Unplanned power downs of Windows XP

[Phil]

My 2 yr old nephew has discovered the on/off switch on my
computer. He turns the computer off several times
whenever he is over. What are the long term ramifications
of this and what can I do to prevent complications?

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Lock the door of the room where the computer is located!
Otherwise, you may have the opportunity to reinstall the
Windows XP operating system.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

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| My 2 yr old nephew has discovered the on/off switch on my
| computer. He turns the computer off several times
| whenever he is over. What are the long term ramifications
| of this and what can I do to prevent complications?

 

[DRHUMP]

-----Original Message-----
My 2 yr old nephew has discovered the on/off switch on my
computer. He turns the computer off several times
whenever he is over. What are the long term ramifications
of this and what can I do to prevent complications?
.
Whooping that ass was sufficient back in the day.

 

[Bill]

if your case is an atx case (it most likely is) you can change how your
power button behaves: control panel, power options, advanced tab, power
buttons section. If this don't help, give him a whippin with a good switch,
he'll learn. HTH

--

 

[Tim Slattery]

My 2 yr old nephew has discovered the on/off switch on my
computer. He turns the computer off several times
whenever he is over. What are the long term ramifications
of this and what can I do to prevent complications?

It's not going to harm the hardware. Of course, whatever work you
haven't saved will be lost. If you're using the FAT32 file system, the
computer will probably run a scandisk when you start back up, and you
run the risk of damage occurring to the filesystem that scandisk can't
take care of. The NTFS file system is *much* more resistant to this
kind of thing, since it's a journaling file system. On the occasions
when I've had the power go off unexpectedly on my system, it restarts
without a hitch, just as if it was powered down normally.

I would think seriously about powering down the machine while the
nephew is in the house, and doing something to keep the machine out of
his reach.

 

[Malke]

It's not going to harm the hardware. Of course, whatever work you
haven't saved will be lost. If you're using the FAT32 file system, the
computer will probably run a scandisk when you start back up, and you
run the risk of damage occurring to the filesystem that scandisk can't
take care of. The NTFS file system is *much* more resistant to this
kind of thing, since it's a journaling file system. On the occasions
when I've had the power go off unexpectedly on my system, it restarts
without a hitch, just as if it was powered down normally.

I would think seriously about powering down the machine while the
nephew is in the house, and doing something to keep the machine out of
his reach.

The long-term ramifications of this is that if you don't teach your
nephew to not touch your things, he's going to have a lot of problems
when he grows up and your Windows installation is going to get hosed.
It will not damage your hard drive, but you'll lose your data. Here's
how to do this: wait until he's going for the computer and use The
Voice. The Voice is loud, deep, and really scary. In The Voice you say,
"NO!" and look stern. Repeat as necessary, but if you do it right, once
is normally enough.

Malke