Removal guide

Welcome to Major Geeks!

That is not an easy question to answer since it depends on many factors:

• knowledge/experience level of the person running the READ ME
• speed of your internet connection
• how many files and hard disks on the PC
• how badly the PC is infected and what types of infections they are

As you stated, one thing to consider is backups (which many people do not have) but there is more to think about.

A new install involves more than some people may think. Especially to get back to a level of where the system was at. You have to consider all of the below:

• you have to backup all you own data, settings, favorties, configurations etc and first you have to know what/where all of these are. And you have to have the medium (burnable media, second hard drive, tape drive [yuck] )
• then you must make sure you have the necessary disks to reinstall not just your OS (you need the original Windows CD and license info) but all other software you use especially protection before going online
• then fdisk, format, reinstall the OS
• now reinstall all your software especially protection (antivirus, antispyware, firewall.....etc)
• get online (requires some setup and config that novices have problems with)
• download and install updates for OS
• download and install updates for protection software
• download and install updates for all other software
• tweak all software back the way you like it. Including Desktop settings, icons etc.
• create all the folders that you use for everything in your normally routines
• re-load from your backups to get data back, to get settings, Favorites,.....etc back
• now over the next two weeks you will realize that you forgot to backup some stuff and also you will keep finding something else that you need to reinstall.

 

Your welcome. I understand we you are coming from. If you can take PCs home and work on several in parallel, you reduce the total time for running the READ ME on all of them.

For some people a reinstall could be faster. This is usually only for those that have very little installed and nothing to backup. Most people never consider all of what I posted as necessary steps for a reinstall. Some people just decide to use the a backup partition that their PC manufacturer put onto their PCs. They forget however that this puts them back to the same state as the PC was delivered. Thus they need to go thru the steps of deleting all the unnecessary junk that was installed on the PC, still have to get all Windows updates, install all their software......etc just like in my list. I have seen dozens of people choose the factory recovery and then afterwards wonder where all their persnal data went too.