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Some softwares claim to set the file size to zero after the wiping is done. Maybe that is what Fortiscue is suggesting. And I think Sdelete by Sysinternals leaves the files full of ZZZs, but doesn't resize them to zero bytes. Pretty sure of that but I would have to check again to be 100 percent.

Quite right, Augeas, and forgive me for beating this dead horse. But for the dear reader who may chance upon this mendacious topic in the future, consider: - All we really know about the situation is what BrianH123 wrote. That could be wrong. - BrianH123 may know only what his friend told him. Which could be wrong. - Neither the true behavior of CCleaner nor the motivation of the "friend" that matters a whit. - If the company policy says do not install software, and you do anyway, you take your chances. The kindest and most effective policy would what amcgall suggested, lock the computers so that the employee can not tinker with them.

hi, pitrpaulus As near as you can get to deleting you account is to go back and delete the contents of each of your posts (forum software says you have 6, ?? maybe not), then change the data in your profile including entering a different email address. I do not know what data are stored on Piriforms servers, but that will prevent most mere mortals from starting here and finding you. Much like what was said in your earlier post: http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=45191

For me the question is what to spend, time or money. No brainer here, I have enough of the former, not much of the latter. I am logged on here using Puppy Linux running from a USB stick. . . a CD or DVD will work fine. Without any extra effort, Puppy shows all attached drives and partitions, even the hidden partition where Acronis stores it backup images (invisible to windows file managers). Just did a search with StartPage Search engine for "linux file recovery software". A few promising options found, including TestDisk data recovery and SystemRescueCD. I would try some of these options before spending much money. Sadly, I cannot offer any specific instruction, the little experience I have would not be relevant. But try it, you have little to lose but a couple of CDs and some time Do post back how you work it out.

Also, if you use a Linux variety that runs in RAM, you can unplug the media (USB stick or CD/DVD) you booted from and plug in another to save your files. That's handy if you only have one USB port. Puppy Linux runs in RAM and will load up from a USB stick or a CD. Puppy ver. 6.3 is recent, and runs well, but I have never used it it copy files to a CD/DVD. Works great copying to USB stick. Read about it: http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=09189 download it http://bkhome.org/news/?viewDetailed=00293 Be careful, Linux OSs do not respect windows restrictions, will delete or copy things that windows would have locked. Edited in an attempt to achieve clarity & brevity. Guess ya just have to pick one or the other.

Yep, but Defraggler really helped me Recuva.

Microsoft is selling a lot of MACs. Not hamburgers.

Thanks mta. Hazelnut, I had read that, thanks. In your first link it says also: "We will also push a software update starting on November 24 that will check for the certificate, and if detected remove it." So I'll just tell'em to do a thorough checkup. Seems like Dell should do more in the way of remediation than just remove the certificate. If the computer is gummed up by their mistake, they should fix it completely.

Thanks, hazelnut. I will notify the folks I know who own newer Dells.

Thanks, Hazelnut. Got it.

That is good news. From that MBAM link in post 20, it appears that some files had to be added to get MBAM to run on the "older" system. Just wondering, what would happen if you installed the fix, then MBAM, THEN tried Qupzilla? That is a lot of tinkering, and there is no real reason to think it would make Qupzilla work, but just wondering.

Yep. He had a really good record for recovering data. More importantly imho, he was one of the bright spots on these forums, always a positive word to say. Maybe he will come back. Hope so.

Tried to look into the issue, didn't find much, xp is not widely used these days. Some thoughts: I wouldn't run winxp at all unless I was certain that I had it locked down to prevent malware. Maybe you should install sp3 for win xp? Also, uninstalling internet explorer may cripple winxp. Also, I would install all the updates issued before July 14, 2015 (the last security update) then turn updates off. Maybe try the portable apps version from here: Whichever version you use, make sure all the files, folders, etc are in one "parent" folder. http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/qupzilla-portable I found a Qupzilla FAQ, didn't tell me a thing but here it is. Didn't find a forum as such. https://github.com/QupZilla/qupzilla/wiki/FAQ Found a Wilders Forum topic, less than a month old: http://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/qupzilla-new-browser-version-released.381036/ These sites suggest maybe its an issue with an older processor. https://forums.malwarebytes.org/index.php?/topic/170731-0xc000001d-error-failed-to-initialize/ http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2442407/google-installer-encountered-error-0xc000001d.html http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f50/malwarebytes-error-0xc000001d-1019058.html That last link (techsupportforum) has a download. I used 7zip to extract it (not install it), and it has a bunch of .dlls apparently needed by MBAM to run. These .dlls are present on this machine but are NOT the same versions.

