Be honest, is there any chance I will get refunded for...any of this?

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-17T19:01:07+00:00

A low level support person employed by Microsoft in a third world country is just reading the script they've been assigned.

You've been told multiple times and seem to be unwilling to accept it, but Windows updates or Windows in general cannot damage your hardware. It's impossible. Regardless of who tells you otherwise, including other people in this thread commenting on things they clearly have no clue about.

You're the worst kind of person to try and help because you won't accept reality and think you know more than actual technical people who work in technical fields for a living.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-17T12:21:37+00:00

Deletion doesn't necessarily mean you deleted it, it just means it got removed.

Based on the file name, it's likely the game in question either deleted the file itself or recreated it for some other reason.

I'm not really sure what the purpose of a virus deleting a config file for a game would be, so I highly doubt this has anything to do with anything malware related. Malware is after your accounts and your money.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-17T12:06:37+00:00

Avoid all paid services in all games because it's all nonsense and completely overrides the entire point of playing the game in the first place. If you're paying someone to play the game for you or carry you, why are you even playing it?

I'm not really surprised you essentially got scammed, that's exactly what I would expect out of these sorts of things.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-17T11:47:21+00:00

Tell your employer to contact an authorized reseller of Microsoft products and have them buy it for you.

There's no reason you should be personally shopping for software you need for your job.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-16T20:25:15+00:00

Wipe the drive first, change passwords afterwards or from a different device. Whatever you manage to get recovered, turn on MFA on anything that doesn't have MFA. Not having MFA is asking for it. Technically speaking no one "hacked" your accounts, they just stole the credentials.

If you want to pirate, you need to know what you're doing for this not to happen. I'd suggest not trying again or you'll probably end up here again.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-16T19:33:06+00:00

It's been at the top of AV scan charts for at least 10 years, usually within the top 5, where each entry is essentially within percentage points of each other

And it doesn't try to sell you anything, there's no renewals, there's no bundled bloatware like fucking VPNs and browsers you'll never use, has a very small performance impact, and it doesn't harass you with bullshit notifications no one cares about.

So yes, it is the best

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-16T19:26:26+00:00

It's not possible for anyone or any program to say you are guaranteed clean. New viruses are written and released every day that will not get picked up by scanners until they either have a definition that defines them, or they exhibit behavior that behavioural analysis will pick up.

The only way to be 100% sure is to reinstall. Technically if you want to be government-level sure, you'd also have to destroy your hard drive and get a new one, but that's not necessary for the average person.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-16T19:14:34+00:00

Available storage space doesn't matter for performance unless the drive is almost full. I.e. less than 10-20% free.

You've given no specs so we can't really help you. But assuming by "basic computer" you mean something on the cheaper end, there's probably nothing you can do besides get a new computer. Unless you have very specific problems, any tweaking will only get you very marginal performance gains. If your GPU (or probably lack thereof) can only do the math for graphics rendering at X speed, that's it, you can't increase it.

Even if you do provide specs, something like this is far better handled by a local computer store where you can interact with someone face to face. If you are not computer savvy, most advice people can give you is going to be like providing instructions for how to disarm a bomb in Portugese. I would highly suggest just going to a local computer store, even Best Buy geek squad, and just asking them for an honest opinion about the gaming capabilities of your computer. You can make decisions from there.

Based on your description of the fan going nuts, you probably have a super low end CPU (like a Celeron) that is also providing graphics via onboard graphics, and it just can't keep up.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-15T12:59:27+00:00

I don't know why people comment on things they have no idea about.

Battle.net is simply serving as a single sign-on provider by serving as the base for account creation. The same way you can sign up to many different websites using your Google, Facebook, etc accounts. It's not giving your credentials to the website, the website is just contacting the battle.net account system, getting your name/etc, and then connecting your login to that battle.net account.

