excellent program highly regarded by the security community and often recommended, the creator Bill P is also highly regarded. He is one of the few that have resisted adding any of the dreaded toolbars to his products which says a lot about his integrity and honor.

what did you need to know?

there is a free version and a pay version, Bill quite often has special deals on the prices.
Scotty the watch dog is very good at his job.

We have a special area on LzD forum dedicated to winpatrol, created by Corrine.
WinPatrol Help & Information

this is a link to Bill's blog and there you can find more detailed info about winpatrol.
Bits from Bill

I use it.. asks if you want to allow or not, when something is adding to windows start up... I delay start a couple things. Its handy for disabling or deleting start up items, deleting those doubleclick type cookies automatically. Removes or disables brower plug-ins too. Does lots of little handy things, if you're a little bit techie minded.

I have used it for years without complaint. I do not run it in real-time only on-demand.

For first time users, when you click on the Desktop the application interface does not appear. What does happen is an icon is placed in the Notification Bar/System Tray. You then click on that icon for the application interface to appear.

DA

Thanks for the information. Last month my husbands laptop got infected with the XP Repair virus and I am working with Corrine to clean it out.

I noticed they highly recommend it and was considering changing AV on our 5 computers. If it requires too much 'tech knowledge', I might stay with AVAST.

The cause of hubby's problem was due to outdated security while using unsecured internet connections. I doubt any AV would work if it was rarely updated.

Thanks,
Jane

I am following your progress there, I personally no longer use AVG, I did years ago but just much prefer others now like AVAST. MSE is also a good choice. You can set AVAST to do all updating automatically including actual version updates as well as definition updates.

Winpatrol is not an antivirus program, just an added layer to help you see what is happening on your pc.

Pc must be kept updated not just windows updates or AV updates some of the worst vulnerabilities come from outdated java, adobe, flash, browser etc. That is why using the Secunia scanner is the easy way to know what is needing updating and making it easy to update.
Secunia Online Software Inspector (OSI)

Is WinPatrol 20.0.2011 the best security, spyware, malware and anti-virus software program?

There are many versions of WinPatrol being used and all of them are very highly rated. WinPatrol looks at your critical system resources and alerts you to any changes that may occur without your knowledge. WinPatrol pioneered a heuristic behavioral approach to detecting attacks and violations of your computer and its environment. WinPatrol allows you to explore deep inside your computer without having to be a computer expert. You receive immediate notices of changes in your programs.

Here is a link that might be useful: WinPatrol

Thanks, this problem is taking forever to clear up, if it can be.
The computer with the problem is my husbands. I initially set up the computers in my household and expect the users to follow the simple maintenance required to keep them in good shape. I'm not about to look over the shoulders of adults.

At the time of the infection, we were both connected to the same 'unsecured' network. We were both on the same website, side by side, looking at real estate. My netbook did not get infected. I have to assume this is because I keep it updated.

Nothing, on his computer had been updated - some for years. The AVG was an outdated version. I no longer use it on my personal computers. I use Avast. I should have checked his computer occasionally and didn't.

Bottom line for anyone reading...all the security programs and scans in the world, will offer no protection if they are not updated on a regular basis.

I'm wondering now if it is worth working any further on his computer. It seems terribly infected and it might make more sense to reinstall Windows and be done with it. I am not a 'happy camper' dealing with this.

Thanks Raven and Zep. I have Secunia on my personal computers. I'll make sure it will be added to my hubby's and son's if I ever get through this mess (although my son is better about things). Win Patrol might be good. I'll try it first and see what I think.

Jane

Hello,

I know this thread is supposed to be about WinPatrol, but I want to comment about Secunia. I am new to this forum in the past week; however, I have been a regular participant and advisor on another GardenWeb forum for quite a long time.

After reading the comments in this thread last night, I decided to download Secunia OSI from the link provided by RavenCajun. After I ran the program, I was surprised to see that two of my important programs (Java and Adobe Flash Player) were not running the most updated versions for my OS (actually Java had the most updated version running, but I also still had an older version installed, which I deleted in Control Panel). I also downloaded WinPatrol and Scotty is now on patrol. In a short amount of time, this forum has proven to be very useful and effective for me. Thanks to all of you for sharing your knowledge and experience.

