Who's out there?

I guess nobody posted.

Maybe they were too busy celebrating the new year :-)

Reduce your problems by running an operating system that has less malware written for it.

Reasonable. Alternative is to recycle that old P100 that's lying around in the corner and using it as a router. Linux is good at this.

Or use an operating system that has a good firewall.

Or use a disk format that's clever enough to take care of better clustering whilst it's working and so doesn't need to be de-fragged at every opportunity. EXT2 has a good reputation.

Oh, wait, MS probably won't let you do that on your own computer.

Since my operating systems don't run MS Windows programs, this isn't necessary.

Totally agree.

Until the data-only partition goes "kablooey". Does avoid things being overwritten when you have to do a reinstall though. All my Linux boxes have a separate /home partition. Better if you can back things up to a different hard-drive, even better if it's in a different machine, even better if you can make backups all the time.

Don't have a registry so don't have this problem.

Good idea.

Take a course and learn how to use the machine!

-- Rod

Like the man who stopped on the road to Dublin to ask the way. "Well if I was you sir I wouldn't have started from here."

(kim)

My advice for the majority that buy computers with Windows already installed, and tend to do nothing at all by way of maintenance until something goes seriously wrong. Like many of my friends an relations, in fact. Unfortunately.

The others don't need advice.

My XP Media Center machine came pre-loaded with all sorts of crap I have no use for, most of which I removed. When I had to do a system recovery (Windows System Restore didn't help), it reinstalled everything again, including the registry, but didn't delete files I had added or created. However, I had to reinstall most of my other software to re-register it.

MartinS wrote: [...]

Yeah, ain't it amazing what some of these marketing gurus think will be useful to you?

Yes, re-installing software after a repair is a pain. It isn't just re-registering that's going on, BTW: most apps put some of their *.dlls in one or more system folders, so you have to rewrite these after a repair. Dumb, isn't it? There is no technical need for this at all. The API takes care of communication between the app and the OS, so all app-specific *.dlls should reside in the application's home folder, regardless on which partition it is located. But most programmer's don't change the defaults in MS's developer tool kit.

There is also no technical reason why the registry can't be kept up to date by the OS itself, instead of having to use a 3rd party tool to do it. IMO, the OS should compare the registry application keys to the actual files on the disk(s), and update the registry accordingly, either at every boot or at the user's discretion. This would probably take a rethink of the registry's architecture, but MS has enough resources to do that. Maybe Vista will include this, it would be real improvement.

But we're getting even more off topic. I better restrain myself... :-)

For the Net, I just use a modest P2 system with 98SE and the minimum of software. Anything useful is transferred to the main m/c by floppy or CDROM.

When oddities start appear, I reformat the hard drive, then reload from CDROMs. A day spent doing this about once in six months is less time than can be spent messing about trying to repair software.

In message , Benny writes

But first get a decent operating system BSD, Linux or a UNIX clone.

Cheers.

You could buy a 2nd disk and use ghost (or equiv) to copy original system back. Modest setup can be restored in less than an hour with very little user interaction.

Simon

Are you taking the mickey. Its for an enthusiast with a lot of spare time. Now MVS is proper. Always a mystery to me why the average business didnt just plonk an AS400 in the corner, then they could get on with their own job. Silly me, was fashion of course. The only UNIX clone I can think of is DOS. I am missing something.

anon

On Fri, 7 Apr 2006 18:50:53 +0100, "Tim Christian" said in :

Herself wants to move house, which takes up prodigious amounts of time finishing all those decorating jobs (for values of decorating which may include dismantling half the kitchen).

Guy

In message , simon writes

Rubbish!

Most business people wouldn't want to risk their business data and communications in such a way. Disney and organisation of that type might have been interested of course if the price was high enough. Mickey Mouse and expensive seem to be their particular area of expertise.

Yes, quite a lot, but just keep taking the pills and you will be fine :o)

Cheers.

OK, I'm convinced.

Cheers, Simon

Think yourself lucky Martin. System recovery failed to reinstall Windows on my C: drive as it had become corrupted so reformatted my D: drive instead which had 200GB of data on it. If it wasn't for an emergency backup copy on DVD I'd be completely out-of-business.

(kim)

That's the best argument for using an Internet-only m/c. My firewall is the

Practically everytting unless it was freeware. "Files & Settings" wizard never works when you need it either. After two accidental formats in five months I now install all apps in a separate partition from Windows.

(kim)

Foe internet access a sacrificial machine is the way to go - any old Pentium will do the job perfectly well. I work for a charity helping disabled people with IT - Our standard Internet kit was 98SE with AVG anti virus (free) Zone Alarm (free) Adaware (free) and Spybot Search and Destroy (free), a second hard drive (failing which a second partition) and a copy of Ghost (now branded Norton but still cheap). Restore using the floppy boot disk created by ghost takes something like 15 minutes. We had one client who when he heard he was terminal took a very active interest in on-line naughtiness - Taught us more about malware in six months than we had seen in the preeceeding several years! The above system solved the problem, but our supply of 98SE is just about exhausted (if anyone has an unused copy donating it to da2c.org would see it well used). With XP I understand Ghost cannot work as before and you may need to re-validate XP and some XP era software.

Another situation where somebody should be thinking Linux.

Ken.