Having doubt after Reinstalling Win XP

[deniro]

Hello friends,

What I did:

1. Virus Affected.. PC very very slow... Registry Corrupted, Taskmanager Blocked..
2. Tried AV scan. No results.
3. Formatted my Comp.
4. Installed a fresh Copy of OS win XP without deleting my data files but overwriting the Previous XP.
5. PC is fast.. Previous Installed Programs on my OLD OS still exists. But they aren't opening. Opened Add/remove programs, no files listed..

So my question is Can i Directly delete all those unusable files from my Program files ?

[Cool G5]

Delete all those programs, run ccleaner and then again reinstall.

[Ramakrishnan]

In the case of virus attack, you should do a fresh install of Win Xp. You should take a backup of your data and format the entire PC.

[PhB]

Sure, you can delete all those files. You probably know that those programs aren't listed in the registry anymore.

[deniro]

thanks friends.. I deleted all those unusable files.. and now XP is fresh...

[red_devil]

Originally Posted by Ramakrishnan

In the case of virus attack, you should do a fresh install of Win Xp. You should take a backup of your data and format the entire PC.

if i'm not mistaken, thats what he has done !!

anyways, i know you've reinstalled your OS.. but was your PC that badly affected by virus that you had to re-install OS ??
and did try to perform a complete scan while Windows was running in safe mode??

<asking this cos' some virus that did enter my PC got removed only after a scan while PC was in safe mode>

[satyamy]

Originally Posted by n6300

if i'm not mistaken, thats what he has done !!

anyways, i know you've reinstalled your OS.. but was your PC that badly affected by virus that you had to re-install OS ??
and did try to perform a complete scan while Windows was running in safe mode??

<asking this cos' some virus that did enter my PC got removed only after a scan while PC was in safe mode>

all depend on the Level of Virus & Type of Antivirus Software
he's using AV
and we know how's the performance of FREE Antivirus

[Ramakrishnan]

I understood that he installed XP on top of the existing installation. See his point No.4 and 5. Generally it is advisable to format the entire pc and go for a brand new xp. When copying data from backups, automatically they will be scanned for viruses. In my experience, such partial installation almost always results in viruses coming again. Moreover it is not advisable to install two xp on the same machine. I am not talking just like that, I have personally toyed with my PC so many times. I will advise to take a image of the OS partition using Norton ghost or acronis true image. This will always save you a lot of time because just by restoring the image you get all the settings and programmes in one go. This hardly takes 15-20 minutes depending upon the number of programmes one installs. Of course you should make an image just after a fresh install.

[ax3]

@Ramakrishnan ..... +1