Is it that easy?

  • Thread starter Thread starter David Brear
  • Start date Start date
D

David Brear

My son has been tidying up his old computer preparatory to giving it
away to a charity. Easy, thought he, just select everything on the
hard disk and move it to the Recycle Bin. Now the thing won't work!

Hardly surprising, but is it really that easy to kill Windows?

--
David Brear

Habitat
http://www.habitat.org.uk/news1.htm
Daily wildlife & environment news from the British Isles
 
Hi David

No, it isn't that easy to kill Windows. You need to perform a 'Clean'
install of XP:

"Clean Install Windows XP"
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

--

Will Denny
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups


| My son has been tidying up his old computer preparatory to giving it
| away to a charity. Easy, thought he, just select everything on the
| hard disk and move it to the Recycle Bin. Now the thing won't work!
|
| Hardly surprising, but is it really that easy to kill Windows?
|
| --
| David Brear
|
| Habitat
| http://www.habitat.org.uk/news1.htm
| Daily wildlife & environment news from the British Isles
|
|
 
You can "kill" windows by tampering with one file. If you delete
everything, what is left to do the work?
 
If you delete everything do you expect it to still work?
Cut out your own heart... fast way to kill yourself. Easy!
z --------------------------------------------------------
 
David Brear said:
My son has been tidying up his old computer preparatory to giving it
away to a charity. Easy, thought he, just select everything on the
hard disk and move it to the Recycle Bin. Now the thing won't work!

Hardly surprising, but is it really that easy to kill Windows?

--
David Brear

Habitat
http://www.habitat.org.uk/news1.htm
Daily wildlife & environment news from the British Isles
Click to expand...
If your talking about XP, W2K, NT4 no, not completely.
You can delete some OS files, which are not currently used.
And you can delete all files in the \Programs dir, which are not currently
opened.
So, if your son is logged in with administrator privileges,
he can trash XP to a great degree.
So, it's safer NOT to work as an administrator, but under a normal user
acount,
if you (your son) don't exactly know, what you're doing.
 
The best way to prepare a computer to give away is to
download a file shredder program and put it on a bootable
floppy disk. Boot the floppy disk and run at least 3 passes
with the file shredder.
The run FDISK
Then reinstall the OS and applications that came withy the
computer when it was new.


--
The people think the Constitution protects their rights;
But government sees it as an obstacle to be overcome.


| You can "kill" windows by tampering with one file. If you
delete
| everything, what is left to do the work?
|
|
|
message
| | > My son has been tidying up his old computer preparatory
to giving it
| > away to a charity. Easy, thought he, just select
everything on the
| > hard disk and move it to the Recycle Bin. Now the thing
won't work!
| >
| > Hardly surprising, but is it really that easy to kill
Windows?
| >
| > --
| > David Brear
| >
| > Habitat
| > http://www.habitat.org.uk/news1.htm
| > Daily wildlife & environment news from the British Isles
| >
| >
|
|
 
Well, obviously I know that you can kill Windows by deleting it!

What I should have said is, don't you get any warning?

Of course I don't know that he didn't ...

--
David Brear

Habitat
http://www.habitat.org.uk/news1.htm
Daily wildlife & environment news from the British Isles
 
Back
Top