Computer Help Needed!!!

[strange_wings]

Originally Posted by Trillcat

He has Norton, McAffee, AVG and Trend.

I don't know what Trend is either, but what sort of idiot installs multiple antivirus programs?

I'm surprised the thing even boots up with what all is on it!

Remove as much of everything as you can, for now. Reformatting will probably be the only way to truly clean it, though. With all those antivirus programs, there probably are viruses or trojans that were missed - so that's what you'll need to check for soon (the files suggest he probably wasn't very careful user, either). If you want to try Linux, like I said - start a thread asking about different distros and desktop environments. IMO, depending on the what you choose to go with it's a lot prettier then Windows could ever be and more functional.

And the only way to learn is to jump right in.

 

[trillcat]

I have no idea why there are so many anti virus programs on here, maybe because of the *ahem* material he surfed? He admitted he is not really computer savvy, well thats a big Duh!
Im going to go hunting down viruses and trojans, nasty little suckers, and porn sites are full of them. Got a trojan on my old computer (I swear I was just at that site to read the articles!) and it took 3 days, many cigs and lots of coffee to get rid of.
So, its back to the beast to clean up some more stuff *puts haz mat suit on*

 

[katachtig]

Originally Posted by strange_wings

I don't know what Trend is either, but what sort of idiot installs multiple antivirus programs?

I'm surprised the thing even boots up with what all is on it!

I think Trend might be http://us.trendmicro.com/us/home/ which is another security system.

You also may want to try booting up in save mode. You can clear out a lot of stuff that way.

 

[strange_wings]

Originally Posted by katachtig

I think Trend might be http://us.trendmicro.com/us/home/ which is another security system.

I had consider that, but thought "Hey, this guy probably didn't know much, so why would he attempted to use something like that?", though it would explain why it wanted a password. This could be tried if that is the case http://esupport.trendmicro.com/suppo...&id=EN-1036108

 

[fastnoc]

I'm sure trend is trend micro which is a pretty popular anti-virus, but it's nuts to EVER run more than one anti-virus and will, in most cases, completelly defeat the purpose as one anti-virus will see the others as viruses themselves in lots of cases.

use only ONE anti-virus. I use NOD32 which is cheap and is a GREAT program. Not at all intrusive. http://www.eset.com/

As Strange_Wings has said that's a really REALLY low amount of ram. You really should spent a few bucks and upgrade it. I bet you could put on 1gb replacing your existing, for less than 50 bucks. WELL worth it.

 

[trillcat]

Any upgrade to the memory will have to wait, don't have any money to spare at the moment. Yes, it was trend micro, and was a real pain to delete! No clue why he had so may antivirus programs, I even found a few others as I searched around, or should I say bits and pieces of others as it looks like he deleted them improperly or they were just nasty programs. The only one I left was Norton, though it is a rather big sucker and the ccApp file is really slowing things down. Been looking to see if there is a fix for that.
Im slightly confused about the memory, it's something that has always tripped me up, and Im a little embarassed to ask because I know it's like computers 101, but when I defrag, it says I have 18.64GB of space with 10.53GB free. Now, am I correct in thinking that is ROM, so I have room to download stuff and store it but just not enough RAM to run it?
Anyway, I have cleaned pretty much everything I can for now and it is running faster, but still takes forever to boot up. I have looked at the start up programs and there is a ton of stuff, just not sure what can go and what ahould stay!

 

[strange_wings]

Originally Posted by fastnoc

As Strange_Wings has said that's a really REALLY low amount of ram. You really should spent a few bucks and upgrade it. I bet you could put on 1gb replacing your existing, for less than 50 bucks. WELL worth it.

As old as that computer is, it might be harder to find that specific ram. And once found, it may cost more then it's worth. Take some of the old pc100 or 133 SD ram for example - a computer needing that isn't worth spending what it would cost to put more ram into, especially if you have to get it from a local store.

Originally Posted by Trillcat

Im slightly confused about the memory, it's something that has always tripped me up, and Im a little embarassed to ask because I know it's like computers 101, but when I defrag, it says I have 18.64GB of space with 10.53GB free. Now, am I correct in thinking that is ROM, so I have room to download stuff and store it but just not enough RAM to run it?
Anyway, I have cleaned pretty much everything I can for now and it is running faster, but still takes forever to boot up. I have looked at the start up programs and there is a ton of stuff, just not sure what can go and what ahould stay!

First off, ditch Norton. Unless you pay for it you won't be able to update or upgrade it. It's slow, it's useless.

OK what you are defraging is the hard drive disk. If you were to open up the case it would look something like this http://www.geekatyourservice.com/images/hard-drive2.jpg
This is where you store files. You only have 10.53 gigs free because Windows and programs are taking up the rest of the space already.

A Rom drive is what you put a cd or dvd in.

Ram stands for "random access memory" and it would probably be easier for you to just read what wikipedia has on it in case I make it too confusing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_access_memory
You need a certain amount of this to actually run programs and do pretty much anything on your computer, while you can designate a swap file (as mentioned) on the hard drive itself to help, you can't really get around what the basic requirements are.
(Your swap file, by the way, when or if you set it should be a minimum of 480mbs - 500 to 512mbs would be better.)