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Many years ago not having any knowledge of how computers work, my desktop wouldn’t start. I took it to a shop nearby for repairs. I believe it was a family owned business. There were 4 people behind the counter. A young man came over and asked what he could do for me. I set the PC on the counter. Told him it wouldn’t start up. ‘How much to fix it” I asked. He then replied “how much money do you want to invest in getting it repaired? Could be a hundred, two hundred, maybe three hundred dollars”. I grabbed the PC and left the store. Why don’t I just give you a blank check and you can fill in whatever amount you feel is necessary I thought at the time.
That is when I made a conscious effort to figure out how computers work and do a search for answers to it.
Like appliance or auto repair shops you don’t know if you are about to be fleeced unless you have some knowledge of what it takes to get your item repaired. You trust that a “professional” shop is exactly that. With morals. As in any business there are a few who are not reputable much less honest.
I am really ticked at the “Geek Squad”. A few years ago my daughter’s mother-in-law had a fairly new desktop computer. Less than a year old. Couldn’t do anything on it. Everything locked up. Took it to the Squad for repairs. She had paid about a $1000 for it. They said it was infected with viruses and couldn’t be fixed. WHAT? They suggested buying a new one from them. They would give her $300 trade-in off the new one. Being naive she did. $1200 this time. About a month later I read on-line that Geek Squad had just opened a website and were selling refurbished computers. Guess where hers landed?
I called their corporate office and explained what had happened. I asked why didn’t they suggest reinstalling the computer with a fresh copy of the operating system as a solution. At a cost of course. At that time I believe the going rate was $75 or $100. She couldn’t talk to me she said because I wasn’t the owner of the computer in question. I knew the middle-aged female owner of the computer was very timid and probably wouldn’t call them. Plus I didn’t want to embarrass her by using her name without her consent.
I asked my daughter if she could get the computer in question from her at the time I had heard about it. Too late. She had traded it in. I was willing to pay her for it.

Do a search and you will find Walmart and others have laptop stands for only a few dollars. I bought a couple of stands for my grandchildren and they say the Laptop is much cooler now.

@ shipdog7

Have a look at “Personal Backup”: http://personal-backup.rathlev-home.de/index-e.html

Should do what you want once you have configured its settings.

Thanks but I am not looking for a backup program. I use free Aomei and Macrium to make images and save them on an external drive. They have never failed me.

I too use USB Thumb/Flash drives with diagnostics programs on them and since the programs are not actually installed on the computer Windows doesn’t know about them so I have to do manual updates as I use them. I try to use only those programs that don’t need installing such as CCleaner Portable. I do have a USB Thumb/Flash drive I’ve installed the Portable Applications on but haven’t had to use it yet.

Thanks, since I don’t use all of them at any one time I think I will just copy the folder to my main drive and update that way. Copy it back then.
I have things such as 6 virus programs to run. Unlock tools, UnHackMe, Revo Uninstaller, Repair Windows, NameBench, HDDScan-3.3, 3DP Net detects ethernet card, DnsJumper.exe. WiFi Password Revealer (yes we tend to forget that sometimes)

You could post the contents and we can advise what the changes might be.

cheers, Paul

I went through mine one day when absolutely bored.
There may be some sites you or another using your computer may have visited and are listed.
I didn’t ask any of my seven kids if they had been visiting inappropriate websites.
I started deleting those and any others that appeared to be questionable.
I always have a backup image in case I am wrong in doing that.
Rebooted and everything was fine.
My Hosts file is 495kb.

My laptop (HP Pavilions dm1), running on Windows 7, gets slower and slower, I assume because of all the secret software which sneaks in when I am connected to the internet. I can speed it up by doing a factory reset, but re-installing all the software is very tedious and can take up to two days. I last did this six months ago, but it is now back to very slow running again.

I am thinking of getting a second laptop, or maybe tablet which I will use for internet browsing, email, and managing ebooks. If this one slows down, it should then be easy to re-install the operating system.

I will then do a factory reset on the current laptop, install the software again. Some of this requires it to be connected to internet but one I have done this, I propose to disable the internet connection. If I need downloaded from the internet, I propose to transfer these on a USB stick. This should then not slow down, as it is no longer connected to the internet.

The programs which I use which do not need live access to the internet are (1) word processing (2) spreadsheets (3) databases (4) money management (5) photoprocessing (6) family history (7) mp3 file editing. Possibly others.

It seems like a very old-fashioned approach but I’m not sure else to do. I wonder if anyone else has done this. Or this there another solution?

Ant advice welcome.

PS. I am using Avast anti-virus.

For many years I refused to pay for cloning or imaging software. Now there are quite a few that can do that at no cost. I use free Macrium Reflect. I bought a cheap backup external drive for $29 years ago. Still using it. Make a new image once a month. To keep files updated. You can image the hard drive after reinstalling the system and software that you want on it. And then when it slows down you can use that image to bring it back to where it was faster. Minus any updates or change in software since then. It takes maybe 6 or 8 minutes to restore. An absolute time saver. Not hours or days. Depending on the size of your hard drive you can probably get by on a cheap 80gb or 160gb drive. My image is 13.5 gb. I have several on it in case one should falter or not work. Never has yet.

I downloaded ADT-bundle-windows-x86_64-20140702.zip and extracted it with 7-zip. I tried to find the file to run it but could not get it to work. I now have a folder that I can not delete. I now have a folder that looks like this:
38263-undelete-problem

This is the error that I get when I try to delete it:
38264-undelete-problem-fig-2

Can anyone tell me how to delete this folder?

Ivan

Like others on here will tell you…I use Unlocker and http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/add-take-ownership-to-explorer-right-click-menu-in-vista/
Both free to use. After reinstalling my Windows.old folder wouldn’t delete no matter how many times I changed the security permissions on the folder. Unlocker takes quite awhile but it does its job well. Deleted all of it. Take ownership and it also takes awhile to do its job. And then delete the stubborn folder.

I shut down every night. Only because I have an old desktop and it hums loud during quiet time. As in sleeping. Doesn’t ever overheat. Fan works fine. Blow out the inside occasionally to relieve the dust buildup. My older laptop is never left on. Gets too hot. Not in overheating. I use free software to monitor temp in both. I did a Google search recently and read where a young lady fell asleep with the laptop on her thighs. Woke up with burn marks on her legs.

Microsoft today said it will make Windows free of charge for phones and tablets with screens smaller than 9 inches, a move designed to help boost the company’s market share.
Microsoft has been experimenting with a free, or low-cost version of “Windows 8.1 with Bing,” which includes a handful of Microsoft apps and services aimed at Windows 7 users. It’s unclear if this is the result of that effort. Microsoft simply referred to the new, free version as “Windows for Internet of Things,” and is including a free year of Office 365.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/2/5574146/microsoft-making-windows-free-on-devices-with-screens-under-nine

I think I have tried them all. Most have something missing to makes it a keeper. Too slow in loading pages? A change of browser can result in better performance, faster page loading and videos that buffer seamlessly. If you do decide to use different browsers, you’ll soon notice how different they each perform, from surfing the web, page scrolling to variations in performances and more. The best browser is the one that meets your needs and more importantly, those of your PC. If you have 5 people in your home with 5 different browsers you will never get a unanimous decision on which browser is the best. It all depends on the PC and OS on each PC. Including maintenance of each to keep it up to date. Ram and hard drive.

You can copy and paste this into a Google search and find the articles.
Thousands falling for Microsoft tech support phone scam – KSHB-TV
Microsoft tech support phone scam hits DC area – DC News FOX 5 …
Microsoft’s calling? Beware of this scam – Philly.com
BBB alerts residents to Microsoft tech support scam
Have you fallen for the Microsoft support phone scam? » maravis.com
Fake Windows tech support calls continue to plague consumers …

Thanks Lounger but I have never used Google Earth or downloaded it.

I did the same thing on a download. I unchecked all the add-ons offers. Or declined them. BAM!
I used free Malwarebytes Anti-Malware , AdwCleaner, and Combofix. Rebooted. Conduit and Visual Bee
search page back again. Went into Manage Add-Ons and removed Conduit in all browsers. Went into registry and deleted every Conduit entry. And Visual Bee. Restarted. Gone finally. Reran Malwarebytes Anti-Malware , AdwCleaner.
Under HOME PAGE Edit Box in each browser you got http://www.search.conduit.com, replace it to http://www.google.com, then click on apply and close. Reset Internet Explorer .
In Firefox type this command in the address bar “about:config”
Type “http://www.search.conduit.com” into search bar. Replace all the string from “http://www.search.conduit.com” to “http://www.google.com”
One by one, change them to “http://www.google.com”
Open “Troubleshooting information” page into Firefox. Click on Reset Firefox option, It will take time to reset.
Google Chrome, click on Settings icon. Manage search engines. Change your default search engine. Delete all others.
Remove search.conduit.com manually and completely
1. Launch the Task Manager by pressing keys “CTRL + Shift + ESC”, search for search.conduit.com processes and right-click to end them.

2. Get rid of the following files created by search.conduit.com:

C:WINDOWSassemblyKYH_64Desktop.ini
C:WindowsassemblyKYH_32Desktop.ini
C:WINDOWSsystem32giner.exe

3. Open Registry Editor (in Windows XP, go to Start Menu, run, type in “Regedit” and press OK; in Windows 7 & Windows Vista, go to Start menu, Search, type in “Regedit”), find out the following search.conduit.com registry entries and delete:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftActive SetupInstalled Componentsrandom
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionrunrandom
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftInstallerProducts5ATIUYW62OUOMNBX256 “(Default)”=”1?
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstall“UninstallString” = “‘%AppData%[RANDOM][RANDOM].exe” -u
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstall“ShortcutPath” = “‘C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersApplication Data5ATIUYW62OUOMNBX256.exe” -u’”
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRunOnce “5ATIUYW62OUOMNBX256” = “‘C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersApplication Data5ATIUYW62OUOMNBX256.exe’

I am old, on limited income, and cheap. Not all in that order. I have an older Dell Computer. 160gb hard drive. I know…. small these days. But 133gb free of 160gb.
Hand full of pictures and not many important documents. Keep it clean, slim and fast. I bought an external drive a couple of years ago. A slim Rock Mobile Disk. 160gb ($29). I keep backup images of my Windows 7 desktop and Vista laptop using free software. I keep a couple of my kids images on there also. Never has failed me. I keep a tool folder with probably about 30 or more repair software. A whole lot of virus cleaning tools. Free of course. I am not a safe surfer. I am looking constantly for answers to problems. Self inflicted or not. I once watched our local baseball team on a Chinese site. Not broadcast here. Funny hearing it being described in Chinese.

I have had a few system restore failures over the years. Re-installed way too many times. Refused to also pay for any imaging backup software. But now there a few good ones available for free. I use Paragon Backup & Recovery 2012 Free edition. I bought an external hard drive for $29 on the internet. Best thing I have ever done for my sanity. Have used it many times. Only because I experiment with way too many software downloads. Microsoft updates also cause me grief from time to time. I also use it for family members on my backup drive in case they end up with a serious virus or just from being careless. That includes Win 7, XP, and Vista systems.