How to fix Mom's computer

A nice guide to cleaning up a corrupted computer. If you've time, that a look at the comments as well as the article itself. An interesting sidenote: seems an increasing number of computer geeks are women. Here's the link and contents list:

How to fix Mom's computer

Scribbling.net, by
Gina Trapani

Went home for the holidays this week, and of course, the annual fix-Mom's-computer event. This year things on my mother-in-law's Windows 98 PC were especially bad; it could've been used as a software showcase of the latest and greatest in malware.

For future reference, here's a laundry list of steps I took to get Mom's computer working and secured from evil software.

* Deleted spyware with Ad-Aware
* Updated Windows
* Secured Internet Explorer
* Switched default web browser to Firefox
* Trimmed down startup programs
* Removed Personal Web Server
* Installed ZoneAlarm firewall
* Uninstalled unneeded applications
* Installed spyware protection with Spybot Search & Destroy
* Installed virus protection with AntiVir
* Scanned and defragmented the hard drive

acknowledgement: blogdex