(im on the latest version of windows, on my own personal computer - non school given) basically my school makes students install some sort of antivirus and run some cmd prompts as administrator (they dont really let you see it, they just do it) in order to connect to their private internet network. however, recently, they pulled out reports of something that happened locally on my computer, when i wasn’t connected to their network, saying that they knew because of an “antivirus software installed on your computer”. this leads to me to believe that they have access to my computer locally, not just through the wifi network, and it is something that the files they made me install run and download did. i looked everywhere in my file explorer and cant find the antivirus and i have no idea where to even start with the cmd prompt stuff. please let me know what i can do so that they no longer have access to my personal, non school given computer. i am perfectly fine using the public network from now on.
What kind of school is this? lol
Back up your personal data, do a clean, custom installation of Windows, and don’t connect to your school’s system after you’ve reinstalled.
The “custom” part is important, because you will repartition your hard drive as part of the installation process, wiping everything.
Resource: How to: Perform a Custom Installation of Windows 11 and Windows 10 or - Microsoft Community
Why don’t they just use a VPN and give you licences for antimalware program??
Is it YOUR computer, or do you have it on loan from the school or something. Who’s actual property is the computer?
If it’s legally yours, they can’t actually modify your software and such without your express consent and permission. If the school owns it, bring it to the sysadmin and make your complaint with them.
The school installed a VPN, and that VPN was required to connect to their private network.
Some VPNs have increasingly aggressive behaviour scanning, and when the VPN connects it can report home whatever you did they have a flag for.
Schools typically don’t have very good IT depts, and they are more liberal about supporting student devices provided you abide by the rules. With corporate they might assign you a laptop, and being it’s their gear it’s entirely their gear. I’ve seen some corporate laptops with policies that prevent them from connecting to public wifi, not using MFA, etc.
If you don’t want to access the School’s network you will have to abide by their rules. If you don\t just uninstall their VPN.
Reinstall windows, and make another windows vm where you connect to the schools system and do school work, then do everything else on the main system.
use autoruns.
inspect every autorun entry, particularly those in services & device drivers.
look at networking tunnels, also
Follow the school data breach procedure for reporting a security incident.
Report that someone on the school IT gained unauthorised access to your computer and collected data from it.
Ask them when and where they gained your authority to do this.
This. It is hard to say what the school has done to the computer, they may have remote management software installed. Wipe and start from scratch, and don’t let them access your machine in the future. This may however make it impossible to do your school work if you cannot connect to their network, so keep that in mind.
can you explain more idk what any of that is