Do you have any control over which ads are displayed by Google? I keep getting a stupid azz banner ad for meeting Chinese women. What does that have to do with this site? 
This happened to me recently…had nothing to do with flight aware, I was riddled with trojans, adware and viruses(Virii?). Had to scrap the machine, totaled.
If you have a PC download, install and run the free copy of this utility.
In the absolute worst case, you’d reformat the drive and start over. You never need to scrap the machine.
That’s correct. While it may destroy the data on a hard drive, it is not possible for adware, viruses, trojans, and other such malware to physically destroy your computer.
While I agree the machine is still OK, I have never done a format…I reloaded windows and it seems to be OK for now. Only problem is it won’t let me load any software (keep getting errors). Maybe a format would help, but I am clueless how to do it. Any help 
would be great, thanks.
PS it was time for a new machine anyway, she is five years old.
A couple of suggestions:
forums.cnet.com/5208-10149_102-0 … adID=66200
ehow.com/how_6026_format-hard-drive.html
Symantic and Ad Aware are AWESOME!!
You are most certainly on “borrowed time” I equate computers to car batteries. Beyond three years, you need to seriously consider updating. Yeah, it will run, but for how long before you push the power button and no can “start” (whether it be software start of Windows or hardware component meeting it’s maker).
Regarding restoration, most computers come with a “recovery CD ROM”. This will automate the formatting of your hard drive in a “graphical sense”.
Most recovery disk has two options that I have seen, one to re-install windows (sounds like you been through this) or restore to factory state which restores your computer to a clean slate
You would want to restore to factory state (the day you bought the computer) and this will be the equivelancy of reformatting your hard drive.
Second thing you would want to do is update the Windows security patches and of course remainder would be reinstall your antivirus program and any other related programs.
Back in the day, I would have agreed 110 percent. Now-a-days, I see both of these as “bloat ware”.
I miss the days of “Norton Utilities” and Ad Aware prior to the “suite intergration” days.
Me, I use Spybot and Malwarebytes that JHEM posted earlier. Crap Cleaner (CCleaner) is sometimes an overlooked program.
AVG I use for antivirus, but of late, I am turned off of this program since it’s becoming “bloatware”. Even with my 3.2 gig processor and 2 gig ram, I have to turn off the realtime virus scanner and link scanner to stop the adverse internet effects. Oh I miss those back in those days when programs behaved…
But it’s free, so I do get what I pay for. 
If you start with a decent machine, your statement really isn’t true Allen, it’s only what the manufacturers want you to believe.
I have scores of six to nine year old machines happily running day after day. J’s little X31 is six years old and I doubt you could get it out of his hands at gunpoint.
http://lenycom.com/pic/model/X31.jpg
My desktop replacement A31P laptop was made eight years ago, runs 24/7 and I use it daily.
Oh, I absolutely agree, but not everybody changes their oil per maintenance schedule 
I had a Compaq Presario for 11 years before getting my current Dell that I have had since 2004. The main reason I got out of the Compaq biz is that I absolutely needed more horse power then a Pentium three. It was more then adequate for my surf and Word needs.
They will last with proper maintenance (defrag, surge protect, common sense security)
I’d suspect longevity probably rides along with the person’s IT skills as I have worked on a few quality machines that got hosed up from the lack of user skills in less then a years time.
My first clue I am in for a looooooong wear and tear day is when I hear the CPU cooling fan running at jet take off speeds just at the desktop before I even click on Start 
In a stroke of irony my wife’s work machine got hit with a RU based porn Trojan that resulted in IE opening repetitive windows of very, very graphic porn every time she connected to the interweb. (Although I’ve experienced the sin palaces of Phuket, Bangkok and Manila, even I was appalled by some of the images that popped up! 
)
Needless to say she turned to her in-home IT staff to fix it for her even though her company employs many high paid functionaries for just such events. Took me days to finally clean it up.
If you take proper care of them, computers will last, as JHEM pointed out, for many, many years. You won’t have the updated bells and whistles but they will still work.
Mention was made of recovery CDs. Not sure about other makers but HP notebooks do not come with the recovery CDs. Instead, they are on a partition of the hard drive. You can make your own recovery CDs (instructions given by HP) or you can purchase them from CD.
Thanks Allen, This is as far as we have gotten, still having issues installing software back on, considering just using it for the kids gaming and internet. Got good use from her and she doesn’t owe me a nickel…beside me gots my NEW computah to play with
Actually, the current version of Norton Internet Security is a giant departure from the last couple of versions.
It installs very quickly without the need to reboot, and has a very minimal impact on resources and performance.