On Fri, 10 May 2013 08:32:35 -0400, Yves Bellefeuille wrote: > I think that the user was too quick to assume that the computer "had a > virus or something". If he thought it might have a virus, why didn't he > try an anti-virus program first? Good question. The Windows XP machine is an old Dell B130 which, every year or so with the kids using it, develops a "slowness" that is interminable. The CPU stays at 100% with nothing overtly going on, and just clicking to open a folder takes 20 seconds. Every time that happens, I merely back up the data (which all the kids know to put in c:\data) and then I wipe out the machine and rebuild Windows from scratch. http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/12897688/img/12897688.jpeg Populating the data is trivial usually, simply because all data, no matter what it is, goes in C:\data; and then all applications, no matter what they are, go in C:\apps; and all menus, no matter what a program creates, go in a single location (which is the ONLY thing ever stored in a Microsoft-created menu, simply because they're always polluted): C:\Documents and Settings]All Users\Start Menu\Programs\menu I have them save all installation programs in c:\apps\installers, so, in the end, backup is trivial because I only back up three things: C:\apps\* C:\data\* And the menus (which follow the same hierarchy as the apps, by design) Note: The apps are *never ever* stored by brand name! Apps are stored by function, e.g., c:\apps\archivers c:\apps\browsers c:\apps\cleaners c:\apps\editors c:\apps\games etc. And, these functions are well thought out over the many years I've been organizing PCs. For example, "misc", "etc", "utils", "system", etc., lazy catchalls are never allowed. All applications have a definable function, and that's how they're stored. Lazy people can't find stuff on their machines, and lazy people have messy machines. Anyway, suffice to say that it's trivially easy to back up the data on any of our Windows machines, simply because we designed the file system hierarchy from scratch to be easy to rebuild. After rebuilding the OS, I simply copy everything back to the same locations (which is consistent across all our Windows machines) and even the menus work when I copy them back. Of course, I re-install all the programs; but they're all saved in the installation directory - so that's trivial (except for the stupid programs such as iTunes & the CutePDF Writer & the Adobe Acrobat Writer, etc.. These badly written programs are easy to find simply because I store *nothing* in C:\Program Files, so, anything that goes in there, went there despite our entreaties otherwise during the installation process (the kids know the rule to *never* allow a program to do its own thing - always choose "custom" and always tell program to go where it belongs). They know to describe it as a "dog pooping" when a program, such as iTune's Bonjour insists on "pooping" wherever it wants, instead of being well behaved and going where we tell it to go. As a side note, we avoid at all costs the use of any directory that has a space in the file name, as special characters make a mess of scripts and UNIX backups. In addition, I delete any directory that has a "My" in front of it, as they get polluted by other programs (e.g., My Vides, My Pictures, My Documents, etc.). In summary, we only use four directories on Windows: C:\apps (this is the program installation directory tree) C:\data (this is where all user data goes, with no exceptions!) C:\tmp (this is where all temporary downloads go, for example) C:\{horrid Microsoft path}\menus (the menus reflect the app hierarchy) > It sounds very much like the user had the reaction many inexperienced > users have: "The computer doesn't do what I think it should be doing: it > must be a virus!" I must say that I disagree with your assessment of the knee-jerk reaction; but I do still appreciate your help and advice. Of course I did run a virus scan (I'm using AVG) and I even added a Trend Micro Housecall scan. Both found minor things such as BHOs and both found heuristic problems with some of the installers, but nothing overt popped up as especially worrying. And, I did google for the solution for a corrupt disk and I did follow Microsoft Support instructions. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/176646 Of course, in hindsight, I *should* have run a dd first ... but I had not expected the chkdsk to damage anything so I hadn't gone to the trouble. Lesson learned!
