"Afterwards you should simply take more care about what you're installing on you 'puter, and that it is properly protected by firewall and virus scanner."
Virus scanner is a routine must, I have some friends that think they're intrusive, but I never use the computer without one actively guarding it.
I use the resident XP firewall for the most part.
But, it has been my note, that there are lots of games out there, and some applications too, that are "supposedly" safe, and "supposedly" properly made
But what the user occasionally gets, is a program that insists (sometimes without even so much as a by your leave), that goes and adjusts settings, adjusts defaults, and messes with hardware.
I know, I've seen it.
Games, the list could be a long one. But just because it's popular and well thought of, doesn't mean it will be unintrusive on install.
Quicktime is my favourite to hate. It's needed to view a lot of videos online, but the second you install it, you can pretty much consider most of your settings messed up.
I avoid Quicktime like the plague. The occasional video on a web page, is just not good enough reason for installing Quick crap.
I usually use more applications than games.
Some install unintrusively, some not so unintrusively. I't often hard to tell though which result you got.
I'll wager more computer issues are created by new fancy graphically intense 3d games, than from application.
But in the end, I have it down to a science now. I can have the system formatted and back in operation in about 2 hours.
Beats spending 2 hours trying to track down a mysterious effect (and potentially not finding anything).
As we speak, I have loaded the AV, hardware specific updates and all the routine updates as well as my Firefox Browser.
Played 3 games now, and still no sign of what was making the program crash on my first usage on day one.
Re: Formatting benefits
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