Hitman Pro

[m_s]

Do others know of this little gem?  It's mentioned in a good Geek To Live piece over at LifeHacker (http://www.lifehacker.com/software/feature/geek-to-live-how-to-fix-mom-and-dads-computer-138113.php), on how to fix your parents' computer.  It's fantastic, automating the process of checking for malware of all kinds, and bringing together a range of really dependable programs.  (By the way, when it installed Webroot's Spysweeper, I was presented with a special offer - today only! - by enter NPQVBCJ at the webroot store, one year's updates costs $19.95 - worth jumping for?)  Combining this with AutoPatcher (www.autopatcher.com) is going to make my work of fixing people's machines a whole lot easier!

[vegas]

This is alot of the stuff I have used for the last 2-3 years everytime i get a call for a jacked computer. 
Add these three
1. Autoruns (www.sysinternals.com)
2. http://www.62nds.com/ ; (windows update using firefox or opera) / Autopatcher
3. AdMuncher.  I can't believe the amount of stuff this program can prevent from ever even making it into your pc. In the last 2 months I have installed it on 4 peoples pc's, plus my own.  The computers run faster and without issue.
Amazing piece of software, both in the way it is written & of course it's so effective because they keep everything so up-to-date.

[m_s]

That's what I like about it - it automates all the programs I already rely on...  In fact, it's a bit of overkill I expect, but you can choose what runs.

[mouser]

during the holidays many distant relatives you've never heard from may request you to spend 10 hours fixing their computer from all of the spyware and viruses they have installed.

my suggestion is that we request a new tool called:
"Advanced Computer Repair and Cleaner Tool - Professional Technician Edition"

when you run it it will run for about 45 minutes, seem like its doing a lot of stuff but really be doing nothing.  and at the end report a whole bunch of made up stuff about how the computer is 100% fixed and clean, but that because of hardware incompatibilities with the newest Microsoft Windows service packs, the user should perform a complete reinstall of windows in exactly 7 days.

this will get you off the hook of having to fix anything, and will shift the blame to microsoft where it belongs, and also get the person to do a complete clean install which as we know is only safe way to clean it.

[vegas]

Funny Thing is, you could bring an external hard drive, off-load everything to there & re-install the system, fixes, programs, settings, files in less time than it takes to clean half the systems i see.

[mouser]

actually it might be nice if there was a way to configure it secretly to take as long as you need to run it, so if you were at a dinner lasting 3 hours, you could set it to run for 4 hours to be sure you would be gone by the time it finished.

[koncool]

i can handle mouser's idea, will make it today in vb 

[mouser]

cool

make sure to add a slider where we can set how long it will run before reporting result
and make sure it has a nice animation or progress bar so that it "looks" like it is doing something

[nudone]

when you run it it will run for about 45 minutes, seem like its doing a lot of stuff but really be doing nothing.  and at the end report a whole bunch of made up stuff about how the computer is 100% fixed and clean, but that because of hardware incompatibilities with the newest Microsoft Windows service packs, the user should perform a complete reinstall of windows in exactly 7 days.

mouser, you are a genius. shame you didn't keep it quiet and just market the idea - you could have earned millions from the best clean-up tool ever made.

[koncool]

due to lack of time and resources i dont think i can complete this project  (couldnt find animations and button images etc)

after all what to do with a tool which isn't realistic?