Here's another option (and it is free). Wolf-Pup touched on it above, I will elaborate:

You could download a Linux "Live CD". Boot the computer from this "Live CD" and you get a Linux Desktop with a handful of Apps already pre-installed. Modern day Linux Desktops are similar enough to Windows that most people can use it without difficulty. Most will have Web Browsers and "Office" Apps (similar to Word, Excel, etc) built-in. If you like it, you also have the option of installing Linux onto your Hard Drive. If you don't like, take out the CD and reboot and you are back to your normal desktop.

Here's two I would recommend you try:

Ubuntu -- www.ubuntu.com -- its desktop ("Unity") is something like a Mac.

Linux Mint Cinnamon -- www.linuxmint.com -- its desktop ("Cinnamon") is very similar to Windows 2000 and XP. There's a Start Menu, a "Computer" icon, and everything.

Here is an article about both of the above you might want to look at:

http://lifehacker.com/5993297/ubuntu-vs ... -beginners

The nice thing about Linux is you have several desktops to choose from. After you've tried the above two, if you want to see what other desktops are available, here are a few more:

Xubuntu -- www.xubuntu.com -- Ubuntu with the XFCE desktop. Good on older machines (fairly fast). Sort of like Windows 2000 or 95, the desktop is somewhat bare-bones.

Lubuntu -- www.lubuntu.com -- Ubuntu with the LXDE desktop. It was designed to be a faster version of XFCE which works great even on very old/slow computers. Again this will be a somewhat bare-bones desktop like Windows 2000 or Windows 95.

Kubuntu -- www.kubuntu.com -- Ubuntu with the KDE desktop. Sort of like Windows, but they do a lot of things differently. It also needs a somewhat modern computer. Runs slow on older computers.

Mythbuntu -- www.mythbuntu.com -- Free alternative to Apple TV and Windows Media Center. A version of Ubuntu designed to record live TV and Video, much like a DVR or "TiVo" box.

Linux Mint Mate -- www.linuxmint.com -- Linux Mint with the Mate desktop, which is based on the older Gnome 2 Desktop. It looks and feels a lot like Windows (similar to "Cinnamon").

Most the above websites have Screen Shots, so you can kind of get a feel for how it will look before you download it.

Also don't let all these choices bewilder you. Just try the first two (Ubuntu, Linux Mint Cinnamon). If you like them and want to see what else is out there, come back here and try the others.

Heheh. Interesting...

Don't reinstall it, clone it then reinstall the clone. Much faster. Clonezilla is your friend.

Yea, you could use a live cd. Everyone has a favored distro.

For the tough jobs use the rescue disk! Woot.

With some of the links you often visit, A-1, I'm with the Nun - that's where all your problems are coming from.

I'd recommend you spend about $19 to get Malwarebytes-paid-full, and a good paid AV program.

Paolo wrote: Sun May 05, 2013 2:10 pm With some of the links you often visit, A-1, I'm with the Nun - that's where all your problems are coming from.

I'd recommend you spend about $19 to get Malwarebytes-paid-full, and a good paid AV program.

AND stop going to all those XXX rated sites. I mean really you want to get fucked and you are, just look at your PC.

River

Naaa!

Too much fun this way.

Besides that, every time that I do the reinstall, I get another 30 days of anti-virus and malware FOR FREE!

I am still looking for those CrAZy sites, though. Always they are good for a LAUGH...

Besides that, I have a friend who keeps setting my browser on "private browsing". I wonder who that might be?

Really? You have a friend??

Wolf-Pup (imported) wrote: Sun May 05, 2013 7:30 pm Really? You have a friend??

HELL NO!

I have a 30-something Y.O. son who does I.T. for the biggest bank in town.

I am driving the poor boy crazy...

Do you remember when you were a kid and you went to the horror shows and held your hands over your eyes proclaiming that you were too scared to look but your spread your fingers so that you could peek?

He never has overcome that...

Amen.

Wise nun, T and P too, IMHO.

I'm not a Win geek, but using a *nix (incl Mac), I would back up my disks, including the first two blocks which hold the MBR and partition table. (Ok, I even tell the dog to back up his disks, and he doesn't take the darnedest notice.)

On point though, it's good to have a reliable copy (or two) of this crucial part of the disk -just in case. And a way to restore it. Anyone know of an easy-to-use equivalent of dd for Win?

There's a free bootable cd for win, Trinity Rescue Kit which can reconstruct many screwed up win and other filesystems, and even recover much data, lost passwords, if you need. http://trinityhome.org has details. (Yes, I know it isn't a Windows disk, but another OS. Don't worry: if you can read this, you are using That Other OS right now, and EA is Very Good and works well with your computer, don't you think?)

There are other free bootable cd's with sharper tools, such as my favorite BackTrack, but they have a steeper learning curve.

Best of all, if the hard disk is important, it is important to keep an updated image of it (or certainly its first two blocks).

</rant>

I feel better now.

I use Acronis True Image for backups. I do a full system drive backup 2x per month onto an external hard drive. Acronis can create its own boot partition and bootable CD for complete restoration. I keep them around for about 2-3 months or less if disk space is filling up too fast. I also have a File backup for my Data drive where I keep crap like music/movies..etc. This backup is for the files on there I want to keep and don't have anywhere else (like if it is a CD I ripped I won't back that up since I have the CD). I'm very happy with the job it does and its scheduled for when I'm sleeping.

If I have a file that is important for some reason I may make a copy on another drive until the next backup.

<shrug> Works for me.