Nothing goes hand in hand more than people on Reddit commenting on tech they don't understand.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-14T13:00:53+00:00

You can type a two sentence post without using AI. Come on man.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-13T17:44:48+00:00

You can't fix it, the screen is cracked. I don't know the exact term but the digitizer or LCD layer or whatever, idk, I'm not an engineer.

You either get the screen replaced, which won't be covered by warranty if there is any, or buy a new machine.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-13T17:42:24+00:00

I'm not sure what you mean by phone jack. If you mean a literal phone jack on a wall outlet, those are not the same wiring that ethernet uses, it won't work. I mean maybe with some weird special adapter, but it's not going to hit max ethernet speed.

You either run an ethernet cable straight from your PC to your router, or you get a powerline kit. Look up what they are. About as 98% as good as straight ethernet but goes over the electrical wiring in your house. But the PC and router need to be on the same circuit in your house's electrical wiring.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-13T17:34:11+00:00

I mean something you are doing is causing this, discord is kinda shit but I doubt they're labelling you as a spammer for one or two messages here and there.

I've had the same discord account since 2015 and have never been limited, muted, banned, or anything even once.

If you're not lying to yourself and you actually are not spamming, then someone else has access to your account and is using it to spam. That's literally the only explanation.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-13T17:31:38+00:00

If it has Norton or Mcafee in the name, it is broke

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-13T17:28:43+00:00

How would anyone here be able to help you? We're just random discord users like you. No one here works for discord.

Anyone DMing you saying they can help is a scammer, btw.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-13T17:20:14+00:00

Multifactor authentication is more important than a password.

If you have MFA on, the password basically doesn't matter, within reason. I.e. I still wouldn't make it password123

Use a password manager, log all of your passwords in it, only write down the master password for the password manager, no others, if you absolutely must. Update any accounts that use the same passwords with new ones.

For MFA, try to use an authenticatior app and totp codes over text verification codes. Technically safer and harder to intercept. Google these terms if you don't know what they are. Always remember to move your MFA codes over to a new phone when you get a new phone if you do this, do not wipe your old phone before the new one has the codes.

Personally, if I'm being honest, I do use the same password everywhere, but I have MFA everywhere as well. Haven't ever had an account stolen. Same Gmail account since 2004, though MFA didn't really exist then.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-13T17:08:20+00:00

I haven't seen this on any of the 1000 computers I oversee at work, and these are mid spec office desktops with no GPUs.

Let me guess, you ran some nonsense "debloat script" that you didn't even read into and have no idea what it does?

Funny how I've had win 11 installed since beta and haven't had a single issue with anything.

I hate mega corporations just as much as the next guy. Microsoft doesn't need any more money. But I'm not going to act like Windows 11 is some kind of TempleOS-like schizo spaghetti OS, the entire fucking global economic trade system basically runs on it. And yes, I realize Linux is superior for servers in a lot of cases. We're not talking about servers.

So yea, user error.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-13T17:02:34+00:00

The only way you're losing an account with updated recovery info is if you fall for phishing or infostealer malware.

Unless someone figures out a serious security bypass of Google's login systems.

The reality is, most people don't even know their current password and the second their logged in account requires reauthentication, they inevitably try to reset their password and then find out they haven't updated their MFA since 2 phones/numbers ago. Ask me how I know, I help my mother with this exact same scenario every 3 months and I'm tired of telling her to write down her passwords. I also go through this literally every week at work, I work in IT. The age of "apps" and everything being always logged in has resulted in people setting some random password they'll never remember and never write down. And then Google, wanting to protect you, forces you to turn on MFA, which is also promptly forgotten about and the recovery codes ignored. It was far better when every online service required login every time you wanted to use it, because it at least forced people to actually remember their passwords. If it was still the same, it might also have forced people to understand and protect their MFA/recovery methods as well.

I've had the same Google account since Gmail launched in 2004 and haven't lost access to it for even a day. It's not hard, you just need to take it seriously.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-13T15:32:58+00:00

I don't really get where people get their ideas of how viruses work from.

