# What's best way to wipe out SOME info from a PC?



## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

I'm giving a relatively new PC to my brother, but several programs I wish to leave installed for him to use. Other than that, I uninstalled some stuff and deleted using Eraser a bunch of files and other items I don't want him or the kids to find (nothing weird, illegal, or anything like that--just private stuff).

Got some questions for the tech gurus here:


How do I delete all Bookmarks in Firefox and all Favorites in IE?
I deleted all Cookies and the Internet History from FF and IE, but it appears that there is _some _history still present. Is there a certain way to make sure *everything *is gone?
How do I copy all my current Firefox Bookmarks to my new PC?
It looks like my Hotmail account still auto-logs in when this PC boots. What's the best way to delete this entire thing altogether?
I think that's all for now. Any other tips anyone can give, feel free to share them.

Thanks


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## jerry downing (Mar 7, 2004)

Reformat the drive and then re-install the software that you wish to keep.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

I could tell you some of that in SeaMonkey or Opera, but not FF or IE.

Mozilla might use a similar structure though:

Windows 7:

C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\SeaMonkey\Profiles\

After that will be an alphanumeric identifier for each profile.

In that directory you'd be looking for abook.mab, history.mab, signons.sqlite and signons2.txt 

Those can be transferred to another PC in a profile under the same directory tree.

Might be easier and more effective though to delete and reinstall FF.


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## klang (Oct 14, 2003)

Assuming you have all the software, I would format the hard drive and reinstall everything. The result will be like a brand new machine.


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## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

jerry downing said:


> Reformat the drive and then re-install the software that you wish to keep.


Believe me, I know that's the easiest way. However, I don't have a lot of the software of many of the programs, which is why I wanted to know how to delete certain things.


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## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

SayWhat? said:


> I could tell you some of that in SeaMonkey or Opera, but not FF or IE.
> 
> Mozilla might use a similar structure though:
> 
> ...


Dummy me just remembered how to backup my FF Bookmarks, so that question is now moot.


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## HDJulie (Aug 10, 2008)

Lord Vader said:


> I'm giving a relatively new PC to my brother, but several programs I wish to leave installed for him to use. Other than that, I uninstalled some stuff and deleted using Eraser a bunch of files and other items I don't want him or the kids to find (nothing weird, illegal, or anything like that--just private stuff).
> 
> Got some questions for the tech gurus here:
> 
> ...


If this is a Windows 7 machine (or Vista) then the IE bookmarks are in c:\user\"username"\favorites I believe

I'm not at home & have IE 7 here at work but on IE 7 to get rid of the pre-filled out forms go to Tools->Internet Options->Content. It's the AutoComplete stuff. I think it is in the same place on IE8.


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## Marlin Guy (Apr 8, 2009)

Create an alternative account with Admin rights.
Log on as the new user.
Delete the previous account and choose to delete the associated files and settings.
Open the Control Panel and under Folder Options, show hidden files and folders.
Navigate to C:\Users\_previous account name_ and delete any remaining files and folders.

Turn off System Restore, reboot, and turn it back on.

Download and run CCleaner and do a default cleanup.

This is not the DOD method, but it's good enough for most folks.
If you want complete assurance that nothing can be recovered, then you'll have to use a utility that scrubs free space by doing multiple passes of reads and writes. This way, recovery software cannot get it back.


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