PC Pitstop "autofix" full of ad ware?!

[Panama Red]

Did a cleanup and restoration on a customer computer last nite. Compaq with WinME, 750 Duron, 64Mb ram, had never been serviced or maintained. Once I got all the junk out of it and updates run, I ran Spybot and Adaware and found/deleted lots of hidden stuff. Then as a final check, I ran a system test at PC Pitstop. It found a security flaw that could be fixed manually or just run their auto fix. Since the manual fix was somewhat lengthy, I went for the auto fix. Ran a second test and everything came up checkers. Cool, I thought. Customer came tonite and I had him start it up to review the changes and become familiar with AVG, PopUp Stopper, Spybot and Adaware. I let Spybot run while we were talking and it found a couple items, then I ran Adaware so he could be familiar with it also. Was I shocked!! Adaware found 267 new items that weren't there last nite before the auto fix at PC Pitstop!! This is just a heads-up for anybody using the auto fixes.

[raftero]

i have used the auto fix and not ran into that problem seems strange.

[bailey]

I have some serious resversations on that thought.
its very unlikely that it is true, pit stop has always been used by many people over the years and has been very repruiptable so far, and to do something like that would not be benificial to them.
this would be the first time it was suggested that that has happened as far as I know, and I personally have use it with no lii effects.

[glc]

Couple thoughts........

WinME has system restore........

You saying that the customer did no surfing between when you left and you scanned it again?

[Panama Red]

Originally posted by glc Couple thoughts........ WinME has system restore........ You saying that the customer did no surfing between when you left and you scanned it again?

Yup, that's the deal. The last thing I did the nite I finished was run the PC Pitstop evaluation, recorded the score, made the recommended changes including the auto fix, ran the evaluation again, recorded the second score and shut down the computer. I had already run adaware and spybot earlier and had not been to any other sites. The last thing I did before PC Pitstop was defrag the hdd. The next day when the customer came to pick it up I wanted him to see how to run spybot and adaware. That's when it found 267 entries. Some were not removeable while the computer was running. We had to restart and let it find the rest (about 5) that we then deleted. Among the 5 were two named News.net.


edit: Wait a minute! I just had an epiphany!! When we first started up he went on the web by clicking the IE icon and then clicked something on the MSN homepage that connected to a video while we were talking. I forgot all about that. I bet that's where the crap came from, not PC Pitstop. Thanx guys for making me think harder.

[Cricket]

Wow! 267 entries from just one on-line session? That's a lot of spyware.

Cricket

[bailey]

Originally posted by Cricket Wow! 267 entries from just one on-line session? That's a lot of spyware. Cricket

yes I gotta agree,
somethings amiss here