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Need Some Quick Windows 7 Repair Help


Monroe

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OK, I don't have Windows 7 for myself but I was on the phone last night with an older couple (good friends) who do have Windows 7 and seem to have a really bad messed up computer. They said this started about 3 weeks ago ... suddenly very slow startup, web pages loading slow ... just getting on the internet was a chore. I was with them on the phone last night for almost 3 hours trying to get something worked out. I guess it sounds like they maybe picked up a virus or maybe a bad MS update since they have "auto updates" on ... I don't know ... they know about e-mails and attachments and not to open any from people you don't know. I tried to have them get into System Restore over the phone but that was a chore with the computer running so slow ... I had them go back to an earlier date in August but SR never finished.

So I gave up and am going tomorrow to try to fix everything ... now understand, I am not familiar with Windows 7 much at all, I run XP. I just downloaded the Kaspersky Rescue Disk (09-15-2013), I will try to find any viruses with it and hope that might work. If it doesn't then I may have to redo the computer to like it just came out of the box. I asked them to have everything that came with the computer handy, in case that might be the way to go. I am assuming that a "fresh" copy of Windows 7 is sitting in a hidden part of the hard drive for this purpose ... they don't remember any restore CD / DVD in the box ... it's a Toshiba notebook and there is a manual.

My real question ... I want to put a good working free antivirus program on the Windows 7 setup so they have something to help in the future. I have checked this review ...

13 Best Free Antivirus Programs

http://freebies.about.com/od/computerfreebies/tp/best-free-antivirus.htm

The top three are these:

1. avast! Free Antivirus 8

2. AVG Anti-Virus Free 2013

3. Avira Free AntiVirus 2013

... but when you read the reviews when people have tried them, they really don't like them, they say the programs slow the machine down and this or that. Really not many "Thumbs Up" on them. I don't run any antivirus on my XP setup but I think they probably should have one installed.

I could tell them about Stinger which they have to download ... they are older and mosly visit web pages and do e-mail ... they don't do much or no downloading and would probably not understand all that but I can try to get them to make some notes. I told them about CCleaner in 2011 but I had to go to their house and download it to get it installed. No problem with that, was due for a visit anyway.

I'm open to ideas, suggestions and what antivirus would really be good with Windows 7. I think MS has a virus/malware program download for XP so I'm guessing this would also be availabe for Windows 7, would that be the way to go ... I'm trying to do the KISS method for them ... "Keep It Simple Stupid" .

have to add ... I have no clue if their Windows 7 is 32-bit or 64-bit.

thanks ...

Edited by duffy98
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Well, it's all about "juice".

If the hardware has a zillion Gb of RAM and a super-hyper processor, the clogging that any of those masses of bloat will cause will be not much noticeable.

If the hardware is on the "low spec" side, it will slow down to a crawl with pretty much any antivirus.

The whole point is "real time" antvirus vs. scan on demand.

With real time antivirus more or less any single byte that - for any reason - goes through the machine is "intercepted" (or "filtered") and analyzed by the real time antivirus engine/service.

Imagine that you are reading an "unknown" book to a child, to prevent that he/she gets to hear something inappropriate you have to read yourself the sentence or page before starting to read it aloud, there is obvioulsy a "performance drop" ;).

Of the "scan only" ClamWim is as good as any for "basic" protection, but most of the other freebies mentioned can have the "real time" engine switched off.

http://www.clamwin.com/

Bitdefender should be one of the "lower impact" ones (or it was last time I had a chance to install/use it).

Among the "Commercial" ones, ESET should be also one with a relatively small impact.

jaclaz

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I use Avira free always on win7, interface is crap, but scanner is great and its free... and you get frequent updates for free

the problem you say of AV's that slow down machine is that you have to disable "active scanners", no matter of AV they all have this

and they scan opened and downloaded files "on the go", so yeah this slows always everything

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Thanks jaclaz, vinifera for the help. I have decided to download ClamWin, Bitdefender and probably a few more ... also downloaded Microsoft Security Essentials, both 32 and 64 bit. Going to put everything on a flash drive to have ready ... no downloading needed to save time. Got some basic info on how to tell if the computer is 32 bit or 64 bit.

