PCTech Forums

I just reformatted my husbands' laptop back to its original 'out-of-box' configuration after he contracted YET ANOTHER virus from clicking on those notorious links. (I'm ready to chop his hands off if he doesn't stop looking at YouTube videos!) And yes-I am getting a better antivirus checker for him.

Anyway-I have noticed this before but wondered if anyone here has any information as to WHY, when I go to the Environment variables in the computer settings, the OS is set to NT instead of Media Center (which is what is installed on his laptop). My desktop has the same thing on it, even though MY OS system is WIN XP. I notice that when Windows update notifies me of updates, I always have all the NT updates and .NET framework updates included in there. Are all those NT updates really necessary if I am not running a NT system? Seems like a ton of info on my system.

I was just wondering if changing the environment variable of the OS system to Media Center or XP would limit the downloads that it would gather or if I had to deselect them manually. It's kind of hard when you don't know for sure what you do and Don't REALLY need for your OS. Thanks for any relevant info anyone can provide pertaining to this topic.

DocsGal

Hi Gal and welcome to PcTech. Lets first talk about the OS themselves. XP and Media Center are the same OS with the exception of the actual Media Center software add ons. The other thing to know about that is they are both built on NT. The hard drive is partitioned as NTFS (new technology file system) instead of the older FAT32 setup. Windows NT, 2000, XP, Media Center, Vista and 7 are all built on NT. This unfortunately means those downloads do actually apply to you and are worth the time. Yes theres always one or two thats not 100% necessary but as you pointed out it is indeed tough to know the difference sometimes. In your situation, especially having viral probs, i would turn on auto updates and let it ride. Now to address the viral prob for a min, its highly unlikely that it stems from youtube. They keep that place clean as a whistle but there are a ton of other video sites that dont. In reality, just watching videos somewhere wont cause that anyhow. Its generally some type of false advertisment or warning that pops up and tricks or tempts you into clicking on it and accepting a virus, spyware, malware type program.

is a great AV program thats lightweight and reliable. Theres no gimmicks either, its actually free and works.

Hopefully theres some useful info hidden in my ramblings somewhere

Thanks so much for your reply. I kind of figured it was because the structure it was written under was NT. I have AVG on our business computers but we bought this laptop used and I can't remember what the guy had on it. It was pretty flaky and my husband is bad about running updates. I am buying the updated business license for AVG that lets you remote admin all the computer in your network (my home business computers & our two personal computer are all going to be set up on the same network) I have been a huge fan of AVG for years so, yes, I agree heartily!. Very useful ideas and I just shortened the leash for him so maybe that will help. He 'professes' it was a link to a video but I have to agree with you, it was probably a redirect or an email that he clicked on that installed a trojan because I think a spambot sent it to me. But I deleted it without opening it..lol. Thanks again and I look forward to hangin' out here.
Docs Gal

Your very welcome : )

I'm sorry.