AlanHo Posted May 12, 2010 Report Share Posted May 12, 2010 I spent some time at on old friends house yesterday who has asked if I could help revive his computer which would no longer boot into windows.A short version of a long story is that a few months ago his old computer died and he took it to a local shop who told him a virus had destroyed his motherboard and hard drive. They claimed they could supply a new computer with Windows 7 for not much more than a repair - so he bought the idea.At first he was pleased with his new toy - but he said that day by day it became slower and slower to boot up, was sluggish to operate and subject to occasional freezing. I managed to get it to boot into Windows and arrived at the desktop - which took my breath away. I have never seen so many desktop icons for opening software. It looked more like a photo collage than a monitor screen with icon after icon rubbing shoulders. It became clear that he was a software addict and was tempted to load any free software he came across - including anti-virus and malware. I loaded up msconfig/startup and got fed up of scrolling down because there were so many entries including 4 anti virus and 3 malware programmes all running at the same time.Out of curiosity I rebooted the computer and timed it - it took just over 7 minutes to boot up - after which loading Outlook took a further 3 minutes.So I sat him down and we went through all the software he had loaded and uninstalled all but the few he actually needed. I then downloaded CCleaner (just about the only free program he had not before stumbled across)which cleared out more files and registry enters than you could shake a stick at. I have left him with a clean machine protected by just Microsoft Security Essentials, his router hardware firewall and the Win7 firewall which boots up quickly and is back to normal - for how long I don't know. I have little doubt that he will be tempted by other free offers and I will be back again for a repeat performance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D4\/!d Posted May 12, 2010 Report Share Posted May 12, 2010 Alan, I am glad you posted this.It describes the scene at every PC or laptop I have been asked to "look at".Not that I have done that many other's machines, but I have experienced the very same nonsense with Start-ups chocker-block full of rubbish and so on.What I found most frustrating is that you cannot start to Clean up, coz the machine is soo slow to respond to any command/click/delete or what ever you try. You just sit there thinking I pressed that but nothing's happening. Grrhh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted May 12, 2010 Report Share Posted May 12, 2010 What is more those that you help do not seem to learn. They just go through it all again. One of managements friends brings her box over every couple of years because "it is not working like it used to".The galling thing is that her son is in the IT department of a well known building society!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rong Posted May 12, 2010 Report Share Posted May 12, 2010 Someone also needs to report the computer shop to the authorities Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted May 12, 2010 Report Share Posted May 12, 2010 This sort of thing was the final straw for me to give up helping out and looking at people's computers. The state of some that I have seen made me despair and peoples seen to take much less care of their machines nowadays, perhaps because of the very low cost compared with that they were only a few years ago and possibly they soon will be classed as being disposable. :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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