Before getting into Linux full time and finding I couldn't stomach cleaning up windows computers anymore, I well, cleaned up windows for people. I got a call from an old acquaintance who wants cleaning up. I told her what I told people since about oh, 2002, burn your music and pics to CD, get out your computer mfr's restore cd, pop in restore CD, start fresh. STOP clicking on stupid ads and popups and keep your AV up to date. Use Firefox, not IE. Ad-aware and zonealarm wouldn't hurt. No, she wants me to fix.

I am going to bring over a knoppix live CD to run f-prot from (figuring it is faster than trying to get through a scan of a big disk in windows while it is doing its popups, calling home, etc). I can't think of anything else though in the way of linux tools I could use. Especially since the drive is probably NTFS.

Will leave her with the Knoppix CD, show her how she can surf free of misery. Tell her if she likes it I can make a little partition and maybe put on Ubunto or Etch for her to use. Cause likely her kid will have the PC bogged down in a few weeks no matter how well I clean it and lock it down.

So, any thoughts on what else I could use in the way of linux tools or recommendations on current best windows tools? I haven't done this in awhile and my old weapons were Zonealarm, Spybot Search and Destroy, Hijack This, f-prot and AVG.

thanks

Well, I ran f-prot from a LiveCD and it seemed to take forever on the NTFS drive. I ended up updating Spybot, Ad-aware, and the antivirus. Then I rebooted into safe mode and ran all the scans from there. It seemed to go much quicker since it disabled all the system startup services. Another thing you can do is install a small freeware program called Startup CPL, a quick graphical interface that allows you to uncheck services at startup. It'll be installed to the control panel.

I'm also tired of helping people keep their machines clean. So I've restricted myself to only cleaning my parents and brothers (and I guess my wife's immediate family). Mostly I've taught them good habits and now it's not such a problem as when they first got computers.

Thanks for the info, was surpised it would take longer to scan from linux - perhaps a file system thing.

Yes, could do from safe mode, goodness knows I have had to use that with windows enough. Will probably just rip through startup services with msconfig, though. And from what I remember spybot had a similar functionality. Has really been a couple of years since I used any of them.

Can't believe they are all still around. Well, as long as windows is, windows' pests will be

My favorite tool for cleaning up windows is cfdisk.
Works every time.






Sorry.

Couldn't stop myself

bye bye all. 8)

Linux is not the same. Linux uses a different filesystem type that doesn't need defragmenting because it doesn't create fragments in the first place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext3
http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Linux_Newbie_FAQ

Edit: Ah damn, sorry for this thread hijack. I realized now!!

Ashley, if you keep your windows lean and mean, it doesn't have to be that way. If you regularly clean it up, don't install every bit of garbage, don't click on every email attachment and pop up link to more garbage, the maintenance shouldn't take long. I personally in windows never had a virus or got caught up in spyware/shovelware/foistware problems and my computers were quick - regularly maintained. But I realized linux had other advantages and switched.

In general, there is no need (or way) for most linux file systems to be defragged regularly, no need for AV (except to keep from passing windows viruses to windows computers on your network)or spyware/shovelware/foistware to clean up (i.e. yanking the bloodsucking BHO leeches out of the bowels of the registry).

My own opinion, if a person is too unskilled or I hate to use the term, too lazy to learn how to keep their windows box maintained decently - do they have what it takes to learn linux?

Linux isn't a cure all but I think in the case of my acquaintance, if I give her a nice stable Debian or a push button noobfriendly like Ubuntu, lock her down but make sure she can type her docs, browse to her favorite websites and have her chat thingy, she will be much better off on linux until the hardware finally gives out.

actually windows can be fun ...

these are something that i use and havent use(a bit lazy sometimes) ::

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/

http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.ph...=1&front_id=12



.

bye bye all. 8)