Have you ever installed a program or new driver on your computer and it caused your computer to crash? Have you ever been hesitant about installing any other programs or hardware drivers from that point forward? I have gotten stressed from time to time because of this same issue. I come home from work, find free software on the net that I download, and install it. I then get nervous about what it might do to my system. Well, you can now feel no more worries or burden, we have solutions for you.
Windows XP systems come with a tool called "system restore". It provides computer users an easy way to check point your system and recover to a point in time. Can you imagine now how easy this would be? You could download that software program, take a checkpoint of your system at that point in time, install the program and see what happens next. If it worked with no problems you are in good shape. If you have issues with your computer from that point all you have to do is perform a Windows XP system restore from the restore point you just took. It is like a snap shot of your computer at that exact moment in time.
The system restore we are talking about here does not change any personal word files or excel files that you may have changed in the process. It will bring your system back to a known good state for the system such as registry or any hardware driver changes. This system restore is not a replacement for full backups of your system. It is a tool that is used but not guaranteed to bring your system back to a working state.
You could, if your computer is bootable, boot into safe mode for the system that you are working on and uninstall the program or driver that seems to be giving you issues. Safe mode provides you the ability to get into your system using generic device drivers and with all non-essential services stopped so that you can possibly troubleshoot and get to the root cause of your issue. It gives you the opportunity to uninstall programs that might otherwise hang your system.
In the event that all else failed, one of the best methods to get your system back to a working state is to perform a full desktop or system restore. You will need to have performed a full backup of your system to get it back to its original state or you would have had to take an image of your system prior to the changes. This method is more complicated to do but when all else fails this is all you have left.
A system restore or desktop restore can be performed with a full backup, full image backup, or any number of full backups and incremental or differential backups. These are not difficult to do but should be evaluated for your personal situation.
Nothing is ever as good as backing your system up to an alternate location on a regular basis. You never know when you may need to use it. You can do freeware backups using the native tools that come with Windows XP or you can download freeware off of the net. Be sure and do you homework before using downloadable freeware. You don't want to compound your problems. Good luck with your system restore or desktop restore needs.
Running your windows sessions under a limited account will help protect your data. This type of account can stop anything from getting into the system files of windows. You see, windows has important files that should never be messed with. Think of these files as the engine that runs windows. When you get a virus, it can mess with these files and cause your computer to stop working all together.
The administrator account has full access to the computer and system files. If you get a virus under this account, it has full access to your computer and can do as it pleases. This is why it is so important to run under a limited account when you use your computer. You can perform other things like installing software under the admin account.
There have even been a couple of times when I got lazy and decided to run my computer under admin all the time and you guessed it, I paid the price. I lost data and all sorts of things. Believe me, its not fun starting over again from scratch.
Do yourself a favor and learn this all important little task right away and save yourself from paying any high computer repair bills in the future.
Here's what to do if you have a new computer and you are not sure if you running under admin. Go to the start menu and then control panel. Once in the control panel, choose user accounts. Find your name and under it you will see that it says either limited or admin account. If you only have one account and it reads admin, then you will need to create another account and choose limited.
Windows comes installed with an admin account by default. If you already have your own name account, then just check to see which type it is. If it is an admin account then you should change your screen name to a limited account. However, before you do this make sure you know what the admin's accounts password is so you can get in there to perform any admin functions if you need to.
If you are still not sure about how to do this, you can look under the windows help file for more information, in the help box just type in user accounts. You can also find a friend who is knowledgeable about computers to help you or call your computer manufacturer.
Just by doing this simple little task you can save yourself a lot of grief in the future from most viruses.
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