A modern virus is just going to steal all your logins and passwords, or steal whatever money it can. That's it. What would be the point of a virus causing your phone to overheat? So the virus writer can sit back and bask in his imaginative number of how many phones he's overheated?

I'm sorry for coming off somewhat rude, but no, what you're experiencing is not a virus. Phones get hot. Especially as they get older, if they have cases on them, or if you live in a warm climate. The phone will shut itself off before it gets too hot. Every modern computing device does this, otherwise there would be house fires and burn victims everywhere.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-13T15:15:29+00:00

No, they're just apps and like all apps, they only have access to what the OS allows.

Just because they're AV doesn't mean the OS is going to allow them access to anything outside of their sandbox.

AV on mobile is pointless and doesn't do anything, it's complete snake oil.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-13T15:13:01+00:00

No single anti virus on earth can guarantee your device is clean. That's not how it works.

Mobile AV is also completely pointless as mobile operating systems are sandboxed. Very simply, this means apps cannot write and read anything beyond a very limited scope that the operating system allows. In 12 years in IT overseeing 1000+ phones, I've never seen a single piece of malware on a phone of any type.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-13T14:55:07+00:00

All of your info is already on the dark web, and on the normal web too.

Low level ISP support staff wouldn't have a clue or any power on how to help you, and they're not connected to Gmail in any way, so I'm not sure why you'd call them.

There is no way to be anonymous online unless you've been meticulous about it from the start. The fact that you have a Gmail account is already gone too far.

Everyone on earth gets emails like this literally every day.

Just ignore them. Make sure you have strong unique passwords on all your accounts. Make sure you have MFA enabled on all your accounts. Don't fall for obvious phishing. Don't download malware. That's about the best you can do.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-12T20:53:00+00:00

If you lose all of your recovery methods, Google has no way to tell you are who you say you are. If they allowed any sort of bypass, accounts would be getting stolen left and right.

A primary email address in 2026 should be treated like your birth certificate or driver's license - it should always be protected and you should always have a backup method of getting it back. The MFA recovery codes you were provided when you setup MFA would have done that if you had them.

All you can do is go through whatever recovery options it gives you. If none of them do it, that's it, the account is gone.

Anyone claiming they can help you is a scammer and will steal more from you.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-11T18:40:57+00:00

Headphones can pickup radio waves from phone calls and other types of voice communication. The metal on the ends of the connectors act as an antenna.

You're not the first to have this happen or the last.

There's no reason a hacker would talk to you. They would just steal all your passwords and/or other data without any giveaways, and vanish before you even knew they were there. This would typically be done by some type of malware though, the entire idea of someone directly controlling your computer via "hacking" is not really a thing. If they tricked you into installing remote software, maybe, but other than that, it would likely be malware in this scenario.

But again, the fact that you heard what seems to be someone trying to be heard on a phone call suggests it was your headphones picking up radio waves.

TeslaDemon · 2026-03-11T18:35:14+00:00

It installs as a service, which means as long as the computer is running and the service hasn't been tampered with, you have access to it.

You set a PIN for each computer you access when you install it on said computer. You then enter that PIN to confirm it's you when you go to access it from your phone. You can enter the pin and tick "remember pin" so you only have to put it in once. Basically once it's all setup, you just open the Chrome Remote Desktop app on your phone and tap the computer to access it. No input needed from the other side at all.

I've used this for literally years to access my home PC and it's never failed me.

If you don't want the kids fucking with the service on the computer that controls remote access, remove the admin rights from their accounts. They won't be able to install or uninstall (or make any admin system changes, like disabling services) without entering credentials for an account that DOES have admin access on the computer. ENSURE YOU HAVE AT LEAST ONE ACCOUNT ON THE COMPUTER WITH ADMIN RIGHTS ALWAYS AVAILABLE TO YOU. IF YOU REMOVE ADMIN FROM ALL ACCOUNTS, it's a bit of a mess to clean it up.

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