GENERAL QUESTIONS

• What are your business hours?
• What makes you different from other service companies?
• What areas do you service?

COMPUTER QUESTIONS

• Do you sell used computers?
• What is a virus?
• What is a worm?
• What is a trojan?
• What is spyware?
• What is Malware?
• How do I know if I have a virus?
• Is Windows 10 Really Free?
• Will My Computer Run Windows 10?

Monday - Thursday: 9:30 a.m. - 9 p.m. CST

Friday: Closed

Saturday: Closed

Sunday: Closed

People and businesses in Lake County depend on White Box Computers. There are many reasons our clients call us instead of someone else. Here are just a few of those reasons...

• We understand computers and technology issues
• Our customer service is ranked #1 in Lake county
• We come to you with onsite, with a professional attitude and appearance
• We care about our customers
• We won’t call a job complete until the problem is resolved and your are satisfied
• Our pricing is among the lowest in the industry
• We offer outstanding discounts and new customer incentives

White Box Computers provides the service and peace of mind you deserve!

Contact us Today!

White Box Computers provides Computer Repair, Sales, Parts & Upgrades, Virus Cleaning, Web Design, and more to people and businesses in the entire Lake County Area. We have provide our services in cities like:

Antioch | Bannockburn | Barrington | Barrington Hills | Beach Park | Buffalo Grove | Deer Park | Deerfield | Fox Lake | Fox River Grove | Grayslake | Green Oaks | Gurnee | Hainesville | Hawthorn Woods | Highland Park | Highwood | Indian Creek | Island Lake | Kildeer | Lake Barrington | Lake Bluff | Lake Forest | Lake Villa | Lake Zurich | Lakemoor | Libertyville | Lincolnshire | Lindenhurst | Long Grove | Mettawa | Mundelein | North Barrington | North Chicago | Old Mill Creek | Park City | Port Barrington | Riverwoods | Round Lake | Round Lake Beach | Round Lake Heights | Round Lake Park | Third Lake | Tower Lakes | Vernon Hills | Volo | Wadsworth | Wauconda | Waukegan | Wheeling | Winthrop Harbor | Zion

We also service parts of Cook County, McHenry County, Kenosha County and others. Please Click on the contact link below for more info on serviceable areas.

Contact us Today!

Yes, we sell new, used and refurbished computers and parts. Click Here for more info on our used and refurbished PC's. If you are looking to save a bit of money, we sometimes may have a working used part in stock, so that is always an option.

A computer virus is a program or a piece of executable code that has the unique ability to replicate itself and spread from one computer to another and/or across the machine it is installed on. Like biological viruses, computer viruses can spread quickly and are often difficult to eradicate. They can attach themselves to just about any type of file and are spread as files that are copied and sent from individual to individual.

In addition to replication, some computer viruses share another commonality: a damage routine that delivers the virus payload. Examples of payloads include data destruction, messages with insulting text or spurious e-mail messages sent to a large number of people. While payloads may only display messages or images, they can also destroy files, reformat your hard drive, or cause other damage.

With email now used as an essential business communication tool, viruses are spreading faster than ever. Viruses attached to email messages can infect an entire enterprise in a matter of minutes, costing companies millions of dollars annually in lost productivity and clean-up expenses.

Viruses won't go away anytime soon: There are thousands of viruses and over 20,000 new malware signatures created each day, according to the the CEO of a large antivirus company. With numbers like this, it's safe to say that most organizations will regularly encounter virus outbreaks. No one who uses computers is immune to viruses.

A worm is a computer program that has the ability to copy itself from machine to machine. Worms normally move around and infect other machines through computer networks. Using a network, a worm can expand from a single copy incredibly quickly. For example, the Code Red worm replicated itself over 250,000 times in approximately nine hours on July 19, 2001. A worm usually exploits some sort of security hole in a piece of software or the operating system.

Worms use up computer time and network bandwidth when they are replicating, and they often have some sort of evil intent. A worm called Code Red made huge headlines in 2001. Experts predicted that this worm could clog the Internet so effectively that things would completely grind to a halt.

The Code Red worm slowed down Internet traffic when it began to replicate itself, but not nearly as badly as predicted. Each copy of the worm scanned the Internet for Windows NT or Windows 2000 servers that do not have the Microsoft security patch installed. Each time it found an unsecured server, the worm copied itself to that server. The new copy then scanned for other servers to infect. Depending on the number of unsecured servers, a worm could conceivably create hundreds of thousands of copies.

