Brian:

After I did my last post in this thread, I went back to my Anti-virus program and ran the scan. It worked just fine. Didn't find any viruses. I have no idea why the previous time it stopped at the number 767. Maybe I just should have waited.
I guess my computer was just doing it's thing in its own way.

I cant' wait for my son to do anything because my son lives 3000 miles away, has Aspergers disorder and wouldn't get on a plane if you gave him a free ticket. But he is a computer genius. One time I was at my computer and I wanted to do an update on my windows (I have XP by the way).

I phoned my son (he was laying on his bed in his apartment in California). Do you know that he never got off the bed, never went over to his computer, he just guided me by closing his eyes and going throught the step by step program of updating the windows thing. AND BELIEVE ME, I WAS ON THE PHONE WITH HIM FOR AN HOUR, THERE WERE A LOT OF STEPS.

He would say "now go to this folder, on the upper right, you will see this, now double click this" After 10 minutes or so (and I thought he was sitting in front of his own computer), I asked him "you're doing this along with me, right??? on your own computer??" and he said "no, I'm lying on the bed".

I said "you're lying on the bed?? how do you know what I'm doing"? and he said "i'm picturing it in my mind". These aspergers are amazing in their computer expertise.

Now Brian, you mention go to Programs, Accessories and system restore. What will this do. Will I lose anything on my desktop, any information on my computer?

What exactly will this do? "OH THIS IS SO EXCITING, I FEEL LIKE I'M BACK IN SCHOOL LEARNING STUFF"

Thanks hon.

Oh by the way, the Lyrica is still doing its thing for Alan. He just went off to the gym. So hopefully, we might just have a shot here.

Melody

Brian and McFox are doing a great job...I have nothing more to add. My son said
to get SpyBot and if that fails do a system restore. You will lose some data that you saved depending on the date you restore. Usually it is worth it, unless you are keeping a journal or logs. He says you can back up certain files, if that is the case before restoring. He said that WinPro 2000 is EVIL... so I hope you
get rid of it safely!

Do you have a back up system? I hope you do. I keep most of my files in a folder "mom's stuff", and I back that up onto CD periodically. We just got a
backup harddrive... so now we use that. (since getting the digital camera).

Lordy lord. Now I have to learn about back up hard drives.

I have never backed up anything in my life.

Most of my important information is stored in my "documents" folder on Microsoft word.

So if I do a system restore, will I lose any of this.
I have some of those CD-R cd rom things.

Do I back up my microword stuff on these cd rom things?

And what is the purpose of doing a system restore?

I just did an anti-virus scan and an anti-spyware scan. My Internet Security Suite is a Verizon Anti-virus thing that has anti-spyware (why it didn't stop Alan from downloading the winpro thing, well I dont' undertand it).

Also this Internet security suite, has firewalls, and a whole bunch of stuff.

I just periodically do the anti-virus scan and antispyware thing.

This time when I did the spyware scan, it ultimately revealed that I had win-pro there so I just deleted all the applications and the screen said I had no spyware in my current list.

So I assume that I'm all clear. Jeez. I'm almost 60 and I have to worry about things called spyware. And I don't even live in Russia.

melody

make a back up disc for your important stuff.

We had a crash a couple of years ago...my powerpack burned up, literally,
and it fried all my circuits including my harddrive. It was not retreivable.

Luckily that computer was new, only 4 months old, and I hadn't saved much on it... I still had my old Sony Viao which held my important things. I did lose emails however, and some photos.

So with this Dell, I was doing CD back ups on my files. But we just bought a
back-up hard-drive on sale at CompUSA and are now using that. It does more, and has 250 gig capacity and gives a more complete save. We have everything on it, incase of some catastrophe here on this unit. You only need one big crash to teach that painful lesson! Since I store alot of data to help people with, I have to be this way now. And the new digital photos, are safer with this back up. If you download them off the camera and not print them,
then they can all be lost forever--if you don't have a good back up.
It is not hard to run the back up... we managed it okay. (we are not that swift with computers). The router software for the DSL was much harder to install.

Download and install Spybot Search & Destroy
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/spybotsd/index.html

let it update itself - it will do this after it has installed the program but before it actually runs to check for pests - and then run it.

