Cleaning up a Windows 7 Machine (A story about viruses)

This article is a short story about rescuing and cleaning up a Windows 7 Pro computer. The computer is a Lenovo T410 computer that came with Windows 7 Pro 64-bit that I set up for a person in our church in early 2013. That person left recently after a decade and half of excellent service, leaving the computer behind (as it is the property of the church). The point of this story, then, is more to draw overall conclusions about rescuing a good computer than is to be fix-it article.
 
About 18 months ago, the person said the machine had a pop-up virus and I quickly made short work of the virus with Symantec Endpoint Protection V12 and Malwarebytes. It seemed to run fine. Then he started some web work (small site) with some free tools. Shortly after, his email went nuts because it had been hacked. We changed the email password and allowed Outlook to run overnight collecting (downloading) over 100,000 emails (all “returned to sender”. We cleaned up Outlook and the computer again seemed to be fine.
 
Unfortunately, for this type of client, I have no choice but to make them administrators – otherwise I could never keep up with the calls. Still, giving administrative rights to ordinary users is not a good idea.
 
I picked up the computer in mid-August just passed, fired it up and it worked. I set about to upgrade drivers and Windows and no sooner was I done when IE 11 would not start (“Stopped Working” errors). Quick research suggested viruses, so I scanned again, Symantec picked up several viruses and after a restart, IE 11 worked fine. However, I saw add-ins that I did not want (including some well-known (nefarious) add-ins). I ran Malwarebytes which forced a restart which, in turn, removed the add-ins.
 
All seemed well, except that the battery had been fried from being constantly plugged in for nearly 3 years. I set up a profile for a possible new user, checked things out and turned off the computer. I ordered a battery and because of normal vacation reasons, I did not get the battery until Thursday September 3 (yesterday as I write this). I started up, continued to check out only to find that Word 2007 and Excel 2007 would not run.
 
I did a lot of work in vain. No matter what I tried (including removal and reinstall of Office 2007), I could not get Office applications to run.
 
Both from a feeling of desperation as well as recalling my own advice here on numerous occasions, I decided it would be better to reimage the computer and start over again (Windows, Office, Adobe and IE is fundamentally all it needs). I reached for the big Blue ThinkPad button and the recovery menu came up.
 
There are menu choices for a Quick Restore (Windows 7 Repair Install) and a Full Recovery. I tried the Quick Restore and it failed (hung up, no disk activity). So after enough time, I turned the power off and started back up. This time I selected the Full Recovery and it pointed to a 2013 Rescue and Recovery image that I had forgotten I had made when I set up the computer initially. I ran the Full Recovery and the initial estimate was 6 hours (it was 7:00pm), but 2 and ½ hours later it was restarting. I did a quick checkout, Word ran, Excel ran, I updated drivers, and all looked good. It was late and I was tired so I shut down and came back to it this morning. Updates would not run!
 
I tried the usual suspects, did not succeed and I had to leave for a client. Thinking that the driver updates (including some successful Windows KB updates) perhaps should not have preceded the basic updates, I decided simply to do another Full Recovery. The paint can dry while I am away at a client.
 
I returned and the log in screen awaited. Again all looked fine, but I reached for Windows Updates this time and again updates could not start. The message says to restart, and before I knew it, I had a black screen with CHKDSK running and deleting hundreds of orphaned files. It could have been from turning off Quick Restore – I am not certain, but the disk appears to be fine otherwise. I got the computer started, did some more research, turned Updates OFF, restarted, turned updates back ON and updates started working. The first update was the update to Windows Update. As soon as that was done, updates began to flow - 175 of them. It took 2 hours just to determine what to update, 3 hours to download and install, and another hour to “configure the updates” and start back up (6 hours in total starting at 1:00pm).
 
Now the computer is running. Updates work, Word works, Excel works and all seems well. I deleted old profiles and users and ran Disk Cleanup including “Clean up System Files”.  In Windows 7, when you clean up system files, it may force a black screen clean up or more update configuration on restart. I let this happen and all is well to continue updating drivers, Adobe, Flash and so on.
 
What did I conclude from all this?
 

1. The computers is just over three years old, and is a well-engineered business (commercial) laptop computer. It has a life span of 6 to 8 years. So it is a good candidate to fix and save.
2. So many times I hear “there must be some way to fix this without reimaging”. If I could have reliably fixed this, I would have, but after several hours of work, it seemed wiser, faster and more reliable to recover from a backup or recovery DVD’s. Wasting time is foolish. Starting again with a fresh install in this case was wiser.
3. Always have a way home. Purchase recovery DVD’s when you buy a computer and make a backup when you get it set up. So many times I hear “I cannot reimage – I lost my software and don’t have a Windows DVD or a recovery DVD”. Do not fall into this trap and have a way home. I did and the computer is working.
4. The computer has Intel Centrino Wi-Fi (Windows 10 capable), Intel Graphics (Windows 10 capable), and an Nvidia video component (I need to check this). However the odds are that this machine is a good candidate for upgrading to Windows 10. I learned from my own upgrade that all my software was preserved, so getting the Windows 7 computer in strong pristine shape is a good idea. The machine has sat closed in a dock for 3 years and the keyboard, screen and case all look like new.
5. Going forward then, I will make another Rescue and Recovery backup plus a full Ghost backup onto a USB Hard Drive. Once done, I will consider upgrading to Windows 10 Pro 64-bit. If the video will work, the rest will work as well.
6. If at all possible, make ordinary user to be Standard Users with no install rights. You and I will both live longer.
7. Why did Office 2007 not work? I suspect the web work with free tools introduced add-ins and changed the normal templates. When Malwarebytes deleted the nefarious add-ins, Word could not start and Excel would crash when closing.
8. The easiest way to avoid these problems is not to get viruses and malware. Think about what might happen with free tools and cool web sites.

 
 
Taking good care of your computer will result in more reliable operation for you. In this case, it looks like I can extend the life by upgrading to Windows 10.

So now you will know the rest of this story – An update.
 
This update was posted on September 7, 2015 about a week after the original article.
 
As I noted earlier, I decided this computer would be a good candidate to upgrade to Windows 10. There were some steps to take before proceeding with the upgrade:
 

1. The church has a 5-user license to Office 2013, so I uninstalled Office 2007 and installed Office 2013. That was no problem.
2. I uninstalled Adobe Reader 11 and installed Adobe Reader 2015 (DC) and that worked fine.
3. At this point, I ran a Symantec Ghost backup onto my USB hard drive so that I have a complete backup in case of a disaster.
4. I uninstalled Lenovo Rescue and Recovery, Power Manager, and Access Connections because all these products stop at Windows 7. I uninstalled some smaller and older Lenovo applications that I do not use.
5. I uninstalled Flash, Shockwave, and some older, little used software. Flash is integrated into Windows 8.1 and 10 and not installed separately.
6. I went to the Microsoft download link for Windows 10 and let Windows 10 Pro install. 
   Here is the link for installing Windows 10:
    
   http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
    
   Inevitably, there is some cleanup to do. I repaired Symantec Endpoint Protection (latest version), ran updates, updated the Lenovo Windows 10 software and restarted several times. Video (Intel and Nvidia), Audio (Conexant), Wi-Fi (Intel Centrino), and LAN (Intel) all worked. There are no problem or unidentified drivers. Windows 10 did not have to uninstall any software during the installation, so my initial cleanup was good.
    
   Conclusion:
    
   The T410 laptop was a good candidate for Windows 10 upgrade and the upgrade went well. The results were successful and the computer is operating smoothly.
    
   Lenovo T series commercial laptops are strong machines and this one should go for another two or three years with the most modern software on board.