“Any noise her laptop made sounded like something between a Dalek and a thrash metal singer”
In this month’s guest column, IT engineer Mark explains the software problems that make his life so very enjoyable (and how to solve them)
Iwas installing a new network printer on a client’s computer when the conversation turned to car mechanics. This gentleman, I should explain, was one of the staff in the office where I was working. He seemed interested in my job as a roving IT engineer, solving problems for small businesses and individuals, and asked me what part of the work I found the most difficult.
After some reflection, I came up with three words: “weird software problems”. Sometimes, I explained, a computer could misbehave for no apparent reason; the hardware tests okay and my usual diagnostic tools suggest no faults. Yet the machine does not work as it should. I looked away from the monitor and to his face. He still seemed interested. Either that or he was good at poker.
Time to reach for a car analogy. I explained that when a garage receives a poorly running car, the mechanic will look to the engine or fuel as the most likely reason for the fault. With a computer, you may also need to check the doors, seat covers and offside rear mud flap, just in case they have something to do with it. The printer install finished and my audience suddenly seemed awfully keen to get back to his work.
These weird PC problems have always been part of my working life. Like a veteran mechanic who has learnt to find specific faults through experience, I’ve discovered certain pieces of software that are significant culprits in – pardon my French – screwing up Windows. For an added soupçon of challenge, they often display no clue at all that they’re behind the issues.
Me and the farmer
Living and working in rural North Yorkshire means I have many customers who are farmers. And Neil the farmer is the most recent person I’ve seen to suffer problems with my first piece of guilty software.
“Bloody thing’s knackered” was about the best description of the issue I could squeeze out of him over the phone. It turned out he wasn’t far wrong. Neil’s PC was blue-screening while booting, and the only way in was via Safe Mode. As it worked okay once there, I stabbed a guess at startup programs, and that’s where I found Trusteer Rapport. If you aren’t familiar with the name, it’s a free security program offered by banks. I see it as nothing more than a glorified phishing filter that has caused more issues with computers than anything else I’ve seen. It was coming off.
“Tha’ can’t remove that, bank wanted it on,” was Neil’s reply to my idea. In this age of identity theft, people believe they should have all the protection there is.
I appeased him by explaining that his browser and security suite do the same job, if not better. And having Rapport isn’t a necessity. If someone becomes a victim of fraud, the bank can’t cast blame because of a nonexistent app. I also ch atted about strong passwords and how to spot phishing emails, and he relented.
Sadly, that wasn’t the end of the story. Rapport stubbornly refused to be removed. So I used an uninstaller I picked up years ago, well before IBM bought Trusteer. I believe you can’t get it anymore, but you can still delete Rapport manually (for details, head to pcpro.link/311rapport). Once the uninstaller completed, the issue resolved itself, and Neil went back to his ploughing a much happier man.
The antivirus game
Antivirus programs used to be resource-hogging beasts. I spent quite a bit of my time at businesses in the mid to late-2000s removing particular security suites because they were sucking the life out of the system. It often didn’t go down well with the owners who had spent good money on them but, once they saw the speed improvements, they were much more open to my suggestion. Things have improved dramatically since those days, but antivirus still has its issues.
Mrs Willmot is a long-term small business customer of mine. I don’t see her much as she solves many problems herself. When she did ring me, she was talking about changing one of her laptops because it was running so slowly. I was aware she had owned the machine for a while but thought it best if I take a look first.
Once I had the laptop in the office, I saw what she meant. Wading through treacle is a good description. Yet Task Manager looked like it should, and nothing else seemed out of place.
I uninstalled the antivirus – which just happened to be Norton. I’m also quite a fan of running the relevant uninstallers even after I have removed the software in the usual way. That’s when the fun started. I found what I think were two versions of Norton running on the laptop. Only 360 was showing in the apps list and this uninstalled as expected. When I used the Norton Remove and Reinstall tool, however, it wanted to uninstall and reinstall an older Internet Security version. To make sure, I let it do its thing and then took that version off. I used the uninstaller once again and finished by putting 360 back on from Mrs Wilmott’s Norton account. Thankfully, all worked well after that, and no new laptop was needed.