...Wow I feel dumb. Alright, thanks. I'm printing off the hardware sheets and saving stuff now, do i need to pick up any drivers or am I good?

EDIT: The copy of XP I was able to get a hold of is apparently modified to be used for laptops. Will this be an issue?

 

Erm.... Not necessarily, but it's probably going to have support files and driver installations that you really don't need. If you can find another copy go with that. if not... -shrugs- anything is better than nothing.

 

That depends on the modifications. Is this a proper Microsoft version, or someone's custom mod?

In both cases my answer is "probably okay".

If it's a custom mod, then it depends on the type. I can't link to warez sites here, but as an example I'm looking at a cut down "Windows XP SP3 Lite Netbook Edition (160Mb Only)" right now which purportedly includes NO DRIVERS because you're expected to supply all of your own with a manufacturers CD.

Most modified XP editions aren't like that though, and include plenty of drivers.

 

I have no idea. He's at work right now, and my dad picked it up for me. On the other hand, he does stuff like this for a living. Ah well. I don't really have much of a choice, so I'll give it a shot as soon as I've finished sticking stuff onto a USB.

 

It's good that you've got a nerd to fall back on if you have no other options.

If we don't see you back in 6 hours... we'll wait longer.

 

At this rate it'll be six hours before everything is compressed :awesome I'm going to have to plug up my laptop so I can store all of this (my brother had a couple hundred pictures from his camera he wanted me to grab, as well as all of the music, even though he has the CDs).

Thanks for all the help, guys Couldn't have done it without you.

EDIT: My brother called me up and is pretty much begging me to use a remote access maintenance service called PC life jacket. Found here. Should I?

 

Umm... What?

 

Got ya. Alright, not using them.

 

You made the right choice. Their site makes impossible claims and it's trying too hard to get your credit card information.

The "free" 14 days actually costs you $4.95 upfront [a setup fee], and if you want the anti-virus program [which is going to be ClamWin or Trend Micro or something with a different badge on it] the it costs you an extra $24.99. And then after that you're going to have a hell of a time trying to cancel the monthly credit card subscription.

tl;dr: it's as dodgy as fuck. Your brother has an under-developed "internet bullshit" detector.

 

He only heard the ad over the radio, but yeah. And apparently mine is on strike or something, because it didn't start screaming scam even after I saw the shoddy HTML work on the contact page and then called the '24/7 tech support' line only to get a recording that told me business hours were 10am-5pm, monday-friday.

I'm still here because a bunch of people showed up last night and I didn't get a chance to try it until 4 am. When I woke up today, I was told that the guy that gave me the laptop xp disc can get me a desktop one from his work tomorrow, and every time I've reformatted a laptop it's ended badly. Probably because it's a horribly shitty Gateway system disc, but I'll be more comfortable using the proper disc for this one.

 

Sorry for the double-post, but it felt reasonable this time.

Ended up using the laptop disc anyway, but it's all good. Reformat seems to have been a success so far, all that's left is to grab an antivirus. Any recommendations? Avira works well enough, but I'm sure there's better.

Again, thanks for the help! I probably would have resorted to human sacrifice and exorcism by now if it weren't for you guys.

 

Avast anti-virus is the best I've used so far. It hasn't given me any headaches, hasn't slowed down my computer performance, nothing.

You can download the free version, or be like me and get the full version(including Internet Security) from a warez site. :awesome

 

Go with a combo for anti virus. I got ZoneAlarm with my Win 7 (not sure if it's available for older OS) and pair it up with Avast!. Though Avira works pretty well too.

 

Wow, there's some bad advice itt.

ClamWin is not suited as your main anti-virus solution. It's unpaid open source, which in the A/V world is a bad thing, because there's no team of paid experts to update virus signatures and investigate security threats, etc. ClamAV is widely used by ISPs who want to reduce spam and viruses propagating by emails through their network by 80% [made up figure]. And 80% isn't good enough for what you want. Think of ClamWin as a filter which catches only the larger, dumber viruses. Good for reducing network load on infrastructure; bad for your desktop.

fake edit: After saying all of that, I've just noticed that ClamAV got bought by a private company about 4 years ago and the situation isn't as bad as I believed. It doesn't look like they've ever submitted ClamWin for testing to Virus Bulletin though, which leaves its effectiveness as a giant question mark. I wouldn't use ClamWin as my primary defense.

Using multiple antivirus programs actively is also a bad idea. They interfere with each other and have been known to leave your system more vulnerable than just using one. They also react badly to each others "quarantine zones". If you do install a secondary antivirus program, then it should be completely turned off. Only ever load it up when you want to do a scan of your system to double check that your system is clean. Then completely exit from it again. ClamWin is not a bad choice to keep around as a secondary antivirus; it's very easy to control.

Which antivirus program should you use? Let's do science!

There's a great antivirus testing company out there called Virus Bulletin. They publish their latest AV testing results for free, but you have to subscribe to see older stuff. Thankfully Win XP was their latest test. Let's see the results after they throw lots of malware at a variety of internet security solutions on Win XP:

VB100 - Windows XP SP3
http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/latest_comparative/index
http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/RAP/RAP-quadrant-Oct10-Apr11-large.jpg

You should feel comfortable with any of those. It looks like Avira Free is ruling the roost as far as free antivirus goes at the moment. Interestingly, Avira Free slightly outperformed Avira Pro. Take this as an indication that the VB-100 results are not an exact measuring stick, but they are the closest thing we have to it.

The result that surprised me was LavaSoft's AdAware Total Internet Security package. That performed very well indeed. They're not just cashing in on AdAware's good name. The free version did not perform as well [it lacked firewall and the rest of Total's features].

Here's some very easy to understand testing history of some of the more popular antivirus programs. It gives you an overview on how they've performed over the last decade or so.

Avast!
AVG
Avira
Microsoft Security Essentials
Symantec [Norton]

For myself, I'm perfectly happy with Microsoft Security Essentials [with Malwarebytes' Anti-malware as my secondary], but that's on Windows 7 64-bit. For the much less secure Windows XP, Security Essentials isn't bad, but you should be stricter.

tl;dr: Avira Free

 

I would recommend setting up the system in such a way that the account everyone uses is set at a "standard user" with no ability to make system wide changes. I changed my computer to that format (even though I'm the only one who uses that computer) because of that. UAC (funnily enough) is good enough to catch underhanded work, and avira + on demand scanner malwarebytes is good enough to catch the rest.

 

I read through the entire thread, cuz this sort of stuff interests me, and I like seeing all the various programs that people use for it. DBAN is new to me, but seems useful at some points, though I hardly like Nuking anything.

Anyways, I was wondering if you had managed to deal with this problem, as it sounded as if it was on a different computer. If not, and I'm just talking unnecessarily, my bad.