The reason I ask is that for the past 5-7 years i have been using Avast and it has been Fantastic, and too be honest it has been the Best Antivirus that i have ever used.
But Yesterday i got a Phonecall from Microsoft telling me that they have been having complaints about spam/stuff is being sent from my IP Address, They told me to look in the Event Log ( and i had 4,757 Errors ) And they recommended uninstalling the Free Avast and Purchasing another AntiVirus.
Now i did have Avast Installed, But that had picked up No Errors
Firewall enabled = ok
Windows Defender reported No Errors
SpyBot Reported No Errors
So i really need some clarification as to what i need to do now, Do i get another Antivirus?
interesting… would be even more interesting if this MS rep came here to explain all that…or if he doesn’t want to ;D post it on an MS site and you could give the link here…
One wonders how MS knew it was you… There is a similar scam going on in the UK where someone calls you up and says that your ISP is complaining about you sending viruses and for a fee they will clean your machine, which they do not do they just add rootkits and keyloggers. They tried it on me a few months ago ;D
This is a bit of sophisticated phishing - ignore it
Hello:
1) It would be very helpful if you could post a screen shot of one of those error logs you say you see in the Event Log.
2) I have to tell you that it is very much likely to be some sort of scam than a real problem. I live in Argentina, we are very well known for our pirating skills when it comes to windows. And despite that fact I have never ever heard of MS calling anyone because of that, much less because of some kind of complaint about spam. In any case, that would be the job of your ISP, or the target of that spam. In fact, if that was really the case, your email address would have been blocked already by your provider.
((PS I must clarify that I’m running a genuine copy of Windows 7 Ultimate x64, just in case some of you misunderstood my post.))
3) it is very rare that MS would call you and still Windows Defender -an MS program- didn’t catch anything. As I recall WD is part of the Spynet comunity (or whatever it is called) and they would have heard of this if it was really the case.
4) and most important, your error logs, where System errors or application errors? Specifying this could lead to the cause, as said in point 1).
Last but not least, don’t panic, and do a full scan with Avast! with PPD active if you don’t find anything it’s probably because there is nothing to find. Alternatively you could do a scan with malwarebytes just to be safe.
If I ever get the call I will boot up a linux virtual machine for them to play with…see what they make of it/how long I can keep them on the line ;D (But knowing my luck I probably wont get the call…)
Hi all thanks for the replies
These 3 Errors are what the Eventviewer Pick up
The Sentinel service depends on the Parallel port driver service which failed to start because of the following error:
The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it.
Event filter with query “SELECT * FROM __InstanceModificationEvent WITHIN 60 WHERE TargetInstance ISA “Win32_Processor” AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage > 99” could not be reactivated in namespace “//./root/CIMV2” because of error 0x80041003. Events cannot be delivered through this filter until the problem is corrected.
The server could not bind to the transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{5736759F-2C60-4F86-9170-B424D731E160} because another computer on the network has the same name. The server could not start.
I managed to keep them on the phone for 15 minutes. While I switched on my computer had a cup of tea, and then had a quick look at a crossword clue I was puzzling over. When I said my computer wasn't working they sort of lost interest ;D
Oh dear another one gets taken for a ride. Microsoft have not phoned you, this is a well known and very widely publicized scam. Do not respond to them and ignore the calls.
avast! is fine, if you are really unsure get a copy of Malwarebytes to check your system with , the other way to check is using a free online scanner, Trend Micro Housecall And Eset.co.uk have online utilities which will tell you if anything is amiss.