Alex's Applications scripts solution for TUSD computers

Yesterday, after showing my new voting program to Mrs. Boudreaux and Mr. Marzilli for class elections (a different voting program than FHS ASB Vote 2010), I returned to Mr. Beverley's computer science class (in which I am a teacher aide) and discovered pandemonium. All the computers, with a few exceptions, were dysfunctional. Many would not log on. Those that did log on showed a hidden start bar that you could only right click on. IE would not load and internet connectivity was a thing of the past. A virus has struck! Mr. Beverley left to talk to Mr. Marzilli while teachers bombarded his room with phone calls. Not only were Bev's computers infected, but the entire district network was having this problem.

On 4/21, McAfee released a virus definitions update that falsely identified an important system file (svchost.exe) as a virus. Computers with older versions of McAfee installed deleted the system file, rendering the computer virtually useless. This hurt computers worldwide. McAfee released an update (extra.dat) to the definitions file that would prevent the false positive, but left no release notes on their website. I looked up what to do with extra.dat files and followed directions, but this did not work entirely. By lunch someone had discovered that after copying extra.dat into the correct location, you must copy svchost.exe back to c:\windows\system32 from the dllcache folder. This process cannot be done remotely, so every affected computer must be touched.

Alexander Taylor, working on behalf of Alex's Applications, wrote a script that copies the extra.dat file from a CD to the McAfee engine folder and then copies svchost back to system32 from the dllcache folder, restoring the computer to its original condition. Flash drives cannot be used because if the drivers for the flash drive happened to not be installed, Windows would fail to automatically install them without svchost running. It is quite a simple script but it made me rather popular with the administration.

The IT people at the district made the same solution but weren't going to give it to Foothill until later for reasons unknown to me. After I and Mr. Beverley fixed Mr. Marzilli's computer using my script during 5th period, Mr. Beverley left to start fixing the computers of teachers who were complaining the most. He and Kevin Quinn will have to resume this task today (4/22...writing this at 5 AM before school).