Since you are learning all about spyware, here's another word for you; malware (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware). Spybot gets rid of quite a range of malwares and spywares. I would recommend you also use the 'immunise' feature in Spybot, for your browser.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend you start messing about using the utility Brian mentioned - these things can be excellent ... if you know what you're doing. They can also bring your computer to a grinding and unceremonious halt if you don't, so they require use with extreme caution.

Yes, burn your windword's onto CD every so often. If something happens to your computer you at least will have your hard work saved.

I have decided to do the spybot ourselves...just to be safe. This thread was
a SERIOUS reminder.

Good to read all is good now Melody, your son sounds very cluey.
Mrs D, is spot on as always i fully agree, backup all important files to disc's, never know from 1 minute to the next minute what could go wrong when using pc's.
I run Adaware, Spybot, AVG at least twice a week, its amazing how much crap gets picked up along the way, and sometimes i run an online frebbie like trendmicro as well too.
System restore can sometimes save you when your in deep trouble, its easy to use, all you have to do is follow the prompts, it will show you options of what days you can go back to, if one doesn't work then just try another day, XP has made a copy of your files at differant times, real handy program.
I haven't lost any files as far as i know when i have used it,but still backup
important files to media is the only way your really safe.

I have been only using PC's for a very short time, since getting PN about 3 years all up, just sorta learnt as was going along and i am still learning, at first PC's seemed complicated and i would rather have driven a 15 speed road ranger box down the side of a mountain anyday, now that is easy for me, but computors appeared to be difficult to learn, but turned out they aren't as hard as i thought, System Mechanic was recommened to me from a PC expert when i knew completely nothing about pc's, i have never had any trouble using it in all that time, it searches for junk and only junk is deleted, it checks for registry problems and only gives you the crap thats in there[ that can cause big problems] and then you only delete the crap, nothing else, i haven't had a problem using it in the 3 years i have been using it, in my experience using it i have found it very safe to use, especially the programs i mentioned, it does have other programs that you do need a bit of PC knowledge [not much ] as McFox mentioned, but i didn't say to mess around with the other programs, only those easy ones that i mentioned , especially its tool of deleting unwanted programs, i am pretty sure it would have found any remains of that win pro if it was still lerking around, i highly recomend it.[ wish i had shares in the company] i run it very often and its surprizing how much junk it picks up.

Seeing your interested in learning a bit, here is a tip that gets rid of a lot of garbage in XP OS, useless files, but only do it about every 3 months, go to windows exployer/ d/click on C[ local disk] go down to windows then d/click, then run down to "prefetch folder" d/click again then go to edit [up top of page] click "Select All" then go to "file" [up top as well] run down to delete and click it, then just close windows exployer and carry on as normal.
You will be amazed how much uneeded stuff is in there, but only do it every few months, do not do it every week.
take care
Brian
PS- there is a lot of PC forums on the net, like http://pressf1.pcworld.co.nz/ they are free to join and they are very helpfull when your in a bit of trouble.

I am going to look at that forum!

We installed Spybot yesterday and it found about 60 not important cookies,
which we deleted. Mostly "double click" stuff my husband said. No red zone things. But you know, this unit does "slow" down occasionally..so I hope this
fixes it.

My Avast has never come up with a virus on a scan. But it did go off twice while I was on the net. Once on Yahoo mail. It has a loud siren, and really startled me.
It updates itself as well.

Hi Mrsd :

So glad that you installed Spybot Search & Destroy. I find it very good and have never had any trouble with it.

Just wondering if you defrag your computer from time to time? That will speed it up. Also, do you run Disk Cleanup sometimes? I am not a guru by any means - just know how to do a few helpful things on the computer.

Shirley H.

I just thought of that particular PC forum is a new Zealand one, its great for me being so close but because of our differant time zones you may have to wait a little bit for an answer, but there are plenty of others around if you need help straight away.

I think thats an excellent suggestion Shirley,
and whilst your there [ press start / then click " My Computor " then right click on C [local drive] go down to properties then left click Properties and then click tools, just on top of the defrag option you will see " error checking", i go for both options - Automaticly fix file system errors & scan for attempt recovery of bad sectors, i normally do it about every month or so.

People who are interested in maintaining their XP systems, microsoft has a good guide, as below.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...n/default.mspx