The "Virus" & "Format" juggernaut

Almost the every other day, we hear phrases like "Hey dude, my PC is infected by virus" and immediately follow up the ritual of format, reinstall windows. The two words "virus" & “format hard disk “have become popular with the advent of wide acceptance of Windows XP particularly. The previous versions didn't seem to suffer that much as we do it now.

Let’s now go back into past and explore its roots cause. With Windows 98, arguably the most well maintained and satisfactory OS ever to roll out of Microsoft’s mansion, the need was felt for enterprise OS capable of networking & resolve most of the plug & play issues that troubled 98. XP was touted as the most revolutionary product in this regard. Microsoft gave enormous powers and features to XP you could ever imagine. What it overlooked however, was the equal balance and maintenance issues that seemed forever to plague and haunt XP till date.

We have seen the consequences. Immediate launching of Service Packs 1 & 2 with 3 latest in line, and numerous security updates to plug the security lapses or vulnerabilities. Alas, if developers could have seen the obvious truth that “Increased complexity in OS brings in greater need for maintenance”; perhaps we wouldn't have suffered so long for that.

Greater loopholes became natural harvesting spots for hackers all over the world to tinker with Windows XP, paralyzing it every other day. When developers released one patch, ten new vulnerabilities were found and exploits were made known to hacks even before patches were issued. XP becomes too large & too complex to handle. Now, even a good antivirus isn't sufficient alone. We need complete suites comprising of Anti-spyware, Anti-Ad ware, Privacy Protectors, Firewall and Antivirus with "background monitoring on" all rolled into one. Viruses, worms, Trojan horses, rootkit, Phishing sites, Malware, spam became the consumer's worst nightmare.

Consequently, background monitoring tools ate up RAM, & bigger hard drive partitions became necessary with this effect. The casual user, with low budget and less RAM thus is left with the obvious choice --- formatting HDD. It appears to him that instead of seeing regular slowdown and BSOD (Blue screen of death) screen, perhaps formatting is the perfect answer. A costly but nevertheless an effective way to put an end to the constant woes already being faced by him.

One thing that Microsoft misunderstood was it would gather more brownie points and trust with its consumers by making difficult to copy XP to stop piracy. Time has showed that that thinking has largely failed because almost the 2/3 of its consumer base particularly in developing countries like India, China etc. have been accustomed to running pirated copies of Windows for last 20 years. Hence, majority of consumers don't even get the required product support as the online verification process renders their registration keys as invalid. One of the prime reasons that "Format" juggernaut is persisting till date with XP. Of course, losing customer base is the obvious effect in this regard.

Worse still have been the victims of the XP users who had unknowingly burned their CD's with "infected" pirated copies. Every time the format & reinstall XP, the problem obviously resurfaces after 2-3 days. Some users I know have the history of formatting HDD 2-3 times in a single day!!! It also proves bad implications on HDD lifespan as regular & frequent formatting damages the clusters and leads to increase in bad sectors.

So, how to work around this problem?? Well some simple rules and discipline following can save your face of data loss each time the problem arises.

Following are the tips which will help you to minimize the ugly consequences faced -->

1. Backup your critical data. Not only in CD's/DVD's but online storage and removable media such as pen drives/external HDD etc. For online storage smoother experience, it would be worthwhile to invest in Broadband connection.

2. Organize your memorabilia (music, video, movies, and pictures) in DVD’s & ipods. It releases a huge space in HDD for applications. Technically they amount to junk material to the HDD.

3. For a long term benefit, it would be advisable to purchase licensed XP copy for regular updates. If you have pirated copy, manually download & install the security updates. Disable the "Windows Genuine advantage" tool before attempting it though (for the pirated copy).

4. If you are a new user and don't aim to use computer very frequently, it would be better to invest in a laptop. Several good options are available at moderate prices. Laptops apart from their portability advantage also carry licensed copies of Windows OS which automatically solves the regular update problem & authentication issues.

5. Download a complete internet security suite such as Avast or Kaspersky. They are fast and don't eat much RAM. Norton & MacAfee typically require more RAM to operate smoothly. Run a full system scan at least once a week.

6. Insist on using XP for at least 3-4 years. Vista needs much more mending tasks to be completed and furthermore software support for 64-bit computing is very nascent and practically insignificant compared to widespread 32-bit computing platform. For getting Vista look & feel in XP any Vista Transformation pack is sufficient. Beware though as it amounts to eating up the precious RAM.

7. Install 2 operating systems on PC on different partitions. It allows your workflow not to be hampered and also provides a "second line of defense" in case one partition is infected then second OS can take over & run the normal Antivirus scan.

8. If formatting need does arises, format only the partition infected and leave others as they are. No need to format them also. Store critical data in non OS installed partitions in this regard.

With these simple and straightforward tips, I'm sure you can combat this menacing problem of Virus & Format with more confidence.

Wish you all the very best in smooth computing.............