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How-To Geek Forums / Windows 7

Whats this?

(14 posts)
  • Started 6 months ago by Meghan
  • Latest reply from Lighthouse
  • Topic Viewed 411 times

Meghan
Posts: 19

I'm deleting stuff off my hard drive, and theres a string of programs, i dont know if i need them or what. publisher microsoft corp, and its called Microsoft Visual + + 2005 Redistributable. Do i need these?

Posted 6 months ago #
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Xhi
Xhi
Posts: 6298

Yes you probably need that for one or more of your programs to run.

I would not recommend deleting random stuff that you have no specific idea what it is. Unless you are running out of disk space deleting programs will not improve anything, unless they are malware.

Posted 6 months ago #
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Lighthouse
Lighthouse
Posts: 13598

Anything that is in a Temp folder, is safe to delete.
As to the rest, at least copy them off to somewhere else (USB thumbdrive etc) before you delete them. You never know.

Posted 6 months ago #
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Meghan
Posts: 19

yes, thats the problem Xhi, the comp keeps telling me that i am running out of space on my recovery D drive....but when it promts me to empty my recycle bin, theres nothin in it to empty. i think i must have downloaded some virus, and its messing up all sorts of stuff. i dont have the $$$ to bring it in somewhere, and as i'm sure uguys can tell, im not very computer savvy. any tips?

Posted 6 months ago #
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Lighthouse
Lighthouse
Posts: 13598

Yep. Your recovery partition should only contain your recovery files. Obviously something has been putting other stuff in there. Can you sort your files and folders by date in there.That may give us a clue.

Posted 6 months ago #
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Meghan
Posts: 19

ok cool, let me sort everything and ill post what i see

Posted 6 months ago #
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Meghan
Posts: 19

so i started poking around, looking at the dates and such like you said, and when i opened up the recovery d drive, it had a folder called n360 backup...and that folder has a shitton of other folders numbered from zero to 9,then a to d....then when i open these folders, it looks like they are all filed with back up files for like itunes, houdini, stuff like that. im afraid to just start deleting all of this cause i dont want to screw my comp up, and im wondering where these are coming from and why is my system backing the same files up over and over?

Posted 6 months ago #
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Lighthouse
Lighthouse
Posts: 13598

At a guess I would say those are Norton 360 files. Do you have that installed ?

Posted 6 months ago #
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Meghan
Posts: 19

haha, yea, youre right, but y the same like 5 files over and over?

Posted 6 months ago #
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Lighthouse
Lighthouse
Posts: 13598

Because it is backing up to a schedule. Open Norton 360, and change the location (and schedule if you wish) for the backups. An external drive is best.

Posted 6 months ago #
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Meghan
Posts: 19

so this isn't some sort of virus? are you sure? its very odd, because every single folder i open, it is the same thing, asking me if i want to save or run houdini or other music downloading programs that ive tried to delete off of my hard drive, but is obviously still there somewhere and i think it is what is causing these issues- i just dont know where to look or how to get it totally off of my hard drive...

Posted 6 months ago #
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Lighthouse
Lighthouse
Posts: 13598

I don't think it is, but run this (deep scan)
http://www.filehippo.com/downl.....i_malware/
And then this,
http://www.filehippo.com/downl.....tispyware/

Posted 6 months ago #
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MrCmonkeeDo
Posts: 8

JMO...uninstall Norton360. You'll recover a lot of disk space and probably performance. Not saying Norton doesn't do a great job but in most cases it is overkill on the average joe's pc. If i was running an office network I'd probably want Norton or the like; but for my home pc, no thanks. I use COMODO (it does everything i need and just a little bit more for free) but there are several others that do what Norton360 purports, without the bloat.

Posted 6 months ago #
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Lighthouse
Lighthouse
Posts: 13598

Windows Firewall is perfectly good at it's job. So I would not recommend Comodo.
And with MSE as an A/V (uses little resources)
http://www.microsoft.com/secur.....y/mse.aspx
That's if you want to uninstall Norton.
https://www-secure.symantec.com/norton-support/jsp/help-solutions.jsp?docid=20080710133834EN&product=home&pvid=f-home&version=1&lg=en&ct=us

Posted 6 months ago #
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