Create an additional administrative account, with a complex password (but don't lose it). You will use this to effect repairs if malware infects your main profile. (Most Win6.x malware is confined to the user profile and C:\ProgramData folders to avoid the UAC prompt).

Download the Hosts file from http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm, which will protect you from all kinds of threats (and it hides a buttload of advertising, too).

My roommate came home back in '93 with a bootleg copy of the original game. After we installed it, we were concerned about "going to HELL," so we called id Software.

"Hi, we're calling because someone gave us a bootleg copy of Doom...
"And...?"
"We need the address, so we can send a check... how much do we owe you?"

The person on the phone, after recovering from their shock, gave us the address, and told us to make sure to include OUR mailing address with the check.

A few weeks later, we received a boxed copy of Doom, and a bunch of other cool swag.

...bought and installed in desktops & laptops over the last decade, and what I've learned is to buy Seagate drives. I have seen way fewer defects and first-year failures on Seagate than WD, and I was happy to see Maxtor go away.

soooo glad I just ordered a new 2012 hemi Charger.

...but, if we're going to reinstall anyway, why not drop fifty bucks on a NEW drive? When I do a rebuild for a customer, they get a new drive... or I don't take the job.

I would be shocked if Cisco ever produces a Linksys router that is worth the money, IPv6 or not. The hundreds I've seen in the field are so unreliable that I'd never buy one, and I replace one or two more every week. Linksys is the reason I carry two Netgear or Dlink wireless routers in the car.
Sure, I do see other brands fail after a year or two, but I've seen more brand new defective Linksys routers than I have Netgear routers that dies of old age.

I just tried it with a Sudoku puzzle of "Evil" difficulty, and my iPhone 3gs solved it in about five seconds.
I grew up on Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein, but this is truly science fiction.

I'm filling in on a Help Desk right now, so the number is probably north of 400.

"Windows/Office/IE monoculture is disappearing faster than equatorial glaciers..."
Do you actually work in corporate IT? Windows XP and IE6/7 dominate. Apple has little hope of taking hold in anything bigger than the art department at Comcast, and Linux is what the geekiest artist-type there uses at home.

I'm not advocating Windows... I'm simply pointing out that they are not going anywhere.

I hope this guy sues everyone and everything that moves. Any decent lawyer would take this case on contingency.

If I see it above my street, I'll put up a cloud of birdshot...

I remove this crap for a living, and I've seen the scam up close.
When the victim pays, the scareware purveyor removes most of the program... which "fixes" the PC. They leave behind a back door, and Registry entries making the machine download .exe files without prompting, but they mostly stop bombarding the victim with warnings... for a month or two.

Then, they attack again, trying to get more money. I've had a few customers who paid for the first attack, then finally called for help when they got hit again; it was easy to see what the first program did, and track down the quick site redirect that brought on the second infestation.

The real criminals here: Visa and Mastercard, for maintaining merchant accounts for these scumbags. Brian Krebs exposed this, and got it shut down... for two weeks or so, and they've back ever since without interruption.

I designed the XP image for a chain of retirement communities. The first rollout was on 120 Optiplex GX270 desktops... all of which were affected by this.
Fortunately, only one of them died in the initial rollout. By the time they started going bad en masse, the image was ruled out as the cause... and the blown capacitors were clearly visible... and the story was already known online.

Scripting in the 32-bit CMD environment is powerful enough to do all kinds of things well, and it works all the way back to Windows NT 4.0. You can add all kinds of functionality from later versions of Windows and the server OS's by simply throwing the supplementary executables into a folder on the Windows path.

Bottom line: If a batch file can do it, it's often the best way to do it.

He had a running PC, but he couldn't figure out how to install a different OS on it (using the barely-supported bootable flash drive method)... so he threw parts at it until it worked, essentially installing Windows on a completely different PC than the one he started with.
I fix computers for a living, and I often reinstall Windows for my customers... the difference is that if I fail, I don't get paid.

He should have tried installing Windows from the DVD, or from the hard drive (using WIndows PE to kick off the installation).
I am unimpressed. I award him no points, and may Dog have mercy on his credit card bills.