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VIPRE: A New Hope for PC Brain Freeze

One of the big relief of having Macs is that people just don’t write viruses for them. A long time ago, I heart an analogy about Macs and PCs. If you think of them as having brains, a Mac thinks with its hardware, and software just tells it what to think about. In the case of a PC, the software does the thinking. Therefore, a rootkit or an unauthorized .exe file can wreck havoc.

A Mac can say to a virus “I’m don’t want to think about you, buzz off.” A PC, being a bit lobotomized until it has some software, says, “Okay. If you are here, my person must want you to tell me what to do.” Maybe that is a bit simplified, but you don’t see a lot of Mac viruses, do you? I rest my case.

Antivirus Software is something that my PC friends have to take as a given, just like I would never get on a motorcycle or horse without a helmet. I am very careful with my PC. It is still kicking around and I use it for circumstances where someone builds something just for Internet Explorer and it doesn’t work for me. However, I do nothing and click on nothing until I can be sure my security is up like the Great Wall of China.

One I am trying is VIPRE. Instead of being merely an antivirus software, it also has antispyware capabilities all in one, and it doesn’t slow down your system to a crawl. I remember having to download about three different programs, and then not catching everything as various free downloads only covered a small part of the map. The other reason I looked into VIPRE is that it not just covers these areas, but also works at extracting rootkits. Rootkits are those nasty little vermin that can practically reprogram your computer or jump out at you when you least expect it.

Sunbeltsoftware.com is offering a free 15 day trial of VIPRE now.   If you try it, tell me how you like it.  I am hoping it brings new life to my backup PC, Hal.   In the meantime, the IMac and the G3 are giggling and pointing at it.

  1. I have a Dell Inspiron 530 with Vista. I downloaded a MS word file which was attached to an email (no viruses, as far as I know). I then right clicked on the icon and renamed the file. A new icon with the new name appeared, and works fine to open the file. The old icon remained on the desktop and will neither open nor delete. When I try to open it it asks what program to use (even though it’s a .doc), I pick Word, then nothing happens. When I try to drag it to the recycle bin it says it’s no longer located on the desktop and I need to verify its location. It says its size is 0 bytes. Tried restarting, shutting down and booting back up, still there. What should I do?

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  • I have a lot of experience with Windows, but not so much with Vista. I was “back to a mac” already when Vista debuted, and I am glad for that as many of my friends have had a bear of a time with Vista.

    Have you tried your program install/uninstall menu? Perhaps your computer is recognizing this as a program rather than just an icon. In past Microsoft operating systems, there was a desktop cleanup function. If you have it, this may help. Otherwise, my best advice is to defrag. Perhaps this icon is just a random fragment and when the path was broken, it remained an orphan that the computer is unsure what to do with it. Or just switch to a mac. (LOL – you knew I was going to say that!)

    Remember: With a Mac, the computer “thinks” and the programs tell it what to think about. In a PC environment, the programs are the “brain.”

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