My Internet...

[Jason2gs]

So, a couple Saturdays ago I was sitting outside on the picnic table, with my laptop. I was talking to Smartzkid, and he told me that I might need a program called "Hamachi." Being the download-a-holic that I am (:D) I quickly googled it and downloaded.

It was getting dark and cold, and the bugs started coming out, so I decided to go inside. After I got in, I noticed that Hamachi wasn't loading for me. *sigh* I guess this was just some of the family luck. (It seems anything we do, something always goes wrong with it. Be it the DVD Player, the TV, random computer programs... You can count on our family to make it not work.)

My mom came home with the groceries, so we had to help put em away. I'm not gonna tell you everything we did, though, seeing as how it'd be too boring.

I did the usual. Uninstalled/Reinstalled Hamachi a few times, then rebooted. When I rebooted, I saw that I couldn't get online! I uninstalled Hamachi and rebooted a second time. Nothing.

After about a week and a half of having no internet on my laptop and having to use the desktop computer, we finally did the F11 trick during startup to get my machine back to factory state.

What I learned from this:

# Never drink grape juice out of the jug. (That wasn't during the week and a half, but I thought I'd add it.)

# Don't download everything you can.

# Don't make an imaginary coin flip to decide what programs get access to your registry.

# Don't type "DEL *.*" into the command prompt. (I didn't do it, but I did learn that you can use that to delete everything in the current directory.)

# Resource Hacker is a really sweet program.

[Mr.Klean]

So you finally got the laptop fixed? Good news.

[Dunceiam]

Hmmm...that sounds strangely similar to what situation I'm in at the moment. Except I still have my internet. :).

Anyway, have fun downloading all your programs on your laptop again! (I'm preparing to be running 10 downloads 24/7 for the next day or two to get my 40 gig of programs back...)

-Dunceiam
(Is that why you haven't been very active?)

[Jason2gs]

Yep. As you can see, my activity bar is lower than it was :(

Just get rid of everything you possibly can, and write down the links to where you can get them back at in a text file. Save that on a thumb drive/CD, and get rid of em.

Everything else, put in a ZIP file and get em all in one place. Perhaps in a backup file. (I believe it's .bkf)

Save as many of those as you can to a thumb drive[s]/CD[s], and send the rest to your friends and have them hold onto them for you.

If you wanted, you could send me 2-3 Gig to hold onto. It'd be a lot of uploading, though.

Smartzkid used a program, (I'll get the name to it in a minute), to compress 700 Meg in pictures down to 4 Meg.

Edit: Ah, here it is. WinUHA

http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/WinUHA--RC-Download-5148.html

Good luck!

[Dunceiam]

That could work, except almost everything on my computer is illegal :p. Let's use Photoshop as an example. I don't believe that it's all located in a single folder, but rather spread out in all my folders. Such as fonts somewhere, and then colors somewhere else (Can't think of any good examples, but I think you know what I'm meaning :)).

I have five 700 MB CD's that my parents are allowing me to use. And I've only used 400 MB so far, just getting all the stuff that I can't download. Such as images I made in Photoshop, or projects in Word. And a lot of other stuff. And then the other 40 gig I'll probably just download as I start to need it. It ain't gonna be fun, but thats what you get when you mess with the law.

-Dunceiam

[Jason2gs]

WinRAR Crystal is illegal, and I have that ;)

Oh well, if you wanna send me some stuff, go ahead.

You could upload everything you can't download to Megaupload or Rapidshare, then just go back and get it later.

Just remember. Get your file zipper on CD or something, and make a note of where it is. Like, for example, I WinRARed some of my files when I had to reformat. I made the mistake of putting WinRAR inside of a WinRAR file :D

I had to unzip it with the freebie WinRAR version :p

Edit:

Here's a list of links to get your programs back from. I'll probably add more to it later.

http://www.cnet.com/
http://www.download.com/
http://www.softpedia.com/
http://www.click-now.net/
http://www.Mp3-center.org/
http://www.topshareware.com/
http://www.freewarefiles.com/
http://www.free-downloads.net/
http://www.newfreedownloads.com/
http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/
http://www.freedownloadsgalore.com/

[Smartzkid]

1) Always jotti anything you download (assuming it's < 15 megs; if not, jotti any keygens or cracks + the main .exe file after you decompress them)

2) Encrypt and password protect anything that you're uploading illegally. This way, noone but who you want to get it will get it

3) Backup your computer as often as possible (Or, have two windows installs - one for playing around with, and one for important stuff)

4) If theres a program you're not sure about, and you have access to a clean vm install, duplicate the install, then try installing the program on your virtual windows. If all goes well, do a couple complete scans with various anti-virus programs. Once everything comes out clean (if it comes out clean), install the program on your main win install (or just keep it in the vm...depends if you mind firing up a vm to use certain programs)

5) Tell me what F11 does :D

6) Don't install Hamachi unless you're completely sure that it will work, but so far, it hasn't worked for anyone else I know :confused:

7) Tell me why I'm still a Lesser Demon?

[Jason2gs]

F11-



If you need to repair your system, you can do it from the hard drive or from your own set of recovery discs.

To burn your own set of recovery discs, use the PC Recovery Disk Creator.

To repair or restore from the hard drive, restart the computer and press F11 when prompted.

For more information, refer to System Recovery in Start > Help and Support > User Guides or in a printed document in your box.


@ 7)

Because I paid Fakawi to keep you there :D

Jk Jk Jk

[Dunceiam]

Thanks for the list Jason, I'll probably just get my bro to get me everything back. Considering he's always downloading movies/games/expensive programs, etc. He could easily get all the downloads going if he's not in, "My little bro is a [explicit]" mood. But if he's in the hate the little bro mood, I'll use your list :).

I guess it's a bit late to have backups...:p

But yeah, my computers basically now swarming with virus's, and I already have all my files copied to a CD. So I'm really just gonna have fun watching what the virus's will do until Saturday (Just hoping they leave my computer alone!)

-Dunceiam

[Jason2gs]

Lol, just hope it doesn't get to your D drive :)

(That is, if you D drive is your recovery partition, and you don't have recovery disks.)

But are you sure that's a good idea?

Viruses = Very bad things...

And how did it get through five anti viruses? You might wanna grab a copy of that virus! (You know. Just for... Fun... [:D])

Edit: Wait... Is it even possible to have five different anti-viruses running at one time? You get an anti-virus to put them in charge of your computer. Having five anti-viruses is like having five night shift managers on the floor at one time (h)

[hacker]

Holding f11 while starting up your computer will put it into safe mode. In safe mode you can do a system restore. IE if you are having lots of computer problems but weren't yesterday, you could restore the computer to how it was working yesterday. BTW you shouldn't be running 5 anti viruses at once! I recommend you torrent a copy of CA internet security.

[Jason2gs]

That's not what F11 does on my computer.

On my computer, you can hold down F9 (Or is it F8?) and switch to safe mode/switch operating systems.

[Hugolord]

hi damn i know how it feels!

No i don't want to talk about it :D