My computer caught a tough one

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What exactly do you do and want to do on your computer? How old is your computer? How much RAM does your computer have? You can right click on my computer and go to properties and it will say there. Which version of Windows is it? How big is your hard disk? You can find that out by opening my computer right clicking on your Windows drive which is usually C and going to properties. Once I have the answer to at least the computer usage question, I can recommend a good computer set up which is the operating system, and installed programs.

You can do what gamefreak suggests, but even then there can't be any guarantee that you have a 100% clean of malicious programs PC. As for Norton many proper computer people say it sucks.

Depending on your computer usage, you may not even need Windows any more. You may still have a good reason for it, but in that case a good idea is a virtual machine or dual boot.

With virtual machine you can have an operating system that has been designed to be more secure than Windows, such as Ubuntu as your host OS, and if you have a good enough reason Windows as the guest. Then you run it in a virtual machine software, and the host operating system will treat it like any other normal file, which means you can easily copy a good virtual machine of a clean Windows install for backup, as well as delete a Windows virtual machine easily that has been infected by a malicious program.

If you decide to do the dual boot option, you should start with a clean install of Windows, after backing up your data of course.

With a dual boot you will get a bootloader program such as Grub, if you install Ubuntu or most other Desktop Linux distro's. The bootloader will load when you turn on or re start your computer, and it will boot Ubuntu or Windows.

If you decide you just want Windows for the time being, you should back up your data and do a fresh install. Clean install is the only way to be sure that all malicious programs are gone, unless you picked up a really nasty malicious program that also infected your motherboard's BIOS which is pretty unlikely.

With Windows malicious programs can easily do things, especially if your running as admin all the time, which you will be with a default install of XP or Vista. With admin rights you and malicious programs get full control, but this also means that any built in security that there otherwise is in Windows is turned off. That is why it is a good idea to run Windows with a limited account all the time, unless you need admin to say install a new program.

What exactly do you do and want to do on your computer? How old is your computer? How much RAM does your computer have? You can right click on my computer and go to properties and it will say there. Which version of Windows is it? How big is your hard disk? You can find that out by opening my computer right clicking on your Windows drive which is usually C and going to properties. Once I have the answer to at least the computer usage question, I can recommend a good computer set up which is the operating system, and installed programs.

Whatever operating system you are running if it is connected to the Internet you should have a firewall to keep blackhats out, as in what the media call hackers, which is actually the wrong term, with the other correct term being crackers. Hacker is another name for a programmer.

You should have a password that has at least letters and numbers for any user account.

Most versions of Windows are rather insecure, because it is also the most used OS, as a result many malicious programs have been made for it. Other operating systems such as Linux distros, and Mac OS X, have been designed to be much more secure. I am not that sure about Mac OS X since I don't use it, but with most if not all Linux distros, for example Ubuntu, the user would actually have to know what they are doing to get a malicious program installed, unlike with Windows.

Wow rather powerful computer. I thought that you were some newbie, but then you show me those specs. Seriously man what happened with your Vista install? Maybe you are newbie, you just got a pretty powerful computer.

I think it was the overwhelming mountain of text I also think changing your OS for just one problem is a little drastic.

changing your OS for just one problem is a little drastic.

I'm something of a newb. For example, I don't know a word of what you said of the rest of what I cut out of your quote. On the other hand, I can navigate my way through a registry and Windows easily enough. I like to say I'm the one in my family that everyone calls when they're having confuser troubles. You know, "what do I do..."? I had HP build this computer per my specifications.

There's still a lot I need to learn though. As far as Windows vs. Mac vs. Ubuntu vs. Linux goes - I say f**k it. Gimme a GUI and I'm good. Coke and Pepsi, apples and oranges. gimme one or the other and I'm satisfied and I won't complain.