install linux. you can use it for everything even some games....and no ad-aware and you don't have to buy anything a Mac or a Windows key...

Buy an external HD and Back your shit up. Then reformat. But I don't really know anything about reformatting. i've always had a mac so i never had to worry about that.

[quote="Tatsu-Kun"]But I don't really know anything about reformatting. i've always had a mac so i never had to worry about that.[/quote]

This is exactly where I'm coming from. I'm a long-time Mac user on a Windows machine because it was cheap.

hmm... if you're not all that tech-centric, linux is probably not the answer. download windows somewhere, burn it to a cd (if you don't have software to burn cd images, alcohol 120 is small, fast and food) and then do the external->reinstall bit.

if you boot from the windows cd i'm pretty sure it'll just give you the option to wipe everything out and reinstall. gl hf ?

[quote="Tatsu-Kun"]Buy an external HD and Back your shit up. Then reformat. Then watch as the spyware and viruses filter back in from the backups.[/quote]

[quote="immortality"]install linux. you can use it for everything even some games....and no ad-aware and you don't have to buy anything a Mac or a Windows key...[/quote]

You're telling someone who admittedly is not very computer-savvy to get Linux?

[quote="this topic"]Linux[/quote]

When evaluating the multiple operating systems that are available (like Mac OS X, and Windows XP), the system's security and stability are very important to me.

But if those are the only strong points, then screw it.

[of course, I'm talking about general end-user consumers. not talking about servers, etc]

linux is also nice because you never have to find or buy software (except in extreme cases) because of the package manager. HOWEVER this makes you really dependent on the intarwebs (annoying sometimes).

it's also prettier and faster than windows if you do it right...

but you lose things like... reliable flash... and video games and other proprietary software (cubase, microsoft office... yeah)

i'm falling in love with cubase every time i use it... probably going to get a legit windows so that i can use it more.

Ok, so my plan is to find someone back home with a Windows XP disc who knows how to reformat and then start saving up for a new Mac.

If you have another computer, you could network them together and back up your stuff on it.

And yeah, AVG for virii, Spybot for spyware. Whether or not you can root out the spyware without a reformat depends a lot of which particular spyware you've caught.

I would not recommend Linux for you. If the MacOS is what you're most comfortable using, then it's prolly best to just go back to that as soon as you can. If you need a new XP disc though, I can give you a copy and give you some tips on setting things up.

COUGHCOUGHCOUGH

http://thepiratebay.org/details.php?id=3346054

this thing installs in 15 minutes... but it's missing a few usb drivers and you have to do some haxoring to get non-english input working, but who cares about that? (my usb sound card won't work, by my mouse and hard drives and camera work fine).

[quote="GoldenRhino"][url]http://www.apple.com[/url][/quote]

I thought he wanted the problem to go away?

stop looking at porn. then you wouldn't have this problem.

<3

with windows, reformatting isn't that hard. iirc, you just have to pop the install CD in (though maybe you reboot to boot from the CD) and it should walk you through the rest. just make sure you copied off anything you don't want to lose.

[quote="terra"]stop looking at porn. look at my pics instead.

<3[/quote]
<3

Why is Linux a bad idea?