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Recovering Windows 7 on a HP Pavilion dv4-2145dx Entertain. Notebook
I would like to explain the Recovery went well, but I thought I would do a telling of how I reached that point. I do have a few questions afterwards.
My Niece came to me the other day and asked me if I could take a look at her machine. It was acting very slow with a lot of features unavailable, so I said sure.
Product Page for niece's machine:
HP Pavilion dv4-2145dx Entertainment Notebook
I figured out why she was having problems after I ran 5 different anti-virus/malware programs on it. Lets see if I remember correctly.
There were:
- 350 adware/spyware cookies on it.
- 18 viruses.
- 9 Trojans.
- 3 rootkits.
- 2 worms.
- 2 keyloggers.
- Even Windows Defender found 1 backdoor loader. Good 'ol Defender, eh?
It got to a point that every time I removed whatever those five programs found, the machine would exhibit even worse behaviour.
When I noticed there were several duplications of computer locations listed in the left pane of Explorer; Favorites, Desktop, Library, Computer, Network, Homegroup, I had enough and decided to cut my losses and do what HP calls a Recovery.
Because the Start menu Folder for Recovery was (empty) along with Administrative Tools, and the other HP Bloatware (BW) Folders, I tried using HP's method of getting into Recovery, but that didn't work either.
I had to see if Recovery was still in Explorer and it was. I clicked on the Recovery.exe file, and success!
It started, ran, and now I am at a point where I am just about finished with Windows Updates.
I have already installed/adjusted her favorite browsers (FF19.0 - IE9), MSE, removed the ASK folder, Norton 360, and Java, these last three seem to be included with HP's Recovery.
I have to wait until I have a nice long talk with her to see what see wants to do with the rest of HP's BW.
Now for my questions:
- She likes gaming and had Steam on her machine. I know this isn't good for 7. Is there a viable alternative?
- I need an alternative for Bonjour.
- Even though Java has been removed from the machine, I used Programs and Features (PF), and JavaRa. They won't un-populate themselves from the PF list. Is there a tutorial here for this?
- I am going to make up a bill for services rendered, just to show her what this would of cost if she took it to the local Tech. Any Suggestions? I have my time already figured in, what's a reasonable charge per hour?