The Geek Squad has to fix my laptop and I am $200 poorer for the experience. Why? I didn't let my protection software do its job.

With all the years I have spent on the Internet, I have been pretty fortunate - until now. I didn't fall for those phony e-mails from my bank or my ISP that somehow needed to have me respond to their e-mail with personal info about myself. If the typos and bad grammar were not a giveaway, all you have to do is hold your mouse for a second over the link. You soon see that responding to the e-mail takes you to some exotic and dangerous location that has nothing to do with your bank, ISP or best interests. I have reported a few of those scams - for whatever good it did.

But I admit it. This time I was fooled. Not by an e-mail. By incoming "updates".

My protection software had been blocking more than the usual number of files recently. But then it wanted to block something that said it was for Internet Explorer. My laptop is set for automatic Windows updating. Why is my software trying to block something for IE. I wondered. But I didn't wonder long enough. I clicked to let it through.

My software then asked me if I wanted to block some more files. I didn't recognize them, so I clicked on "block".  But then there was something for Google Updater that it wanted to block. And then Real Player. Well I know those programs are ok, right? So I allowed.

Immediately, a window popped up on my screen from Security Software, scanning my computer and telling me about all the corrupted files on my computer. (They ought to have known. They were the ones who corrupted them. What was worse, I could not "X" out the window. My only choices were to purchase their product or continue scanning.

They also disabled my Start button and Task Manager. And unfortunately there is no way to easily turn off my laptop like I can with my desktop. (The power button turns it on without a problem, but I can't seem to use it to turn the computer off. I don't know if that is a flaw or intentional.)

My only choice (which I had done in the past when the laptop froze) was to close the cover, unplug the power and pull out the battery. I turned it back on and the offensive program was right back. I did the elaborate shut down procedure again and rebooted in Safe Mode. I tried a system restore to about 10 days earlier, but that did not work. (I was told by the Geek Squad that it could not work because the OS had already been corrupted by that point.)

I also tried to remove the program through Control Panel's add/remove procedure. But the program does not list itself in the roster of resident programs. No way to uninstall it through Control Panel.

Finally, I rebooted in Safe Mode with Command Prompt and dusted off my DOS book with all the DOS commands. I am one of the 1% in the world who liked DOS and had fun learning its commands, tricks and undocumented features. There are times when knowing DOS can be an advantage, and this was one of them.

I soon found subdirectories and files scattered on my computer which were obviously the culprit. Obvious to me, anyway. Of course, they give the subdirectory and the exe file names that have nothing to do with the name of the software that was running in the popup window or the shortcut icon that it had put on my desktop.

So if you find a subdirectory within your Program Files with the name "Motive" and a 1.7 MB exe file inside of it that starts with the letters ZlO followed by some numbers, you have found your culprit. Unfortunately by then, it is too late.

My ability to turn on Windows Firewall was gone. Of course, this did not matter, since I could no longer connect to the Internet. I assume that they reprogrammed the computer so that if there files were deleted (which I did through DOS and then followed up by doing a full scan with my protection software, which still did work although it was giving me error messages about its own status), that these basic functions would no longer operate. This was all part of the way they corrupted the OS.

Fortunately, I can save my documents, pictures, music files, etc. So I don't have to pay the Geek Squad to do that. So my project for today is to save those files and then return to laptop to Best Buy so they can start my computer from scratch and load a new OS onto it. Then, of course, I will have to reload any of the old programs that I had on there that I still want. Programs can't be saved. (Another thing that would have been no problem in DOS.)

The moral of the story? If your protection software wants to block something that looks legitimate, let it. You can always go to the actual source (Microsoft, Google, Real Player, etc.) and do a manual upload if there really is an update.

The other reason for the post is to let you know that this will be occupying more of my time over the next few days. So I might not be posting, favoriting, commenting or messaging as often during this period.

Love, Lois