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My Mum has got the computer from my (now deceased) Grandfather's house and I've set it up for her OK. The problem is that it hasn't really been used in 2-3 years, he had Alzheimers towards the end so it's only ever been used by my Mum for an occasional bit of email/internet when she was up at his.
It's got a load of non-working free Windows 60-day trial software on there as well as an expired Norton subscription and none of it shows up in the "Add/Remove Programs" box. The result is whenever you start the thing it's throwing up boxes warning of viruses, dangers, expired software etc. How do I find the invisible Norton and Office software and get rid of it?
Or is it simpler just to save the few Meg of files and photos that are stored on there and do a complete re-install (in which case how do I do that?!)
Cheers for any help - as you've probably gathered I don't mind using computers but hate probing any deeper into their mysterious inner workings.
edit: think the computer dates from about 2005 and is running Windows XP Home.
Or is it simpler just to save the few Meg of files and photos that are stored on there and do a complete re-install (in which case how do I do that?!)
To be honest that's what I'd do. Get a hold of an external USB drive, from the sounds of it a simple flash drive will be big enough, and copy the files onto that. Put the Windows installtion disc (you do have that don't you) into the drive and reboot the computer. You should then just have to follow the instructions on screen to re install Windows. If the installation disk dates from 2005 you'll probably have to do a whole load of Windows updates as well.
If it's had Norton on there it's probably ****ed - a renistall should sort it though.
Get an external drive, copy the photos and documents, put a Widows CD-ROM in a restart the PC. Although, since I had issues with both XP and Vista, I installed Linux Ubuntu and generally it's cool. I'd say unless you really desperately need Windows trying Linux is a good option.
[i]I'd say unless you really desperately need Windows trying Linux is a good option. [/i]
This isn't for me, it's for my Mum and she's only ever used Windows. I've also got one spare install of the latest Office to put on there for her.
I'm not bothered by how clunky/rubbish Windows is, it's what she's used and is used to.
Windows installation disc...hmmmm. That may well be one of the useful things that a confused old man (my Grandpa!) threw out... 🙁
Well if all else fails you could just buy a copy of XP
It's not [i]that[/i] expensive.
Before you wipe it, find out his current XP licence key using the [url= http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/ ]Magical JellyBean KeyFinder[/url] and write it down.
It's pretty easy to download an XP CD image from torrents etc (or copy one from a friend) - the hard part is getting a valid key that will authorise.
This is (borderline) legal as you already have the appropriate licence for the software and you're just downloading a backup from the net.
Make sure you get the same version as he has (i.e. XP Professional, Media Center, OEM whatever).
This isn't for me, it's for my Mum and she's only ever used Windows. I've also got one spare install of the latest Office to put on there for her.
While I thought that initially, my parents seemed to adapt to Linux very rapidly for day to day tasks, once they realised it was essentially just different icons.
GrahamS's idea is a good one, but if the license key is a OEM one (ie windows came loaded on the machine when it was bought) then it probably won't work with many versions of XP you'll find on torrents.
Still, you could just use whatever key comes with the torrent and be happy in the knowledge that you didn't really do anything wrong as you already paid for XP (and you wouldn't have to be messing around if it was any good in the first place!).
This isn't for me, it's for my Mum and she's only ever used Windows. I've also got one spare install of the latest Office to put on there for her.
My experience has been fairly similar to coffeeking's, if all you're doing is web+office it shouldn't take long to learn - it's only Firefox+Thunderbird+Open Office, that's a grand total of 3 icons. Obviously you'd need to check that Adobe+Divx player+whatever else are installed, too.
That said, and to reply to the original question: beg/steal/borrow a USB drive, copy the files over, clean Windows install, update, install antivirus (AVG is good and free), and then and only then, plug the USB drive back in.