reinstall windows

[survivor1940]

If I reinstall my Windows Xp OS without deleting the old one what happens to the first installed one? are all the files overwritten or are they left to take up hard drive space?

 

[Blazer]

left to take up drive space.

a repair installation is a better choice

 

[survivor1940]

If I do a repair will I use the XP disk that came with my system and do I need to do any backup of programs?as you can tell I am not well versed in this.

 

[degibson]

Always backup important data when futzing with the OS. Sometimes it may turn out that you don't need to. Sometimes something unexpected will happen (like accidentally deleting a partition and clobbering it) and you'll be glad you had backups.

So, make backups of things you cannot simply re-install, then try the repair install.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: survivor1940
If I do a repair will I use the XP disk that came with my system and do I need to do any backup of programs?as you can tell I am not well versed in this.

Yes you would need the XP disc that came with a system and a repair would leave your programs/data. If you reinstall XP or do a restore to factory defaults you're essentially wiping everything that is on 'C'. Either way, always back up just in case.

 

[survivor1940]

want to thank all replies on this question but being new to computers I am not familiar with doing backup of programs.I do have all the download disks that came with the system such as power dvd>Nvidia sound>nero suite>ati graphics cd. Guess I will just have to find someone more computer savvy than myself.Thanks

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: survivor1940
want to thank all replies on this question but being new to computers I am not familiar with doing backup of programs.I do have all the download disks that came with the system such as power dvd>Nvidia sound>nero suite>ati graphics cd. Guess I will just have to find someone more computer savvy than myself.Thanks

If you've got the install media for the programs to reload that's great and will make things easier if you reload. As far as backups, I mean your My Documents, Email/Address book, Favorites, etc.

 

[survivor1940]

I know it may sound easy to someone who has done this before but I don't know how to do the backups.

 

[Blazer]

what type of pc are you trying to reload ?

 

[boomerang]

Maybe the question should be, why do you need to reinstall the OS?

 

[survivor1940]

I have my desktop with windows xp pro.

 

[survivor1940]

well everything started running slower than normal and I have checked for viruses and spyware which comes up clean.

 

[boomerang]

Well, this has the potential to be complicated, or get complicated.

Reinstalling the OS from scratch may very well fix your problem .......... unless you have a hardware problem. You may want to consider running a diagnostic on both your Hard Drive and your Memory. Does that sound like something you would be able to do?

But, I guess my first question would be, what steps did you take to check for malware?

 

[survivor1940]

Ran spybot for the malware unless there is something else I could use.

 

[boomerang]

Originally posted by: survivor1940
Ran spybot for the malware unless there is something else I could use.

Go here;

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

It's a free download. Download it, install it, allow it to update and run a full scan. This is a good start. Malware removal can be very time-consuming. Start here and let us know what you find - in general terms.

Spybot is a nearly useless app these days. Are you running AV software? If you're on a budget there are some very good free ones.

 

[survivor1940]

Registry Keys Infected:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{9afb8248-617f-460d-9366-d71cdeda3179} (Adware.MyWebSearch) -> No action taken.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\PreApproved\{25560540-9571-4d7b-9389-0f166788785a} (Adware.MyWebSearch) -> No action taken.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\PreApproved\{2eff3cf7-99c1-4c29-bc2b-68e057e22340} (Adware.MyWebSearch) -> No action taken.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\PreApproved\{3dc201fb-e9c9-499c-a11f-23c360d7c3f8} (Adware.MyWebSearch) -> No action taken.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\PreApproved\{63d0ed2c-b45b-4458-8b3b-60c69bbbd83c} (Adware.MyWebSearch) -> No action taken.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\PreApproved\{98d9753d-d73b-42d5-8c85-4469cda897ab} (Adware.MyWebSearch) -> No action taken.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\PreApproved\{9ff05104-b030-46fc-94b8-81276e4e27df} (Adware.MyWebSearch) -> No action taken.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\PreApproved\{a6573479-9075-4a65-98a6-19fd29cf7374} (Adware.MyWebSearch) -> No action taken.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{497dddb6-6eee-4561-9621-b77dc82c1f84} (Rogue.AscentivePerformance) -> No action taken.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{4e980492-027b-47f1-a7ab-ab086dacbb9e} (Rogue.AscentivePerformance) -> No action taken.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{5ead8321-fcbb-4c3f-888c-ac373d366c3f} (Rogue.AscentivePerformance) -> No action taken.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{31f3cf6e-a71a-4daa-852b-39ac230940b4} (Rogue.AscentivePerformance) -> No action taken.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\Schemes\f3pss (Adware.MyWebSearch) -> No action taken.

