Quote:
Originally Posted by DaiNasty
If she's been given a laptop I'd recommend a clean install. She knows nothing about the history of the machine and the former user's browsing habits. In that sort of situation there is always a danger of the machine being compromised by trojans/malware or rootkit installs.
You could spend a few hours hitting it with every anti-this and that scanner known to man or do a fresh install in less than an hour.
Personally I'd never trust an unknown computer with anything important. I've seen too many client computers riddled with malware and them totally unknowing.
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Exactly why I made my recomendation.
See if you can download the restore disk(s) from the computers manufacturers site.
My Daughter was in a similar position with a second hand HP Pavilion. I spent
a lot of time clearing out the crap, malware and virii on it but it was to no avail as one problem after another kept cropping up. Eventually I bit the bullet and restored the system and it ran fine after that.
IIRC I think I or she got a set of restore disks from HP or somewhere.
It was a long time ago and my memory is not what it was.
