I wrote earlier about my trials fixing my father’s hard drive. Sadly, it died again a day after I fixed it. We re-installed Windows on a new drive. I ran into all kinds of difficulties that I had never encountered before. Herewith, some advice and pointers for possible problems you may encounter:

• Don’t EVER install Windows XP while connected directly to the internet. I’m behind a router at home, so I didn’t even think about it at my father’s house until it was too late. As Windows loaded for the first time, I noticed eight worms/spyware/viruses installed. The average lifetime of an Allied soldier invading Normandy on D-Day was seven seconds (I was told this, feel free to correct me if that’s incorrect); it appears an internet-connected Windows XP fairs no better.
• To change folder permissions in Windows XP Home, run in safe mode. This is a neat little IT admin nugget — my fellow nerds at my employer were impressed with this new knowledge. The Security tab just magically appears in Folder Properties. Getting his old data was actually pretty easy once I had done this: everything he cared about was in My Documents – except his .pst file for Outlook and his bookmarks. I detest the shackles imposed on me by My Documents, but I’m glad he didn’t. Here’s a note for all you non-nerds: keep all your data in My Documents.
• If your Outlook Address Book acts all weird, remove it and re-add it.

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