Registry Values Infected:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SharedDLLs\C:\WINDOWS\system32\SysRestore.dll (Rogue.AscentivePerformance) -> No action taken.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\Folders\c:\program files\registrysmart\microsoft.vc80.mfc\ (Rogue.RegistrySmart) -> No action taken.

Registry Data Items Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Folders Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Files Infected:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\SysRestore.dll (Rogue.AscentivePerformance) -> No action taken.

 

[boomerang]

Well, based on what I see there, I'd rule out this being a malware problem. When I see hundreds of infections, it's time to bring out the big guns. I see no need for that in your case.

How old is your system and who is the manufacturer?

You say everything is slow. Do you primarily surf and do email? In other words, is it the Internet that is running slow, or are non-Internet related applications running slower that normal too?

What type of Internet connection do you have? Dial-up, DSL, Cable - what?

Are you connected hard-wired or wireless?

Is this a recent problem? Or would you term this to be something that evolved over time?

Edit: Also, did you allow the malwarbytes software to clean up what it found? From what you posted it does not look like you did. There is a button at the bottom you click to allow it to remove what it found. You might as well do it.

 

[survivor1940]

my amd system is about three years old I mostly do surfing and email using cable with IE 6.I do use aol for my email and have not been able to remove any other of the aol programs without losing the email option. I really wanted to just use the AOL for my email.

 

[boomerang]

Well, this is actually a side issue, but you should be able to access your email at www.aol.com. I would certainly think that you could remove everything AOL related on your computer if you wish.

Do you know what level of service you have through your ISP?

There are several sites you can use to test your speed. You need to know what download and upload speeds your ISP says you should be getting for the results to mean anything.

http://www.speedtest.net/

http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

You should test your speed and compare it to what speeds you are paying for. You may want to test several times at different times of the day before pursuing it further with your ISP if your speeds are slow.

If all checks out there, my next step would be to run some diagnostics on my hardware.

Check your speeds first. Did you see my edit about removing what the malwarbytes software found?

 

[survivor1940]

I just removed the malware.I wanted to list what came up for review. I am using cable high speed connection through Brighthouse here in Florida.I know it is the middle service have to see what the speed is on their site.I have no trouble logging on to the internet via my cable it is just while surfing the pages tak longer than usual to upload.I have tried all I know from searching Google on how to remove AOL but I am not the only one that cannot remove all their apps and software.They have so many hidden places it is unreal.Will do a speed test tomorrow I am getting a headache trying to figure all this out LOL Thanks for the help so far.

 

[survivor1940]

isn't there on the windows disk an option for a repair only?

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: survivor1940
I know it may sound easy to someone who has done this before but I don't know how to do the backups.

It's good policy to have this stuff backed up at all times, not just when you are futzing with your OS or reinstalling it. That way if something goes wrong and that info gets screwed up or erased, etc. (such as a HD failure), you won't lose that information. A 2nd HD is a good idea for this, although not as secure as something out side the system, such as a DVDR (or more than one, if necessary), or even a flash drive or external HD. As stated, you want to back up things like email, address book, favorites in IE. Your email program and IE have means from the menu to back up that information. You also want to backup any documents you might want to see/use again, such as Word. You can backup documents using Windows Explorer (Explore, when right clicking the Start button).

 

[Blazer]

xp stores your data in 'My Documents', you would simply copy those items to another hard drive.

if you need to backup mail folders there are downloadable programs to help with that.

if you have office applications find where its data is stored and copy those.

as stated above allways keep backup copies, dont wait till you have a problem.

software such as acronis true image can make recovery of a hard failure a simple process, as a total end user reload of an OS and applications can be timely.