I agree with Raven here, I would not be taking a Celeron computer in for repair. That might well cost half the price of a new computer. You don't have a friend, neighbour or relative who might loan you their Windows XP CD? Explain to them that you do not need the license number as your license sticker on the side of the computer case is the one you would enter as you install XP. That sticker number is tied to the motherboard in your computer. (I suspect that if you have XP Home then you would need an XP Home CD) Recovery disks are bought at the time of the computer purchase. Or this is more often just a separate partition on your hard drive and the buyer should create a set of recovery disks. This includes all the 'free' extras the computer maker adds on. The XP CD is just that, a copy of Windows XP with nothing added As a side note you may want to suggest to Dad that he creates a set of recovery disks for his machine in case he runs into problems too at some future point.

I think someone mentioned that what you posted, the registry change wasn't necessarily bad but could be from a program being removed. I wonder if there is a way to find out if you were actually infected with something? This is why I suggested the Panda scan because it would have told you. btw, make sure you do windows updates. I personally would get rid of Mcafee. I know you paid for it but it's a resource hog. For backups I have multiple hard drives, they are cheap. I have an external enclosure that holds 2 drives. I have a computer running windows XP, installed the Maxtor Maxblast program and use that to back up to the larger drives. As far as I know, they don't have a program (Maxtor) like this for Vista but I could be wrong. What it will do is back it up as files verses a file that you have to unpack. If you back up your C drive, you will see every folder on the C drive in your backup.

I really like laser printers unless you do color, but if you do a lot they're still cheaper and less hassle than inkjets. I like the space savings of an all-in-one and looked at one at Target. I'm curious about the Kodak printers. They're comparable in price to HP but the ink is much cheaper than others. That's one of their advertisements. Don't know anyone personally who has one but the reviews I've read have been favorable. I have a Brother HP2040 laser and it's great, but of course it's black only. I also have an old Epson inkjet that I bought for $3 at a garage sale but it's not working right - ink dried up from non-use. I go in streaks where I'll print 100 sheets or more in a couple days, then won't print anything for 4 or 5 months. Bought the laser right when I was required to do a lot of printing for work but that changed shortly after I got the printer! But I don't regret getting it. I still have need for faxing on occasion so I would want the fax capability in it, and I think the copier function would be handy. I usually use a scanner and printer for quick copies. And use my XP unit for faxing from the computer on occasion or receiving if need be and I have a fax machine for sending too. Way more than you wanted to know, huh? LOL I'll say this about HP. Generally they're good quality but they have big issues with drivers and software. They can really make a mess out of a machine when things go wrong. I've had to straighten out a lot of units and HP is far more problematic in this regard than others. However, when they work properly they're usually pretty good units. But from my experiences I'd personally avoid them. I'd rather work on their problems when I'm billing for it rather than my own time.

Yes. I'm comforted by the others who measured so much that they memorized the numbers. Sometimes I would ask if contractors if they were sure they had measured correctly, especially when they were off from my own numbers. I used to measure, re-measure, re-remeasure, and re-re-measure. My best friend would call me up and ask if she'd interrupted my measuring. At random times of the day I would suddenly have new ideas on layouts, and I'd HAVE to draw, re-draw, and re-re draw everything. I would sit in meetings at work and calculate the possible cabinet dimensions or work up budget figures. Luckilly I work with numbers and financials so no one realized I wasn't taking notes at the meeting, I had graph paper and tracing paper, samples, etc. I visited dozens of showrooms and had 2-3 contingency plans for every decision. Guess what, it all paid off in the end and I love the result.