hiya everyone.
my pc windows xp pro has not got a genuine copy of microsoft installed ive just found out, a message keeps poping up your pc is at risk, so a friend has sorted a genuine copy of win xp for me, the question is will i lose everything that iv got saved on my pc? i also downloded a antivirus and spywer will i lose that? and have to pay again? or can we just run the disk and happy days ? ive been told by my m8 hes gonna wipe everthing off and ill p[roberly lose everthing, but another friend says just run the disk it will be fine. so i thought ill ask the experts . thanx 4 any replys cheers... h

hello 2hard2handle. good to se you. the first friend is right. you will have to format your harddrive, and so lose everything. you shouldnt have to pay for the antivirus again if you wrote down the registration code.

thanx m8. ive just had a look through my old emails for the reg code for my antivirus and cant find it, i must have deleted it . wat can i do m8? cheers h

im sorry i dont know. What Antivirus are you using? I recommend using the free version of AVG. I have it running on all house computers, and it works great. not to mention its free

its shield deluxe 2008, its had good ratings cost me $29 . its a anti virus and anti spywear , ill proberly get it again , one more thing do i need to run a adware i havent got any protection for adware shall i get some? any good free ones ?
.. chreers ...h

not sure if its free, mom put it on her computer and her laptop, but its called Ad-Aware.

Ad-Aware is both a free and paid program...the basic scan and protection is free but you can pay to get the pro version, which has extra features. I personally just use the scanner anyway.

The legit copy of Windows...is it XP Professional or Home edition? If it's professional you might just be able to simply change the license key to the legit one....however, you will NOT be able to use a Windows XP Home key with Windows XP Professional. So if your legit version is Home....there's not too much you can do....

Well there's now a hardware solution to consider. If you know how much data (in GB) you have....you can get yourself a USB hard drive, or a second internal drive large enough to store all your data. Then you could transfer it over when you have re-installed. Keep in mind though that this will not be effective for installed programs. If you have registered your antivirus program you might be able to retrieve your key from the company who made it's support.