Big improvment so far to my PC.

[Jonnin]

The reformat disks on cheaper computers are not worth it unless you are in a very bad way.  They re-install all the spyware and junkware and adware that come on those machines (oo, gee thanks for the 20 gig 10 day trial of microsoft office...)    and set you up with antique drivers that have to be replaced right away and then you need about 4 days worth of downloading window's updates.    Mirror your drive every few months, and you can *greatly* reduce your losses and the pain of going back a few weeks is minor compared to a total do-over from nothing.    And even a regular, normal windows installer is much better than the rescue disk --- it does not put on the junk at least.  

 

That said, yes HP does the rescue partition, at least on its low end line of best-buy type computers. 

Edited November 27, 2013 by Jonnin

[enfield]

I've used Iolo System Mechanic for years, along with AVG to keep my Windows machines clean and running as well as a Windows machine can.

[K191145]

Well whatever I did has worked so far, I tested Ad-Aware by pasting a code on note pad and saving it to command.com. When I hit save an Ad-Aware quarentine notice immediatly poped up and the file never got saved. That test is supposably safe, not a real virus but Ad-Aware stopped it in less than a second. Deleating all those adware and mylware files the other day and uninstalling Kaspersky has increased my speed quite a bit. I feel like I have semi-auto now instead of a muzzle loader.