A Trojan is a piece of code that performs unexpected or unauthorized, often malicious, actions. The main difference between a Trojan and a virus is the inability to replicate. A Trojan conceals another malicious program. When the user executes a Trojan horse, the program performs the expected task; however, the program is also performing actions unknown to, and not in the best interests of the user. If it replicates, then it should be classified as a virus. When a Trojan is executed, users will likely experience unwanted system problems in operation, and sometimes loss of valuable data.

Spyware sneaks onto your machine when you download many file-sharing services, open infected e-mails, or click on dubious Internet embeded or pop-up ads. They can manipulate your system, record your habits, and steal your passwords and credit card numbers. Depending on their degree of aggressiveness, they can steal your privacy or even your identity and they can be terribly difficult to remove.

Malware, short for malicious software, is software designed to disrupt computer operation, gather sensitive information, or gain unauthorized access to computer systems. Malware includes computer viruses, computer worms, Trojan horses, most rootkits, spyware, dishonest adware and other malicious or unwanted software, including viruses. Malware is a general term used to describe any kind of software or code specifically designed to exploit a computer, or the data it contains, without consent.

You must remember that there are very many things that can go wrong with your computer and a virus is not always to blame.

The only way you can know whether or not your computer is infected is by scanning your machine with an up to date anti-virus program.

Try some of these Free Antivirus Products (Only Install One Product):

• Avast! Free Antivirus
• Housecall by Trend Micro
• Malewarebytes
• Spybot Search & Destroy

Or you can always call us if you don't feel comfortable installing and running any of these applications. We offer a virus install and training package to help you keep your PC clean and running smooth.

Whether or not you have a virus, it's always good to get regular maintenance and virus scans performed on your PC. Virus removal is a specialty of mine and I repair many PC's where a client gets a popup saying there is an infection and after I clean it, there ends up being hundreds of infections. Not because of that one virus that popped up causing all the infections, but because of years of computer use and no regular virus removals being performed on the computer. They eventually picked up a virus that was hiding and written to reveal itself at a later time.

Most people think having an antivirus installed will shield viruses from coming in or will remove a virus automatically. That couldn't be further from the truth. An antivirus program only protects against known viruses and only you are updating the program or if it is set to auto-update. I find most people’s programs are expired. Also, there are thousands of viruses and over 20,000 new malware signatures created each day. It takes a few weeks for the antivirus companies to detect these new signatures and write detections for them and update your program, which means you are susceptible to every new virus that is created daily until it is updated into your virus database. Not every antivirus program is created equal either.

It is always a good idea to schedule a virus removal session whether you think you have a virus or not, because chances are, you picked up some here or there and they can spread. We offer offer monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly and yearly maintenence packages. Feel free to check out our pricing options to see if any of our maintenence packages fits your budget.

There has been significant confusion regarding the pricing (or lack there of) of Windows 10 over the last year. Don’t be ashamed if you’re confused, Microsoft themselves changed their story regarding the upgrade and pricing schedule more than a few times during the development and beta testing of Windows 10.

If you are currently running any legitimate (non-pirated) version of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 you will be upgraded for free to an equivalent version of Windows 10. Windows 7 Home/Basic/Premium users and Windows 8.1 users will be upgraded for free to Windows 10 Home. Windows 7 Professional/Ultimate users and Windows 8.1 Pro users will be upgraded to Windows 10 Pro.

You’ll note we didn’t say Windows 8; if you have a Windows 8 machine you first need to perform the free upgrade to Windows 8.1 before upgrading to Windows 10. The vast majority of current Windows users fall under the umbrella above. Your Windows 7 desktop, your Windows 8.1 laptop, as long as it has a legitimate Windows license it is eligible for upgrade. It’s also worth noting that the Windows 10 free upgrade key is tied to the hardware. You can’t upgrade a machine and roll back and keep the key to do a clean install on another computer.

There is a minor catch: the upgrade is only free for the first year Windows 10 is available. Windows 10 was officially released in 07/29/2015 and the upgrade will remain free for qualifying users until 07/28/2016.

If you’re building a new PC and need a brand new Windows license you can purchase Windows 10 for $119 (or Windows 10 Pro for $199).

Unlike other questions that have concrete answers like “Can I upgrade Windows 7 Home to Windows 10?” this particular question only has a concrete answer if we have detailed information about the components of the computer in question. Most computers will accept the upgrade and in the upgrade prompt, it will show you what is and isn't compatible with your system.

If your computer is currently running Windows 7 or Windows 8 to your satisfaction, especially on newer hardware, there’s a very strong chance it will run Windows 10 just fine. On the other hand if the hardware you’re using was from your old Windows XP machine and it is barely running Windows 7 at a satisfactory level then the reality is jumping all the way to Windows 10 is probably going to yield a sluggish user experience you won’t be particularly happy with.