The Reimage Blog

The attack code was found on a brand new machine… read more.

Time has finally ran out for Windows XP owners with Microsoft replacing free support of the operating system with a paid one. Users with a dysfunctional XP system will have to pay per incident, per the hour. This makes this manual repair process an expensive ordeal, while up until now it has been merely a cumbersome one. 

Windows XP Support(ed)!

Happily, Reimage is still here to help with our state of the art automated PC repair technology and PC booster.

Reimage.com automatically reinstalls an operating system and does not touch user data or applications, the repair takes an average of 22 minutes. You will never have to reinstall your XP again.

Reimage’s PC Repair Resources

Additional resources exist for those looking to repair their PCs, such as:

• A PC Repair Directory (PC technician list)
• Extensive Knowledge Base
• PC repair industry articles
• Free PC diagnosis (not repair).
• For a free technical consultation call: +1 (877) 7343734 - Mon-Fri: 9am-10pm EST 

Reimage’s internal reporting system has been showing that there is an increase in the number of repairs with the following combo: Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Media Player 11. So why are we seeing more of these upgrades? It seems like people that chose to stay with their old PC do not upgrade to Vista (here is an odd case. The reason may be that:

1. Their hardware  wouldn’t support it well (too weak and Vista drivers that are needed for legacy hardware are sometimes hard to find).
2. It is expensive to pay for a new PC that also runs Vista well (it also may backfire at times), most people settle for their good old PC with good old XP but add to it latest updates from Microsoft.

However, newer versions of IE and WMP were designed for newer PCs and tested and optimized for Vista (and not for the discontinued XP)… XP users who try to maximize their experience by upgrading to IE8 and WMP11 absurdly get a slower and slower PC and a user experience which is worse than before!

This phenomena is called “bloatware“. Now, usually an obvious solution for bloatware is uninstalling the bloat and making it float by finding more lightweight alternatives (e.g. Foxit Reader instead of Acrobat Reader). However, after you’ve installed IE8 / WMP11 it is very hard to uninstall these applications especially if you’re not a geek.

References from the web:

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/12551/new-media/slow-take-up-of-internet-explorer-8-on-day-one  
http://www.freewarefiles.com/review_5_51_40237.html
http://forums.techguy.org/multimedia/544911-media-player-11-slow-load.html
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/30563022/windows-media-player-11-r.aspx
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=241585
http://www.aeroxp.org/board/index.php?showtopic=9699
http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/Media-Player-11-using-50-CPU-running-really-slow-t160970.html 

Social networks are fast becoming a security hazard. Yet another virus, this time on MySpace. We expect anti virus vendors to add detection for it over the following 24 hours.

How the malware spreads is not clear as of yet, but the screen-shot below shows an example of how a popup windows shows up and asks you to download an XP update when you visit an affected profile page.

Click on caption view full size