How often do you defrag?

[gentlegreen]

Search for "without user intervention" on this page from Microsoft. Even if you think the whole Internet is crap and never click on anything you may well be in danger unless your PC came with SP2

Well duuuh I do make sure I get all my updates
As it happens when I built my current machine a couple of years ago I DID get infected before I had a chance to get SP1 onto it - but I killed the little barsteward - wasn't exactly rocket science
Any PC supplier who supplies an un-updated machine is a cowboy

When I said I don't click on anything I mean if some silly popup suggests I install this or that, or if an email bearing an .scr or .txt.exe turns up I simply sigh and delete it -

I used to collect them and try to work out whose machine might be infected ... which is partly why I got into the habit of not running AV - bloody thing used to keep telling me file x or y in my_documents\virus_collection was infected


.

 

[Iam]

Quicker to rebuild a Windows machine these days than screw around defragging it.

So, never.

 

[gentlegreen]

Quicker to rebuild a Windows machine these days than screw around defragging it.

So, never.

I assume you mean re-image ?

 

[Iam]

Re-install by whatever means you choose, so yes.

 

[gentlegreen]

Re-install by whatever means you choose, so yes.

but not sit down and install every driver and application one by one
I have to confess to being lazy and have no backup image of my system
But in mitigation I don't currently have a network or a DVD writer.

 

[jæd]

but not sit down and install every driver and application one by one
I have to confess to being lazy and have no backup image of my system
But in mitigation I don't currently have a network or a DVD writer.

Get a slipstreamed distribution of Windows Xp (making your own, obviously, from the software legally purchased from Microsoft & others ).

 

[Iam]

I've got a stripped down, vanilla XP install, but I've also got network support, so drivers are quick and easy and I don't really have a set load of applications I use under Windows anyway, so a browser and whatever games or app I need at that time go on separately afterwards.

I've got imaging software, but I'm lazy.