Hidden XP program

Just a heads-up about this one. A friend of mine who is a computer novice (she's lucky she can check email, no joke) downloaded this program and thought she would gain some knowledge on how to tweak her system. Yeah, she tweaked it all right........straight to the fabled "Blue Screen of Death". It took several hours and a fair amount of money to fix her computer. Guess what I'm trying to say is UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING, don't mess around with something like this. I'm not an expert Geek, but I'm almost sure the most skilled computer geniuses have done at least one dumb thing in their lives with software. I know I have, just ask my tech! He LOVES to tease me about some of the bonehead moves I've executed in the past. Anyone have stories to tell about user-induced software foul-ups?? Don't be shy; fess up. LOL

 

My first hands on computer... i386 w/ windows 3.1, with a 2400 baud modem. I had just started my RPG gaming venture, (which is still going strong). Well I hot a new game and wanted to play it, but there wasn't enough HD space.... So I began deleting..... and deleting.... and deleting... and deleting. :cry Eventually I came to the Windows folder..... well that seemed to be the largest of all, so what the heck, if I delete this one, I'LL HAVE ENOUGH SPACE!!!! :cry :cry so that was the end of that computer. My next computer, a few weeks later..... I somehow renamed the name of the HD, and everytime I tried to install anything, it would say location not found..... eventually my uncle came over and fixed the second one back up, but the 386 was toast. I was only... maybe 6-8 at the time.

 

I've lost count of the number of friends and novice clients who decided to f:***k up their PC by:

• Playing with advanced Windows settings without a clue. Although this type of damage can usually be fixed using either Safe Mode or System Restore, it's still a pain to guide newbies through this over the phone.
• Downloading free toolbars, "helpers", etc. that include viruses and malware as a bonus.
• Attempting to overclock their system through second or third-hand tips on changing BIOS settings (no, a $400 Acer desktop can't be turbocharged like a $1000 custom built PC. ).

Some of my recent faves include:

• The business owner who was getting a malware attack every 2-3 days. Even after giving him countless tips on safe net surfing, every visit and check of the browser history revealed he was visiting about 20 porn sites per day. Although open minded, I finally told him to buy a cheap, used PC to get his jollies on and use his main PC only for the Point-Of-Sale software and Quickbooks.
• The owner of a two year old PC who thought the "free trial" of Norton would protect his PC forever without a paid renewal (In this case, I uninstalled the expired AV program and replace it with AVG free).
• The person who expectd me to pull off the geek version of turning water into wine by asking for a cheap (<$100 total) upgrade so their 6-year old Dell (XP, 512MB memory) would play Blu-Ray movies and World of Warcraft.

I shouldn't complain, though. The fact you usually can't protect people from themselves equals extra business for me.

 

Greetings, MamaBear1968.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=234857

 

The dumbest thing I ever did was to install some Symantecware (Norton Works). I wanted to test it, but became otherwise busy, and forgot all about it.

When the trial expired 30 days later, my machine wouldn't boot - not even in Safe Mode!

I had to physically remove the HD, attach it to another machine, and manually remove everything Norton in there. Only after that I could boot again.

That taught me to always make a full backup before installing dubious software...

 

Greetings, Caliban!