Don't know much, but I am running the portable version in a sandbox here, win xp sp3, with no problems. Used the zip file, not the paf file, just unzipped it into its own folder and ran the exe. Its here: http://www.qupzilla.com/download#windows

First off, connecting to the 'net without malware protection is a truly bad idea. If you get tagged by one of those malwares that alters the boot code, you can be infected and never know it. May already be, actually. Yes there are stronger cleaners. There are softwares which restrict net access, but they are not cleaners. There are softwares which restrict other softwares from running, they are not cleaners either. Virtual machine, suggested by mta, is a good idea. Alternatively, if you just want to delete your 'net history, try this. Use Sandboxie, run a portable version of your favorite browser in a sandbox, delete the sandbox each time you log off. Some protection, but not absolute. Just yesterday I managed somehow to produce a sandboxed folder that wouldn't delete. File properties showed 1 folder no files, but that was not true, it had many files in it, it was the folder for Qupzilla in a sandbox. Tried Unlocker, Eraser, Pocket Killbox. Wouldn't delete. Fell back to one of those softwares referred to by mta above as ". . . one of those programs that 'freezes' the PC . . .". Folder gone after a restart.

About the Qupzilla bookmarks, I haven't found an easy way to sort them either. Annoying, but not a deal breaker imho, maybe they'll fix that soon.

SRWare Iron works very well here on xp. Qupzilla does also. Qupzilla seems to work a tiny bit faster, not noticeable really, unless you are paying close attention. Very pleased to find 2 nice alternatives to IE and Firefox. Thanks for all the feedback.

Welcome to the forum, Droyk. This and your other post, here: http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=32310&page=260#entry268258 should help on the way to making entries for Vivaldi. Hope so. Thanks for the effort.

Be careful, Tas, that you're not so far gone so mellow that you call the support guy Hazelnut.

On here, seamonkey 2.38 freezes with one continuous BIOS beep. Firefox does too, sometimes. Have to power down and restart. No pattern to the occurence, sometimes happens in 2 hours, sometimes not for 2 or 3 days. Not sure if it is the browser or a pending hardware failure, suspect the latter. >sigh<

"gb "Gigabytes" of RAM and light on resources." Okaaayyy, then. Maybe mb of RAM. duhhh. Anyhow, whats a few bytes among friends. I'm gettin too old for this.

I have had at least 2 involuntary restarts which I firmly believe were attempts by malware to install itself. Both from sites which should have been harmless. Oddly, never have had a problem with sites which should be a bit dodgy. if old HAL The Haunted here locks up, at worst I would just have to restart An explanation is in order, since xp and Powershadow are now ancient history in the world of computers. Powershadow somehow runs your actual OS in a "shadowed" mode that is indistinguishable from "normal" operation. When you restart, any changes to a shadowed volume (partition) are gone. Any changes; I have really checked that out. I think the OS runs on an unused portion of the HDD, but cannot for the life of me find any evidence to support that. If I got a malware of some sort, it might indeed begin its dirty work immediately. But it would not survive a restart. That's why the AV softwares are installed, to detect that if it happens. If something pops a warning, just restart the computer. Further, there are several "light virtualization" softwares which do much the same thing on newer OSs. The only one I have tried is Returnil, popularized here by DennisD, and it works very well. The others I won't name, haven't tried them. Other members have tried them, I think. I don't think this approach would help with newer malwares which change the really low levels of the bootup code, but that doesn't apply on this xp setup. I have sort of rattled on about this, but for sure a backup regimen must be part of a security procedure, and imho a light virtualization software should be also.

Wow, that was fast.

Trying SRWare Iron portable out right now. It is also fast, is maybe not quite as configurable (or maybe i just don't know how yet) and also is light on resources, uses about 5 to 7 gb RAM and 15 to 20 percent of available CPU. About QupZilla, it was sort of glitchy on youtube. I kept having to refresh the page and/or delete the whole history to get things to play. also true about the bookmarks, what a pain. Looks like maybe Iron won this round, but the game is still on. For what it's worth, I always run browsers in the sandbox, saves a lot of issues with leftover junk. Edit 01 nov 15: This SRWare browser is pretty good, imho. Still trying it.

Thanks, Andavari. Good for you, saving your mom that money. That's what it's all about, isn't it, helping folks who don't have the time to dig through all the hype? I tried an earlier version of SRWare Iron, didn't make very complete notes, only that it "works odd". No clue what that meant, should have recorded more detail. I will try it again soon, both the installed and the portable versions. Downloading them now. I have been using Firefox v-36.0.4, all recent firefoxes too slow, but 3604 has recently started popping an invalid certificate for lots of sites. It loads them anyway, but I have no idea what that warning means so want to get rid of it. Fwiw, this Qupzilla is the fastest I have seen so far, if memory serves. But that is based on a very cursory test.