Before I get too far, let me say that I'm making a departure from the usual blog material. Normally I'm asked to write about FundRaiser features to complement another blog from either Kim Klein or Tony Poderis, and that was the case this week, as well. But I decided to write something totally different, sparked by our granddaughter's return to Arizona (where the training office is located) from the east coast area. She flew in, but had several boxes of "stuff" shipped, including her computer, which was, in her words, "so slow I think it died". In 25+ years working with personal computers, I don't remember having seen such a slow machine. It took at least 5 minutes to boot up, and usually several boots before it successfully opened Windows to the desktop.
I told her I'd look into it, of course, and over a weekend was able to straighten it out. It took a complete restoration to its original configuration to start out, after first being able to save her "My Documents" contents (about 4GB of mostly pictures), and that meant returning the computer to the way it was when it left the manufacturer in 2009. There were special utilities involved in order to simply save those precious pictures, of course, and it took all the patience I had acquired working with computers all these years, in order not to simply give up. Once restored, Windows Update installed 140+ updates. Then it installed another 85. After that, merely 5. And then the final update of a single file. It runs beautifully now.
Some of the things I discovered along the way to recovery for her computer might be beneficial for all to know. It may save others from throwing their computers against the wall in frustration, or some other destructive action. So here are a few tips to keeping your computer running well, just in case you haven't seen them in a zillion other places on the web:
1. let Windows update the "critical" and "important" files automatically (but think twice about "toolbars" and other unneeded additions)
2. use a good firewall/anti-virus software right from the start. Why not MS Security Essentials with their built in firewall? No reason at all. That's what I use.
3. don't open attachments to email unless you requested them and/or you know the sender and were expecting them.
4. don't visit questionable websites, or allow others who might do so to use your computer
5. don't have a bunch of unneeded programs on the computer, and if you don't know how to remove unwanted programs and features, either learn or be willing to pay someone else who knows.
6. learn to run utilities such as "disk defragmenter" and then use them regularly.