pslewis

OK, my PC suffered a major set back last Wednesday evening ... it was requesting passwords to access the PC under WindowsXP!

The users of the PC (Family Members) never had set up any passwords so it was most peculiar ........ anyway, I reloaded XP and its allowed me to set up new accounts.

I have ALL my programs still on the PC, like OfficeXP - but they don't show up on the Add/Remove Programs control panel window!? Also, the new accounts cannot see the programs! ...... I cannot find the set-up program for OfficeXP - I am sure if I can run it from the new accounts it would recognise it? Failing that, where is the set-up exe. prog. on the OffoceXP disc - I can't find it!?

Thats question one ..... now for the weird one (or MORE weird!) :-

If I do a 'soft' re-boot, ie. restart - the PC sits there looking for IDE Drives (the CD-ROM Drive!) it sits there for maybe 2 minutes then decides that there isn't one! and goes on to open windowsXP .... the CD-ROM drive has NO power to it and isn't listed in My Computer!

However, if I do a full shut down and then do a hardware 'Power Up' it is recognised within a fraction of a second and operates perfectly! Why?

I know you lads/lasses will known all the answers!?

Pete

NickAdams

iTrader: (5)

If you've re-installed Windows over the top of your old copy then you'll need to re-install all the apps onto your 'new' install of windows (Should keep you busy for a while based on how many apps you had previously!!)
Just to clear things up a little,just because the apps that you had installed on your old version of windows can be seen in windows explorer the new version of windows won't have the relevant entries in the registry etc to allow you to launch them!!

As to the other problem,don't suppose somebody has been tampering in the bios of your machine have they? (Sounds like that it was the same problem with the previous version of windows asking for passwords ie tampering)

It's late and time for bed...

Good luck

Nick

NickAdams

iTrader: (5)

If you have an Office XP cd you should be able to bung it into the CD drive and it will autorun.I can't remember off the top of my head the exe file name for Office XP though!

pslewis

The apps are taking up a huge amount of space on the HD so they are still there ready to be used? How do I go about re-installing then? Just act like they are not there and load what I want?

Would a re-format and re-instal of WindowsXP be cleaner? Would it be advisable? In the 2 days my daughter has been going on the internet without protection from Windows critical file updates I have picked up 7 virusus! and 3 trojans! Never, ever had any before - now 7! what does she do????

No-one to my knowledge has touched the BIOS - I've had a firewall up and run anti-virus regularly!

Pete

beemerboy

just runs her escort agency as usual

NickAdams

iTrader: (5)

I assume the anti virus is upto date? (As in signature files - These determine which viruses your PC can check for)
Without upto date AV you might as well not have any.A good firewall is a must too (Sounds like you had one on your old version of windows)
As you suggested,it's cleaner to format the disk and install windows onto a blank disk (You may want to take a backup of files etc that you have on your hard disk prior to formatting)

Some files to consider taking a backup of include:

Internet Explorer favourites (Check each user profile) C:\Documents & Settings\...

Email files etc (If you use the full blown version of Outlook do a search for *.pst. If using Outlook express I think you need to look for *.dbx off the top of my head) (Also,do a search for *.wab which is your address book if using Outlook express)

My Documents folders (Check each user profile) C:\Documents & Settings\...

Any other files etc that are on the disk that you may have stored in obscure places


Good luck

Nick

Sub97

I would also recommend that each account you setup (particularly the admin one) you password - and make it a strong one, i.e. a sentence "mydaughtersnameissally", this will make it harder for people to hack your machine in the first place, and if the password is a sentence, much harder to guess.