Today has been an adventure.

All because of my anti-virus software.

This post will be long, so stop now if you aren't in the mood.

I run Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit as my OS on my laptop. Mostly to take advantage of the full 4GB's of RAM because I run VMWare workstation and do most of my work in XP virtuals.

This morning I'm checking my GMail, and I go take a look in the Spam folder 'cuz there are 12 messages in it and sometimes legitimate email ends up there. One of the messages looks semi-legit, so I click on it to see what it is (mind you this is just web-based email, so typically no real danger unless I'm dumb enough to click a link inside the email).

I see that it truly is spam, so I go back to the Spam folder and empty it.

A few minutes later I'm getting ready to do some work when BAM! my BitDefender Anti-Virus software goes absolutely berzerk and starts detecting a billion things and quarantining them... I'm like "WTF?!?"

I try to launch MalwareBytes Anti-Malware and boom - it gets quarantined too!

Now I'm irritated - because whatever it is that has attacked my computer is now refusing to allow MalwareBytes to run (this is typical) - and I can't even do the normal workarounds like renaming the executable (this is NOT typical). Meanwhile, BitDefender continues to go berzerk every few minutes - although at this point I have long since stopped reading the alerts (maybe I would have noticed the pattern if I had paid more attention - but silly me I jumped to conclusions about what was going on and missed the clues).

I try rebooting to safe mode to go to work cleaning this thing up: I discover the following pleasant surprise: "ntoskrnl.exe is missing or corrupt" - greeeeaaattttt.... no kernel. What in THE HELL hit my machine?

Well, my main concern at this point is to back up my virtuals and other data, and figure I'll just have to re-install.

At this point I discover that my WD 1TB External USB drive is toast. I haven't used it in about 3 months, and apparently since then at some point it suffered some kind of failure. *sigh*

Screw it - I need to back this data up before I proceed. So I decide to run out to Best Buy and get a new external drive - and since I'm at it, I might as well snag a 320GB drive for my laptop as well, since my 160GB is down to about 12GB's. The only store that has both drives in stock is over on Gratiot Avenue and 13 Mile - in "Roseville" - kind of a seedy part of southeastern Michigan (used to go there a lot as a teen 'cuz thats where the easy girls were - us Warren guys used to say "wanna get laid on a Friday night? Go to Gratiot and find yourself a Roseville girl, they always put out!" ... so whatever, I'll go slumming to the Roseville Best Buy.

Roseville Best Buy has my laptop drive - but they're out of stock on the external drive! Balls! Now I have to drive over to Madison Heights Best Buy to get that... whatever...

I accidentally put the drive on my debit card out of habit (*sigh*) when I really should have put it on the credit card (a little tight until the 1st here, moneywise)... oh well, whatever... (seems like the "whatevers" are piling up fast today)

Walking out of the store in the Best Buy parking lot I am approached by this skinny chick with really bad cracked lips (she looks SOOO ragged out and rail-thin, I swear she could be a crackhead) who first tells me how beautiful my eyes are and then starts crying (yes, literally crying) about being stranded there with no gasoline in her car, saying she lives up in "Yale, Michigan" - about two hours to the north... she says she was here visiting her mother in the hospital and she has no money for gas and nobody believes her and could I please just give her a couple of dollars for gasoline... so I decide to test her: I tell her I have no cash but I'd be glad to follow her to a gas station and put gas in her car for her on my card.

SHE FREAKING ACCEPTS... I'm kinda stunned, I was sure it was a ruse to get a few bucks for drugs or something.

Anyways, now I get overcome with this strange feeling that I really should help her as much as I can 'cuz after all - things are so good for me and she is in a tight spot ... so I fill up her gas tank all the way for her (50 bucks). She thanks me very much and I tell her she is welcome and say goodbye. Okay whatever, but at least I had the pleasure of helping somebody...

I drive over to Madison Heights and buy the external drive.

I come home, decide to take this opportunity to re-do my system with Win7 anyways... I back up the data from my drive (hooked it up to an external enclosure and backed it up to the new external drive), and go ahead and start installing Win7.

I get to the point where I need to install my anti-virus software into the new build.

I go to the BitDefender site since I'll need to re-download it, and I see a strange notice on their home page that says something about "We are working on a patch for 64-bit Bitdefender users and we apologize for any inconvenience it has cost you" ... I'm like: "What?!"

I go to their message forums and discover that what happened to my system was in fact not a virus at all: there was a faulty update to their software that came down yesterday that causes systems running 64-bit OS's to suddenly falsely detect every running executable as a virus and quarantine it (including Windows system files and in fact BitDefender itself!) - many many people's systems wound up completely hosed by this in the last 24 hours.

I hate BitDefender. I'm thinking that since I already took this opportunity for change I might as well go all the way and get Kaspersky or something else instead.

Fucking bastards... this whole adventure, which I really didn't need, and cost me $250, was because of a faulty anti-virus software update.

Balls. .....oh, and whatever.

Holy Shit! What an awful day though you did earn some brownie points (heres hoping) with the gas tank. I think you have earned a frosty beverage of your choice and some veg time.

PS
ESET>BitDefender

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This is why you should be running Win95!

Did you at least get the skinny chick w/ the chapped lips' phone number? (Not for you...... for me)

indeed ESET smart security

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What you figure because Microsoft no longer providers support for it, that it must be better?

I am a proud new subscriber of ESET AntiVirus 4.2 (64-bit).

I actually hadn't really heard much about it, but since you guys recommended it I decided to check it out - seems techie-types love it maybe even more than they do BitDefender (alas - I think this weekend is going to prove to be a huge blow to BitDefender, and rightfully so - they fucked up a LOT of machines this weekend, the message forums over there are on fire about it).

Anyways, my BitDefender subscription was up in another month anyways, so I went ahead and bought ESET 4.2 ... we'll see how it shakes out.

I may have been joking!

mike you ill love eset if u watch the real time shit every word you type in like a im or here in the shout box is scaned lol and ive been saved may times by it bc lets say u are dl a rar file as its dl its scanning it at the same time and if it finds somin wrong with it it cancles the dl right away

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And this is the whole reason I quit selling Bitdefender, they do this alot and have cost me megabucks in support costs. I went with eset a few years ago and have been happy as a clam.

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