Restore or not to restore......

Is there a bootable ghosting cd with the Dell, or is it a hidden image partition?

The first thing that I do when I acquire a new PC is to wiped everything out, and use my own garbage. Are you talking about a factory OS? Factory OS should never be used in a business application. I have had nothing but trouble when dealing with proprietary factory applications and operating systems.

Setting the restore point to a previous day, and then not being able to set up new users, is a very interesting problem. We can wrap our heads around this one for a week or two - or we can wipe the stupid thing out after backing up any vital data. Personally, I would go with option number 2.

How much time should we devote to this crap?

No user accounts allowed. Noone can use this machine!

Turn it on, leave it alone, and send it to therapy to get it out of it's bipolar manic depressive hysteria.

If that fails, take two aspirins and call me in the morning.

But... if you are already having problems, I would backup any data on it, wipe the system completely, and start over with it.

If you can use the administrator account your problems are solved....(sort of).

On the off chance, try logging on as another user.

If that doesn't do anything for you.....It is coming up to a New Year, so a fresh start is allways good, provided your not going to lose data! Once you do get your data, clean the system off as some of the other posts suggest....(you never know what's on a used PC. Nearly new or not)

Unless it is brand new, even then I check every thing. I keep CD'S I have made with drivers and needed programs. I use a registered program to clean the drive (it is DOD compliant) I work for a bank. Then I partition the drive to what I need, at least two partitions. One for the O/S and the other for data. I have been at too many jobs where bad stuff was left on drives and even after a restore or a formate the virus or back door trojan came back. KIS keep it simple, any donated computer are a risk, any new computers that do not act as new computers are a risk. If it does not do the same thing as all the other new computers blow it away.