Deleting files?
 

Well good news I bought a computer cheap from a friend of a friend, I plan on giving it to my little nephew for christmas. However, I am pretty sure this kid was probably doing more than school work with this thing How can I delete and files that may have questionable content? BTW it has windows xp

Thanks for your help as always. :)

The EASIEST thing to do is get a copy of Windows XP and reformat the hard drive before installing. That is the only sure way of removing unwanted files.

Otherwise, you have to spend a tedious amount of time looking through folders to determine what might be questionable...

deleting files
 

formatting the hard drive is of course the best way to clear
everything off, but then you need to reinstall the OS .
if you don't want to do that just clear all the internet files
off any web browsers installed, and try doing a C drive search
for files with certain extensions like .jpeg .jpg .gif .mpeg .avi .wav
.wvm etc.

that should give you a very quick inventory of any ''questionable"
files and where they're at so you can deal with them accordingly
even if they're buried pretty deep.

oh yes - i had a teenager (now he's graduate with Bsc computer science) so i had to do a lot of digging around a few years back!)

If you don't have virus protection software installed (like Norton), get one now! It's amazing how often the virus detection program "wakes up" while I'm browsing on the Web.

Also, make sure you run the virus scan before you give the PC to your nephew.

Cool thanks for the help guys....I thought there may be a different way other than the aforementioned.

G-Benz what kinda stuff you lookin at after the wifey goes to bed? :D :D :D

Photos of naked car bodies lying on flatbeds with their wheels removed and their bras off! ;) :D

I'll bet their headlights are on too!!;)

I know there are certain organizations that have programs that will search your hardrive for you and give you a list of any questionable sites. I don't remember the one that I've seen; maybe try doing your own search. They will do the search for free (takes a few minutes) and then will remove any of the files for a small annual fee. You'd be surprized at what comes up on the computer. I bought my computer new and have never gone onto any of those "questionable" sites. I always laugh at how friends of mine get sometimes dozens of emails each day from porn sites. I never get that stuff into my hotmail, because I never look at it in the first place. But regardless of that, there were a few things on my computer that could be seen as questionable anyway. I suppose once on the net, stuff creeps in even by accident.

As much as you might think you are protected from "porn" sites, if you leave your "cookies" file wide open, all sorts of garbage gets fed to your machine.

My sister-in-law, who is probably the person least likely to get on a porn site (but unfortunately is a bit PC-challenged), somehow innocently clicked on a popup that loaded an executable on her PC that would launch on bootup. A nice porno wallpaper for her and her deacon husband to see every night. :(

I talked her through the process of getting rid of it, and fortunately, it was a harmless .exe file with no hidden malicious intent.

But the point is, unless you are armed with some form of watchdog software, your purest surfing intentions will not shield you from the solicitous garbage that pounds your firewall at nanosecond intervals, especially pornographic ones!

It's also easy to stumble into the wrong place, as a PC skills tech class for some central Ga. schoolteachers recently learned. They were instructed to go to the White House website but the instructor had them log onto .com instead of .org.. Huge mistake to make in front of 35 schoolteachers. :eek: :eek:

Exactly!

Except for some lost souls that regularly subscribe to the porn sites, the easiest way to generate visibility is by hiding the content in seemingly innocent situations...a url typo, a harmless popup, navigational traps, flashing graphics...etc. etc.

Many of them flood their main web page with millions of keywords, so that they appear in search engine results that you would never expect!

So if you havent' been "dinged" by a porno site yet, you haven't been surfing long enough!

Yeah, you guys are right on!

I remember doing a search for something at work a few years ago when I accidentaly clicked on a porn site. As soon as I clicked to remove it, several others appeared. I couldn't delete them faster than they appeared! Eventually I reached down and turned the computer off. I suppose someone in management could actually say that I had logged onto dozens of porn sites that day!! :(

I've also read, like y'all have said, that some porn/other sites will hide themselves in seemingly innocent addresses. One of them was something like Jesus.com. Imagine the surprise when clicking onto that and seeing porn instead!

Yeah I was quite disheartened by that one, I just automatically thought it would be a good sight...One of the downsides of the internet I guess :rolleyes: