system unstable

[Guest]

hi all,
can someone please help. my friend is having problems with his o,s he
keeps getting error messages such as system is unstable and it is crashing on
a regular basis when he goes on the internet. he doesnt update his windows on
a regular basis and he does not have very good antivirus protection, so i
have unplugged his modem for the time being to stop him getting into more
trouble. he has reformatted his drive twice in the last 2 weeks so i want to
install avg antivirus, spywareblaster, spybot, and the latest version of
ad-aware(as he only has an older version) before he plugs his modem back in,
then update every thing, and run scans using the programs listed above. am i
doing the right thing? and how do i go about wiping his hard drive so i can
re-install his windows. thank you

 

[Karl Strausser]

Just boot with the XP install CD. It will find your existing
partitions and will ask you if you want to install a NEW copy of XP,
or repair, etc...

Choose NEW to wipe out everything he has.

Alternatively one of the choices will also be for you to delete the
existing partition before installing.

Either way will work.

Karl

hi all,
can someone please help. my friend is having problems with his o,s
he
keeps getting error messages such as system is unstable and it is
crashing on
a regular basis when he goes on the internet. he doesnt update his
windows on
a regular basis and he does not have very good antivirus protection,
so i
have unplugged his modem for the time being to stop him getting into
more
trouble. he has reformatted his drive twice in the last 2 weeks so i
want to
install avg antivirus, spywareblaster, spybot, and the latest version
of
ad-aware(as he only has an older version) before he plugs his modem
back in,
then update every thing, and run scans using the programs listed
above. am i
doing the right thing? and how do i go about wiping his hard drive so
i can
re-install his windows. thank you

 

[Bert Kinney]

XP Clean Install by Michael Stevens MS-MVP:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

 

[NoStop]

hi all,
can someone please help. my friend is having problems with his o,s he
keeps getting error messages such as system is unstable and it is crashing
on a regular basis when he goes on the internet. he doesnt update his
windows on a regular basis and he does not have very good antivirus
protection, so i have unplugged his modem for the time being to stop him
getting into more trouble. he has reformatted his drive twice in the last
2 weeks so i want to install avg antivirus, spywareblaster, spybot, and
the latest version of ad-aware(as he only has an older version) before he
plugs his modem back in, then update every thing, and run scans using the
programs listed above. am i doing the right thing?

Probably not. If your friend isn't prepared to keep his Windoze box secure
on a very regular basis, in no time at all he'll end up back where he is
now. If you really want to help out your friend so he can enjoy his
computer and not have to worry about the constant security headaches that
come with running that toy operating system eXPerience, install Linux on
his system. I suggest looking at a very user-friendly distribution like
Mandriva 2005 LE. It can be had for free. Just download the 3 ISOs and burn
3 CDs from which he can install the os on to his computer.