Yet again, not even five months after my last reinstall.
This time though, it’s mostly because I’m infected with spy/ad/malware. At the moment Windows is unable to open any explorer-based applications, including Explorer, IE, Control Panel, etc. But that’s okay now that I am reinstalling.
This time, I will monitor all registry and system file/directory changes, most of the times anyway. I also went out and grabbed a new hard drive and enclosure to backup files instead of burning 95 gigs of DVD.
Current backup progress - 35 out of 95 gigs completed.
:(
What happened this time? “I’m behind a router and I know what sites to visit and what not to visit.” Why didn’t your router stop the virus? How did you get it?
sorry to double post, but what’s ” harware”???
My bad. Fixed now :)
This time I visited some Chinese sites that installed about 400 detectable spy/ad/malware programs, and about 400 more that I can’t find. Their entry point was Internet Explorer :/
If you are getting a firewall, don’t get Zonealarm, it’s extremely annoying and interferes with many programs, including MSN Messenger. It gets worse after each update :(. Norton is better.
The spywares and all that stuff really make me go mad too. But never have they troubled me to an extent to force me to reinstall my Windows XP (may be because I have a habit of regularly monitoring the system for any malicious content).
I remember the day when they teased me the most. I wasn’t able to properly shut down my PC (in fact, wasn’t able to shut down at all). But only a single scan through the Spyware Doctor utility did all the magic.
Anyways, I was just wondering what made you select IE to browse the web.
And hey, I disagree with Jarrod regarding ZoneAlarm.
At least for me, it is simply the best firewall protection you could get, and that for free, unlike Norton. ;)
I don’t need a Firewall, as the Windows XP firewall is pretty good itself. I need something like a virus protection program, but for any executable scripts.
I actually have Norton, but it takes more than 100MB, so I decided not to install it.
Anurag, I had to use IE because some site required IE to be viewed. I guess that’s catch.
Ok! I got it!
How about Avast 4.7 or Kasperesky for your anti-virus needs?
Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll check them out. Words on Google say Kaspersky is far more superior than Avast.
The Windows XP Firewall is far from good, and massive changes are being made for the new vista version.
Your computer shouldnt get to the point that it cannot function normally becuase of spyware becuase you either should have scanned it long ago or youve been downloading free programs from Chinese websites like caobao.com =)
Good luck on reinstalling windows.
Heheh just bought a copy of windows and installed cause of my new hardware- man it SUCKS installing all apps again :( took me two days :(
If you regularly reinstall windows, you might want to look into creating an unattended windows install disc. I am currently creating one which installs all the drivers and applications I need during installation. Hopefully this should save me a lot of time when it comes to reinstalling. I also like to keep my documents on a separate partition or hard drive so that I don’t have to back them all up during a reinstall.
If you are interested in an unattended install, I would suggest taking a look here, it is a really helpful site.
Hey thanks for the link Leo. Now that I think about it, I reinstall XP every couple of months — this will come in handy.
For some reason PCs never seem the same after reinstall, good luck this time.
Everything is reinstalled now. It feels a lot faster without the 200 useless programs I had before.
How many disks did you use?
Just 1 SATA2 160GB hard drive. Now that I have an external HD, I can probably free up some space on my main one.
i should really get an external drive so I can make a disk image eh?
Daemon Tools should do that just fine. It create virtual drives (no need for physical HD’s) that you can mount .iso or .bin/.cue onto.
My pc wouldn’t let me do anything so i reinstalled windows Xp and now everytime that i start up my system it get to the start screen there is nothing there anymore. no start tab or anything comes up?? then just comes up that windows Xp is shutting down??? any ideas??