You did not read my reply carefully enough. I said my mother could not possibly follow such arcane instructions. I can follow them perfectly well, and have in fact edited the Registry on my Windows machines numerous times. I've been into computers for thirty years, wrote my first program in Fortran on punch cards for a PDP-8, bought my first MS-DOS system in 1985, been running Windows since Version 2.0, so I know well enough how to clean up an infestation of spyware and viruses.
However, I no longer choose to do so, as my time is now valuable enough that the opportunity cost of spending an afternoon weeding out an infested Windows box is actually less than the cost of throwing it in a dumpster and buying a new machine. Any price differential between Macintosh and Windows machines vanishes in the first month of ownership, and it astonishes me that supposedly profit-oriented businesses do not realize this fact.
I have concluded that Bill Gates and his minions produce insecure, unreliable, frail, time-wasting garbage. My Windows 2000 system was the high-water mark of Redmond crapware, and it has gathered dust since I got a Mac G5. I'll not buy another Microsoft piece of $#!t as long as I live.
-ccm
presumablely you help her clean her machine.
But even if you bought her a new windows machine, you would still need these windows tools to keep it clean. I cleaned my uncle's machine during a party.
launch spy sweeper and let it run for an HOUR etc,
But it is understandable if you want to buy her a mac if you can afford it....
VOTE!