Hi everyone!

Can anyone help me with a pc query?

This is my question?

How do I delete all my stuff, ie favourites, programmes websites entered etc from an old pc that I want to sell. There's nothing dodgy on any of the websites! before anyone asks. it's just that it's personal and some of it is banking etc and I really don't want them left on there. is there anything I can do to wipe clean my browser and faves on my old pc?

many thanks!

Also how much do you think I should ask for a Windows 95 pc with printer and three free print cartridges (one of them colour)? any ideas or should I just trash it in the back garden. it seems a shame to dump it as it served me perfectly well I just couldn't get broadband on it so it made internet access slower. or does anyone know of any organsiations that would welcome a free pc?

Any help on any of the above will be gratefully received! Thanks!

How do I delete all my stuff, ie favourites, programmes websites entered

There's more than one way of doing it, but I forget which buttons to click on Win95 to get to the relevant screen. But you can still do it by opening your favourites, then right mouse click on each one and choose 'delete'. you can open your history and do the same thing there, right click on each day/week's folder and choose delete.

Thanks SF! I have now managed to delete most of the files and probably wiped out a few I needed. in fact I'm sure I have as I can't get on the internet on my old machine any more! Oh well ... still worth £20 of anyone's hard earned i reckon!

Oh I don't know Dolores, I've seen computers like yours with windows 95 on, a printer with some cartridges, and the ability to get on line in our local paper with the word excellent computer for beginner, for around £100.

Go for it and give yourself a night out with the profits:D

Dol, are you using Windows 95? Are you proposing to sell you computer as is? You could always wipe the hard drive and reinstall windows if security is a major problem. Otherwise there are various utilities that might help http://www.ccleaner.com/ otherwise known as crapcleaner gets rid of some stuff and is free.

If you're really worried about the implicatons on passing on a used computer, you would need to look at the registry entires, and although I can manage my own I wouldn't be confident about deleting yours (in case you sue me :) ) so if it's a major issue, I'd hang on until the likes of Blink puts you in the picture. Blinky?

Sfanny, absolutely right, but the history isn't the only place in which your internet usage is stored. One of the primary sources of information can be found in index.dat. Depending on what version of windows you are using this can be in a number of places. You can delete by editting autoexec.bat if your version of windows allows it.

Thankyou Nox i am recycling an older computer for the children. I want to up grade the USB1.0 I to USB 2.0 is this a DIY job? Do I need to upgrade the processor?
Thankyou for the file clearing advice.
I was going to do system restore before I gave it to them.

Sfanny, absolutely right, but the history isn't the only place in which your internet usage is stored. One of the primary sources of information can be found in index.dat. Depending on what version of windows you are using this can be in a number of places. You can delete by editting autoexec.bat if your version of windows allows it.

Don't quite follow Nox. What is autoexec.bat, how would you edit it, and if the result was the removal of this index.dat would that stop the computer working?

Thankyou Nox i am recycling an older computer for the children. Thankyou for the file clearing advice.
I was going to do system restore before I gave it to them.We did exactly the same thing Sheoque and (someone here Can't remember who) advised me to just wipe it by reloading the original system start up disks, it certainly seems to have cleaned it up pretty well and the children report that it runs their games much faster now.

In answer to your question Sfanny, index.dat is a file that sits somewhere on your PC. Sometimes it has several copies depending on your version of windows. It stores all the information about what sites you have visited. The problem is because it's always running it's impossible to delte from Windows, so it has to be deleted from DOS. There's a file that loads when you start your PC called autoexec.bat. You can see what's in it by typing sysedit in the start/run box.

I've added a few lines to mine to delete all my cookies, temporary files and index dat on startup. A fresh version of index.dat will always reappear but without your internet history inside it, somewhere in your windows environment so you can't actually do any harm by deleting it. However, although I've got it working on my PC, it does involve deleting stuff from DOS, so I'm not really confident enough to say it works for every system, and I'd be worried that something awful would happen to your PC if I gave you duff information!

I can arrange for my computer to remove all internet history on startup. I then link in on favourites I don't do this with my daughters lap top as I don't keep it attached to phone for long.
Am waiting for third tower, in as many months as first one insurance sent was from centrex very nice technical stuff but it didn't match my keyboard!! and it was too technical, The CD paly program was for a youth not a me! just sent next one back to Evesham vale as it didn't burn to disk and corrupted files...wouldn't mind but guy there said original computer from Medion I bought at aldi last year was crap well it worked really well and meant the study was also a room we could play music and watch TV via computer with two screens! Evesham Vale after sales was a big dissapointment I phoned customer services to complain was referred to technical in over two weeks I never ever got above 16 on the technical help line...and I just don't have 20+ minutes to wait and I actually don't have the ability either.
Any recommendations for next new tower the insurance gave me £1200 budget for new tower though the Aldi computer cost £800 and I went to evesham suggesting a £900 budget and the technical guy reckons I bought my tower as new from the refurbished stock it cost £741.......I wanted it to be quiet two DVD/CD drives so I can just paly a music disc with out saving it first and I can save work to another disc at same time, good media as I am doing lots of photo work for life story books for children in public care, and may try to do same with digital cam in future, Good gaming capability for in three years time as I live in hope.....I have been wanting to build a web site and have waited over two years for the name I wanted to become available again which it did a few months ago so that was another requirment and enough 'juice ' to last 5 years, prefably an AMD 64 with 3000+ processor.
I have written to evesham suggesting prople tick there requirements and the computer is matched what i have noticed is when you are a grey they will try to sell you stock thats on the way out as both PC world tand evesham tried so hard to convince me I needed one dvd drive a celeron processor no front USB ports I had a list of what i wantede and the evesham technical man said I could have done better from them on the insurance budget????
Not much good with the technical now just know that got to get some gear is as i make a wee change of direction in work and life.