OT: Crap proofing my computer

[lord_verminaard at yahoo.com (Brendan Doyle)]

First, UNINSTALL EVERYTHING that says symantec, nortons, or any combination of the two.  It's junk, junk, junk.  Not sure where this PC came from, so it will more than likely have some trial software and other related garbage that does not need to be there.  Go ahead and uninstall that too, it's fun.  :)

The Anti-virus that I recommend (I do not use Anti-virus software personally) for everyone, as it's light and free, and un-intrusive, is AVG anti-virus.  http://free.grisoft.com

They do have a purchase version that we like to sell in the shop that is very nice, but not usually needed- the free version requires a little more motivation from the end user but it works equally as well.  Did I mention that it's FREE???

Also, Vista comes with Windows Defender, which has become a decent anti-spyware package.  As long as you do not click randomly on pop-ups and links, Defender should do fine- so I recommend not installing another anti-spyware package.  

As for Vista- I recently configured 16 vista laptops at work for our training center- they were only Celery..er Celeron 2.6's with 512 MB RAM- not powerhouses by any means- and I have Vista slimmed down enough that it runs about as well as XP would run on a similar system.  Most of my tweaks came from BlackViper's site:
http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/supertweaks.htm

The final section of his tweaks guide is disabling services... not really a great idea if you do not know what you are doing.  If you feel like taking the time to go through his Vista Services guide: http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm The "Safe" option works quite well and the majority of what I did is based off of this configuration.  

I have badmouthed Vista a lot, and I still think Microsoft really released it much earlier than they should have, but once everything is slimmed down it runs quite well.  Of course, at that point, it's basically still XP.  Oh well.  I'm running Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PC's- a shame they never released this to the public.  


Good luck!

Brendan


----- Original Message ----
From: C Boyko <roccit_53@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: scirocco-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 7:29:24 AM
Subject: OT: Crap proofing my computer

Yeah, so I've never actually owned a new computer that I have total control
of. I have a password, and have created restoration discs, what other
measures should I be taking before exposing this new machine to the threats
of the big world out there? It came with a trial version of Norton, what
else should I be looking at in the way of malware protection? Any general
setup tips would be appreciated too. I'd like to keep its operation as
streamlined as possible. It's a Vista machine, so far it looks very easy to
use.
cathy


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