Keeping your XP clean of garbage

[cka]

just learned some fun new shit

start > run > "control userpasswords2", this allows you to add/delete/modify user accounts in xp with a hell of a lot more options than the shitty manager from the control panel. "Standard" should be a sufficient enough user group for most people without causing any major breakage.

[napalm]

I'm setting up a new windows acount right now, so should I set it up so
Administrator---------->Admin
Adam (my account)---->Limited

I've always been admin, never heard of doing it any other way. I have a feeling the spyware virus wouldnt have fucked up my computer so bad if i wasnt running IE on a copy of windows that isnt up to date, as the admin, with no virus software.... god I feel dumb.

[Calliander]

go into control panel, and go into the Users screen. Either change your account from Administrator to Limited or add a new Limited user. Copy all your files over (App Data might be a bit tricky if making a new account but it's totally do-able -- and remember to grant permission on said files to your new user), and use that account for your day-to-day stuff.

So I'm getting my girl's machine ready to go online. It's never been on before except to register XP. She did everything as the admin. If I make a new admin, log into that admin and switch hers over to limited everything should still function the same and we'll just need to do "Run As..." for some stuff?

I just want to make sure before I go ahead with this. I'll also be visiting that other thread for advice on what anti-virus software to use and whatnot.

[Dyne]

im not sure if you can actually make a new admin account. normally you would just create a limited or "normal" account and copy whats on the admin account over to that.

[marwan]

why does NTFS kick FAT32's ass? i just converted my partition to NTFS anyways since i belive you.

also, what is the point of having a partition on a computer? my laptop has 2 partitions, but i want to remove the partition and have the HD as one big HD. what are the cons and pros of both?

thanks!

[Dyne]

why does NTFS kick FAT32's ass? i just converted my partition to NTFS anyways since i belive you.

google it.

also, what is the point of having a partition on a computer? my laptop has 2 partitions, but i want to remove the partition and have the HD as one big HD. what are the cons and pros of both?

thanks!

its beneficial to have an os partition and an app/junk partition. that way when you reformat youre only wiping the smaller OS partition and wont have to reinstall all of your apps as well.

helps with photoshop as well when you have your scratch disc on a disc other than the one your OS is on.

[marwan]

kindda OT, but does anyone know if a program where i can connect directly to friends using IP address and send files back and forth? messengers keep dropping and i cant resume. specially large files.

and lately i havent been having good luck with www.yousendit.com, so that outta the question.

any recommendations?

[Burky]

When I send files to my friends, like applications, etc, I usually just send them the torrent and it works well enough.
That's not using their IP address though...
Azureus always does this fine for me, and making a torrent takes like 10 seconds.

And keep 2 partitions, you will appreciate it when you come to reformat. Having to back up stuff sucks.

[Mykozo]

kindda OT, but does anyone know if a program where i can connect directly to friends using IP address and send files back and forth? messengers keep dropping and i cant resume. specially large files.

and lately i havent been having good luck with www.yousendit.com, so that outta the question.

any recommendations?

Know anyone with an FTP? I can transfer at will using my works FTP, and that shit rules.

also, what is the point of having a partition on a computer? my laptop has 2 partitions, but i want to remove the partition and have the HD as one big HD. what are the cons and pros of both?

I know this is old, but thought I'd chime in here to help the noobs.

For the best performance for your system, you should make 3 partitions on your HD, one for apps, one for media/stuff, and one for your pagefile (you don't necessarily have to do this one, but it helps). The reason for keeping apps and other stuff seperate is to keep your app files from getting fragmented all over the disk. Designating a seperate partition for your downloads/media/stuff will help prevent this, as the sectors of data from each are not mingling with each other, but are physically seperated on the disk by the partition. Same goes for your pagefile. If your virtual memory is spread all over the disk, it takes longer to access, thus slowing down performance. For optimum performance the pagefile should be put on a seperate disk, on a seperate IDE channel from the system disk, but most people aren't going to go that far.

Also, XP defragmenter is a huge steaming pile of crap. Get O&O Defrag. With that you can defrag by different criteria, like alphabetical (best on your sys disk, as XP boots up many of it's files in that order), most accessed, etc. XP defrag just slams everything to the beginning of the disk.

[andyrose]

just learned some fun new shit

start > run > "control userpasswords2", this allows you to add/delete/modify user accounts in xp with a hell of a lot more options than the shitty manager from the control panel. "Standard" should be a sufficient enough user group for most people without causing any major breakage.

Sweet, I'll have to check that one out.

About a year ago I took over an aging computer sales and service company in Arkansas, and now we do brisk business fixing computers. Here are a few of the programs and techniques we find ourselves using week in and week out to get computers running again.

Programs: Spyware and Antivirus

We don't use Microsoft's Anti-spyware tool, we use Lavasoft Adaware and Spybot S&D. These are sweepers/cleaners that when used together seem to clean up a majority of spyware infections. But you can't just use one or two programs for some spyware, that's why you'll also probably need

HijackThis finds and deletes browser hijacks and BHOs. Extract it to a 'hijackthis' folder on your main partition to run it correctly, you'll have to read through it a bit, and take out the ones that you know aren't needed. It should be pretty obvious, and if you're not sure about an entry, google it.

But even before I would use either of those 2, I usually go Start -> Run -> msconfig, and then to the startup tab. You can usually disable quite a bit of running programs that aren't needed by unchecking them and rebooting. This is also a quick way to speed the computer up while you're working on it. It's best to uncheck as many programs as possible, I mean, I know you use Microsoft Office a lot, but you don't need it starting up when the PC starts up. LSPfix is a program that detects network layer protocol hijacks. Some spyware, especially newdotnet and the like, actually install network layers that can fuck up your computer. LSPfix will have 3 or 4 entries that you will NOT want to delete, but if you see an entry called newdotnet or pornoXXX, you'll know you can take those out.

Sometimes after taking a lot of spyware out, your network files will actually get corrupted. Use a program called WinSockFix to restore your network files to like new condition. I have to use this a lot.

Sometimes you will have to get dirty, and go in and manually delete folders and files. Use cka's method if you don't have permission to delete certain files, and use a program called killbox to permanently delete stubborn files. Oh, and it's not necessary every time, but I almost always turn off system restore(Control Panel -> System -> Restore) before I work on spyware/virus infected systems. Some actually replicate themselves after reboot using system restore, although I think that after Service Pack 2 it doesn't happen much anymore. Sometimes I have to manually go into the registry and delete or restore keys, but that's probably not for the faint of heart.

Symantec's Norton Antivirus has always seemed to slow down PCs to me, especially the older ones. Our company has a policy, especially on nonbusiness PCs, of taking off Norton or McAfee, and just using AVG Antivirus as much as possible. We like the fact that AVG is free, that it's updated about once a week, and it seems to find at least as many virus infections as Norton. It's not quite as easy to use though, and it can frustrate the hell out of you until you learn it's quirks. Still, it's the best free Antivirus on the market, bar none. There's also a free McAfee tool called STINGER, which we sometimes use to detect viruses. AVG has a pretty small footprint, and won't slow your PC down much.

Whew