Dial-up damage

Got your own spyware horror story?

Apparently, I needed a crystal ball for this spyware problem. I had removed all spyware from an older PC, but problems were still affecting the dial-up connections and its Registry keys. It's so "minor," no one has given any attention to this issue since the old dial-up days. Under New Connection Wizard, Setup Connection Manually isn't even an option; it is grayed-out for dial-up and VPN, and I assume since most people are on broadband, it is not a major issue unless your broadband goes down or you want to jump online during an ISP change.

I did the XP Repair option (and reinstalled the 122 Windows Updates that followed this decision), then searched and searched online for an expert fix, but to no avail. Microsoft offered a semi-fix to the few of us out there with this problem, but did nothing for me but permanently damage my RAS Async Adapter and render it unrepairable.

After spending almost a week trying to fix this "minor" problem (because of my lack of a backup registry), I have to say that the time it took and lack of real fixes left a bad taste in my mouth. But my DSL works great, so who cares, right?

While minor, it's just one more example of the evil consequence of spyware, the misguided attempt at trying to undo its damage, and of how PC owners don't know, when trying to fix something, that days of their lives will be stolen...and they'll still come out fruitless. Then, you wind up having to wipe your hard drive and spend another several days tweaking your PC. "We're sorry, the page you requested is unavailable because Windows XP is quickly reaching the end of its life cycle."

Giving up and starting over with a clean hard drive is not the worst idea, but it comes pretty close.

-Jonathan
St. Louis

Reply from the Download.com editors:

Focused on a rapidly changing tech landscape, it's easy to forget previous-generation technologies still in use. Not everyone can or wants to be a mainstream adopter. As new technologies enter the field, those who functioned just fine on dial-up, portable cassette players, and VHS will fall into wider and deeper cracks as these products cease to be supported.

So while Jonathan has broadband feeding his primary Internet connection, his meticulous drive to remove every bit of spyware damage illuminates that for others, this kind of old-school attack may not be all that minor after all. (I'm thinking now of my octogenarian grandmother, a regular e-mailer who uses a very defunct i-Opener that stopped shipping five years ago.)

As always, prevention is the best solution. We recommend a strong firewall to keep snotty spyware out. While there are many good freebies in this list, don't be afraid to invest in quality protection, too.