I run Windows Vista Home Premium, IE9, MSE and a monthly dosage of MalwareBytes Anti-Malware....and now I can add Secunia and WinPatrol to my arsenal thanks to the knowledgeable participants on this forum.

Jane, I sometimes feel it is better to wipe a drive rather than an ongoing fight with the bad guys. Yes there are over 100 updates now for XP but you set it to install then go off and do other stuff. There is some work to do prior to staring but....

Regarding DH you have mentioned his tardy approach to maintenance and security on other occasions. Why not install Microsoft Security Essentials, this is fully automatic and free so DH has nothing to do really. It is an anti virus and anti malware program all rolled into one unit. The program scans every Sunday at 2 a.m. or the next time the computer starts by default but that can be changed if desired

Jane you are doing great on your cleaning! It is a task that takes time and patience but you are well on your way just hang in there and the very intelligent and helpful team at LzD will get you all cleaned up and then you can be assured it is done right.

What I think you need to get from this, you can not trust him to just take care of his machine. I have the same problem here at home. My husband does none of his maintenance I do it on all of our computers. I actually prefer that because who the heck knows what he would screw up LOL He can be CFO of a major company and handle all of that daily but there he has a full IT team to do his pc stuff! So I just resign myself to doing our home maintenance. In the long run it is probably best!

Nearandwest hello and welcome! It is great that you were able to grab a couple of new tools for your pc security layer. Every little bit helps these days. Another you may want to check out to help you make sure you have fully removed all the old java which can make you have vulnerabilities is JavaRA it is a very small simple program that will dig in and remove all the bits and pieces.

JavaRa Updates and Removes Old and Redundant Java Versions

Just a thought here.

Is the computer capable of a W7 install? If it is it would be a shame to go through all that is necessary to restore it to a complete XP when XP is on the edge of extinction. Now if it can't handle W7 the choice is made.

DA

Nearandwest, you have discovered the best forum on GW. The great people here have helped me out of so many problems, I couldn't even list them all! Its embarrassing, but each time I think I have learned everything, my computers hit me with more. It is an ongoing, learning process.

Owbist...good minds think alike. I am only doing this to learn something about cleaning out nasties. Believe me, I told him to come for help and get his computer fixed, but he didn't...he started using my computers. That was the 'straw.' I'm not sure if I can use MS Security Essentials on his XP machine. It is 4 yrs old.

Raven, you have the patience of a saint! He uses his computer in his office and I am rarely in there unless he yells for help with something. As a result, I think he would receive notifications of updates and just ignore them. There is no other reason for some versions of software being so old. I have been cleaning up his machine all weekend and discovered Spywareblaster hadn't been updated since 10/09. I downloaded Secunia and he had so many old and dead versions of things its ridiculous.

I am setting everything to automatic. If I can run MS Security Essentials, I will.

I ran MWB and it found 2 infections. I'm now running ESECT again and so far it has found another Trojan. So I guess I'll wait for Corinne to return and continue to work on it.

At least its working and I'm able to see everything again, plus I can update things.

Thanks for your support, this is certainly an interesting experience.

Jane

yes it is indeed a learning experience and you can see some of the truly amazing programs that some of these incredible folks have created for use in clean up and all are free for use, truly just amazing intelligence and talent out there. With out going through a clean up at a forum like LzD (or a few others) many would have no idea these kinds of programs and help are available. The teams that freely give of their time are amazing. It is what makes me want to pay it forward any way I can.

Jane, yes indeed you can use MSE on the 4 year old XP computer. I still use Avast on my XP machine, but the MSE will work just fine and mine is over 5 years old.

Da, I thought the same thing. If all else fails, it might be worthwhile to get Win 7.

But I am holding out hope to get this nasty off the machine. For anyone who hasn't see this virus, it is so realistic it is hard to believe it was a virus. It looks so legitimate. If this WinHex popup didn't appear, saying it would save my files, I would have given up and replaced the hard-drive.

WinHex, apparently is legit but have no idea how it is involved with the virus. Why it appeared. I Googled Winhex and it is a recovery program. Maybe MS offers it automatically? I'm still confused over the sequence of events.

Thanks Owbist and Grandms, I will try Security Essentials. I've noticed AVG is a resource hog and plan to remove it when this is finished. I have Avast on my other computers.

Jane

MSSE Security Essentials requires on XP SP3.