Removing botnet apps from a PC; Running both Windows 98 and XP

* Dr. Internet columnist Steve Blass offers advice on how to remove botnet apps from a PC * Help Desk columnist Ron Nutter offers advice on how to run Windows 98 and XP on the same disk

* Removing botnet apps from a PC

By Steve Blass

Q: I fear that my PC has been infected with botnet software. None of my spyware detection or anti-virus software detects anything, but my computer has slowed to a crawl and often runs at close to 100% CPU utilization when I have only one browser window open. What can I do to find the culprit and clean the machine?

A: If you cannot wipe the machine clean and start fresh, you may be able to ferret out the offending software by using a personal firewall program, such as Kerio Personal Firewall or Zone Alarm, which will block outbound connections and incoming traffic.

To read Steve’s answer in its entirety, please go to:

http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2005/112105blass.html?rl

* Running both Windows 98 and XP

By Ron Nutter

Q: I have some DOS programs that have difficulty in the XP system. I would like to run both Windows 98 and XP on the same disk. Is this possible?

A: There are two different ways you can approach this situation. One is to use Microsoft’s Virtual PC. This is an application that installs under Windows XP and allows you to run multiple “virtual” computers with the same or different operating systems. This is a quick way to run an application that requires a different operating system from what you currently have. The process involves creating a virtual machine where you “install” an operating system for which you have a license and then proceed to configure it to your requirements. With this approach, I would encourage you to have at least 500M bytes of memory in your machine, 1G byte would be better. A plus with Virtual PC is that if you need to move things to another computer, all you need to do is to install Virtual PC on the new system and move the system image with your application on to the new system. You should be up and running within a few minutes.

To read Ron’s answer in its entirety, please go to:

http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2005/112105nutter.html?rl