technical problems

[Kyborgi]

So my friend called that his friend has some virus and it needs to be removed. Neither were very much into computers and asked if I know how to do it. Of course, I answered that I can, not knowing what kind of problems I was going to face. First I tried to tell him by phone what to do but it appeared that they needed so exact instructions that I coldn't give with different version of windows. then I asked if I they could bring me the CPU so I could look what's wrong with it myself. Well, It appeared that the computer was really old, ~200Mhz, 2gb hard drive and 4mb graphics card. only thing that was realtively good was ram, 128mb. If that wasn't enough, it was manufactured by some company that had pretty much its own standards, like compaq had (I don't know if they still have) Anyway, I removed the virus which seemed to be some version of netsky, installed antivirus and firewall but then -the blue screen of death! The win2k didn't quite like the firewall I installed. And every time I tried to boot it crashed when it tried to load network stuff. I tried the problem resistant mode (or whatever it is in english) and even it didn't work. The hdd was with scsi connection so I couldn't use it in my computer to see what's wrong with it so I figured out that the best way is to format C: and install a "new" os (in this case I thought win98 would be best, the machine being old and all.)

Any suggestions for easier soluton?

 

[Padma]

With a box that old and slow, I would have done the same thing. Except I would have installed Linux. Then I wouldn't have to worry about them getting another virus.

 

[Kyborgi]

Had that in mind too but like they could use linux

 

[Padma]

Linux is hard?

You can set up a Linux box so that a casual user isn't even aware it's not windows!

Unless they do a lot of WIndows gaming, which doesn't translate as simply to Linux.

 

[Thrawn]

They could probably use Mandrake or Fedora without too much difficulty. I've heard Mandrake holds your hand, which would be a good thing for them right?

 

[Ankka]

Linux isn't harder, but it's different.

I would use Linux if I had the patience to get one and had the space on the harddrive or another empty harddrive or something... basically I'm just too lazy.

Just reinstall the OS, or Linux.