Hope that Kaspersky Rescue Disk does the trick but if it does not, I have one question. If I have to redo the Windows 7 installation ... which I am assuming is hidden on the hard drive somewhere, will it have to be registered again or should everything just work OK after the redo? Is all that registration information (SN and such) also kept on that "hidden" Windows 7 OS?

...

Edited by duffy98
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Duffy, please be aware that a number of laptops DO NOT have an "install partition", but rather a "recovery partition".

The difference is not-so-slight, if the second, after you reun th erecovery procedure the disk will be restored to the exact way it was when delivered frm factory (i.e. you will lose each and every later installed program, configuration and data residing on the "system" partition :ph34r:

Compare with:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/163601-will-a-recovery-clean-the-hard-drive/

jaclaz

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jaclaz ... I guess I was using the wrong words ... recovery is probably what I had in mind. Good to know that ... thanks for the link for additional information. I'm thinking of how I always had to reinstall Windows 98SE from a Factory CD that came in the box. When I moved to XP I had an image backup program so I just made backups as I installed XP and added settings and software. Never wanted to go back to "Step 01" again.

I don't think they have installed much software but I will take along an extra flash drive to temporary store anything they might have in the way of folders and such.

...

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Well I will give a brief summary of my experience from my first post with my dealings in doing a Windows 7 repair job ... having never played around with Windows 7 beforehand. It didn't go the easy way for me ... fortunately I did a lot of research on some subjects and took everything on a flash drive to have on hand. I went with three antivirus cds and the latest Stinger download ... we are talking Windows 7 (64bit), wasn't sure about that till I got there. The computer was terribly slow but the antivirus cds came up with "no virus" so I went to the "factory reinstall" plan. Had a heads up on it being a Tosiba Satellite and I knew how to get to the hidden part of the hard drive to reinstall the OS. I didn't want to fool around trying to repair anything and maybe waste more time ... running those antivirus cds took hours and most of the day.

The reinstall went pretty smooth but the computer was bought in 2010 and the MS security updates were in the hundreds, maybe 400 to 500 after 3 or 4 passes ... that was a nightmare and another 1 1/2 days of sitting around watching for anything to go wrong.

I made a discovery in my searching around for Windows 7 information and found out that Windows 7 is supposed to have a nice "image backup" program and when they bought the computer there was a Sony pack of 25 DVDs in the box, they had no idea of what to use the DVDs for so ... after all the critical security updates were downloaded and installed ... I used the Windows 7 backup program to burn an image to those DVDs ... it took three dvds and then it asked to make a Windows Recovery or Repair disc ... which I did. So they have this backup made on Sep 20th and I hope they never have to go all the way back to Sep 2010 to download updates again and also hopefully, never another "factory reinstall".

So here is my question ... can I really expect this "image backup" to work if it is needed down the road in 6 months or so? I read good things about the image backup program on Google but I would like input from some Windows 7 people on this forum.

I certainly hope it will work ... a real nightmare doing a factory reinstall going back to 2010.

Thanks and any suggestions appreciated for a better "free" image backup program for Windows 7 or if the Windows 7 image backup program is a "first class" program then that will be just fine for any future problems.

Just to add ... after the factory re-install the computer was again back to normal and running fast. It was just those 2 days of updates that turned the project into a nightmare of sorts and I had my fingers crossed that none of those updates would mess everything up.

Edited by duffy98
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So here is my question ... can I really expect this "image backup" to work if it is needed down the road in 6 months or so? I read good things about the image backup program on Google but I would like input from some Windows 7 people on this forum.

It should (which not necessarily means that it will) work, but - depending on a numbers of factors - it may be not completely automatic (i.e. it is not a "bare-metal" solution).

Also you could have backed up the "current install" partition(s) or the "recovery" partition (or both/all of them), as an example if you did as I presume backed up just the "current install" partition(s), if the disk drive needs to be replaced due to a failure, it is possible that you won' t be able to restore the system *exactly* as it is now.

Just to add ... after the factory re-install the computer was again back to normal and running fast. It was just those 2 days of updates that turned the project into a nightmare of sorts and I had my fingers crossed that none of those updates would mess everything up.

Yeah, sure, send a nice letter to the good MS guys that invented the "online" update system, failed to provide a Service Pack and made exceptionally difficult to build and implement/install (let alone slipstream) a "DIY service pack".

JFYI:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/158104-service-pack-2-for-w7/

jaclaz

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