth from your music. Their unique DJ-pivot mechanism lets you rotate either earcup up to 180°, so one ear can hear outside sound. Bold styling sets J88 headphones apart, and the uncompromising sound is pure JBL. Specs: Type: Over-ear style Premium driver: 1-31/32-inch (50 mm) Frequency response: 8Hz – 24kHz Impedance: 32O Flat-elastomer cable: 4' 3-3/16" (1.3M), single-side, detachable Plug: 1/8" (3.5mm) gold plated http://www.blinq.com/detail/electronics/headphones/jbl-premium-over-ear-rotatable-headphones-black-j88/144883

Again your video shows no "Adobe", just "Flash Player" as I said originally.