Phoenix Network Forums

I'm sure many of you have noticed that a typical Windows computer can't be left running for more than a couple months without needing to be reformatted and reinstalled, well, I come to you today with information which could allow you to keep Windows XP clean for as long as you don't directly download a trojan.

First of all, if you're running an OEM box and installed all the software that came with it during your last reinstall, there's your first mistake. The default software that comes with a computer built by people like Dell is crawling with Spyware and crap. Even Norton and McAfee, which claim to protect you! has spyware bundled.

So, the first task, obviously, is to backup any documents, downloads, pictures, videos, etc that you have on your computer. I recommend you simply copy this stuff onto as many CDR's or DVDR's as it takes.

Before you begin reinstallation, do you have a bootable disk with a decent partitioning program that you are confident using? If yes, continue, if no, I recommend getting a Linux distribution LiveCD, they always have a partitioning program, and most of them include gnuparted or standard fdisk, imo, the two easiest partitioning programs to use that don't have a gui.

Once you have the important crap backed up, reformat ALL windows formatted hard drives. yes, you heard me right, if it's got FAT or NTFS, if it has any documents or programs intended for Windows, on the hard drive, reformat that entire drive, part of my process is going to change the way you partition those drives anyways. If you're a real paranoid about disk consistency, like me, you may want to do a secure format (all 0s, or random junk, all 0s being the better method, since it basically turns your disk into a brand new platter.

Once you've done that, run a partitioning program from a bootable disk. You're going to partition your drives the same way you did before, but with the following difference: make a partition anywhere from 1-3 gigs on each hard drive. This is to make Windows behave somewhat like linux for swap space, Windows will put a statically sized pagefile on it's own partition if we tell it to. If you only have one hard drive, I reccommend giving Windows at least 2 gigs of pagefile.

So you've followed me so far, right? NEXT! Install a basic Windows installation. Don't install any extras yet, that doesn't come until later.

When you've installed Windows again, you'll have to do a few things...

First, you need to format all your partitions again, unless you had a nice Windows-based bootable partitioning program. Go ahead and do that.

Then, right click on your "My Computer" icon and select "Properties." From there, you'll go into the "Advanced" tab and then click on "Settings" under the "Performance" section. From the window that comes up, you'll go to "Advanced" again and then click on "Change" under the "Virtual Memory" section. There you'll set to a pagefile all your dedicated pagefile partitions. If you don't know how to do this, you select your pagefile partition, click the "Custom Size" radio button, and enter the size of the partition into the "Initial" and "Max" fields and then clicking on "Set." You will also disable the default pagefile by clicking on the installation partition and clicking on "No pagefile" and "Set." Once finished, Click OK, OK, and OK. Then reboot.

Once you've finished installing Windows, make sure that you have internet connectivity, you need it, now. Go to Windows Update and start bringing the computer up to date (for users of warezed copies of Windows, you should already know what you need to do before this, I'd suggest that you had that backed up already for you to just copy right over instead of having to download it again while you're in such an insecure state.)

Once Windows stops saying that there're updates to be done, go here and install the most excellent AVG Antivirus, free for personal use. These guys protect you a lot better than Norton or McAfee for Viruses.

After you get your copy of AVG, you need live Spyware defenses. Go here and download and install both SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard. They defend you using two different methods, and complement each other into providing a complete defense against spyware. (But since I'm a paranoid, it doesn't end here...)

You now are fully protected against all the latest viruses and spyware/malware. What's left to do? Spyware/Malware and viruses aren't the only culprit in cluttering up Windows, Windows itself is also at fault, but before we get to that, we need to get you a better browser, Internet Exploder, er, Explorer, just doesn't cut it, not when it's keeping your computer clean you're after. Enter Firefox.

Mozilla is currently the best browser available to us neat-freaks. Once you've installed Firefox, you need it's protective extensions. For anyone not familiar with Firefox, it's a clean-cut, stripped down, bare necessities browser, with a plugin and an extension interface in order to add any additional functionality you need. Neat, nay?

So you're going to need Adblock Plus and Filterset.G, Adblock Plus and the Updater for Filterset.G are available here.
First you install Adblock Plus, then you change it's configuration according to this document. Then you go into the parent directory and follow these instructions. Then you go to the whitelist sub-directory and follow these instructions. You now need to install the updater so you never have to do this manually again, in case you forgot, you can get that here.

So now we're using all this great software, aren't we done? NO! Get this program. Now are we done? yeah... I suppose you're done on keeping clean, but there's a lot of security tweaks I could teach you too... There is one last thing I could suggest, for Windows XP users: Guru3D's TweakXP (not to be confused with the commercial software, which, personally, is trash.)

So that end's todays segment on SlicerSV being useful.

I smell spam in the air...
SlicerSV
Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 11:46 am
Newbie
Joined: 22 Jun 2006
Posts: 15

Looks like you`re in a hurry to get the shell account :
Joined: 22 Jun 2006
Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 11:46 am
Posts: 15

I suggest deleting this post or closing this ,cause I think this is just a 'copy paste to quikly make 15 posts in 1 day to get the shell account' post ,if not I apologize.

DjDarkman wrote:I suggest deleting this post or closing this ,cause I think this is just a 'copy paste to quikly make 15 posts in 1 day to get the shell account' post ,if not I apologize.

please leave the decission to us who we decide to ban for triing to get 15 posts within some hours, just to be able to apply.
So please don't flame and post off-topic.

PS: google doesnt find that "blog", so there is no proof for copy&paste.

I'm sure many of you have noticed that a typical Windows computer can't be left running for more than a couple months without needing to be reformatted and reinstalled.

I think, this problem arises because of incorrect and thoughtless use of the system and can be solved only by replacement of a "lining" between the monitor and a chair.

er... this is all my own stuff and as far as i'm aware i've never written it into a guide before, although i've dropped hints here and there on other sites.

additionally, i haven't even actually applied for my shell account yet, figured on giving it about half a week to apply.

thirdly, i can't help that i have no life and therefore find a lot of time to post! if you look, those posts are not one right after the other. i just post a lot