Customer rang, saying that their keyboard types strange characters, and the mouse is very erratic.

So I took a spare keyboard & mouse with me, and had a bit of a looksee. It turns out that they have a cordless mouse & keyboard, & using the computer is very difficult… So I plug in a wired keyboard & mouse & things are a bit better, but not much.

So I boot into win XP safe mode, & do a spyware scan. Clear out all found spyware & install standard anti virus & badware software (antivir, spyware blaster, winpatrol) & everything works just fine.

I also removed a warez downloader program… Looks like they have a son who does a lot of music downloading… except he seems to use a spyware infested program to do so.

I ask the mum if the son is likely to use the computer much, & she says that he has his own laptop, & he does everything from that (it’s connected to the internet via a wireless router).

2 days later, the dad calls me & says the antivirus is constantly “complaining” about some warez program & thinks it is spyware… I think: aha! the son probably has an unusable laptop due to spyware, so he uses mum & dad’s PC… Anyway I tell him it’s a very bad idea to run this warez program & he should uninstall it & not let it get reinstalled.

Case closed, but I wouldn’t be surprised to get a call asking to fix up the son’s laptop.