Question for any computer geeks

S

SAK

Joined
Sep 28, 2001
Messages
508
(...and I use the word geek in a good way).

My youngest is off to college (Yay - empty nest, here we come!). She bought a new computer from Dell. Any recommendations on what I should do before I connect it to the Internet or before I load any programs?
  • Some kind of backup of the disk?
  • Economical suggestions on spyware or antivirus? (It comes with a 30-day trial of Norton Security.)
  • Any diagnostic, archival or logging tests to do while the computer is still fresh?
It is running Vista Home Premium Edition.

I just figure that problems will crop up in the future and I want to do whatever I can to make troubleshoot/fixing as easy as possible.

Thanks all,

--SAK
 
I would get on the net and download this program, mainly to get rid of Norton, AOL and all the other freebees that Dell loaded that you do not want. AVG is a free Anti Virus program and does updates well. The program to really uninstall is revo uninstaller, it gets rid of all traces and messed with registry keys that Vista allows to hang around after using their uninstall. It is free and a great program, You will be surprised when you start removing all the junk that they send with the computer at how much is left behind in registry after uninstalling. Revo gets it all, including trace elements. Here is the link: http://www.revouninstaller.com/

Old story: Three men fishing arguing about when life begins,
1st man says "Life begins at Birth"
Both other men say "Wrong"
2nd Man says "Life begins at Conception"
3rd Man says "You two are both wrong, Life begins when the dog is dead and the kids are gone." :D:D:D

Have a good life empty nester,
James
 
#1 thing to do before connecting comp to the internet: patch and firewall. Absolute must. Average life of an unpatched windows machine with an internet connection is about half an hour, and after it gets owned, you might not ever be able to completely restore it without a wipe.

For the Firewall, install Zone Alarm.

For patching, I would highly recommend Autopatcher. It's a quite nice program which additionally will let you install many useful addons/features (either provided by microsoft or simply very good/popular). Unfortunately, MS recently sent them a cease and desist letter, but the last version is still up to date.

Install Firefox, and the AdBlock Plus plugin. (really helps with malware, besides the nice fact that you won't see ads anymore).

Also install Spybot Search and Destroy, Spyware Blaster, AdAware, and AVG for protection against malware. (Whatever you do, don't use Norton. :p Kaspersky and Nod32 are great alternatives if you want something commercial. Else, stick with AVG.)

For additional features, install OpenOffice, Foxit, GAIM, GIMP, foobar2000, VLC, Filezilla, Audacity, Keynote (may be very good for her--note taking software), musikCube, Gnucash, irfanview, and inkscape.

Even better, IMHO, would be a windows alternative. You might especially appreciate not having to visit websites download stuff and click through installers to install software like you will for the above. :p
 
My new Sony came with nothing ! So , download instruction manual, download restore disks . Depending on what you have you may set up a file restore system. You may save info in various ways but get used to doing it ! Nothing like writing a term paper and losing it all for lack of backup !! The stuff you put into the computer depends on requirements at the school . And yes delete all the junk that comes with it especially AOL !!
 
Lots of good advice above. If you didn't get install or restore disks, use the built in utility to make a copy of of the restore partition. They should have such a utility.

Besides the previously mentioned bloatware (PC decrapifier is another good and free remover (www.pcdecrapifier.com)), personally, i'd turn off a lot of the Dell specialty software too. Keep the Dell update utility and any hardware drivers (sound, video, touchpad and so on. Dump the rest including MusicMatch. For MP3 stuff, Mediamonkey is a great library tool for tweaking the tags. It's an OK player but I prefer Quintessential. If she doesn't like the bundled movie player (WinDVD or Intervideo probably, try VLC

I'll reiterate the good freeware: AVG (free.grisoft.com), Zonealarm firewall (www.zonelabs.com the free version is all you need, but it's a bit buried), spybot SD (www.spybot.info) Firefox browser (www.mozilla.com) with adblock Plus.

If you didn't get a student bundle for MS Office. go to www.openoffice.org and install that productivity suite.

A decent freeware CD burner DeepBurner (www.deepburner.com--get the free version--not as feature rich as the Pro which you pay for, but good enough)

Buy her an external disk drive for quick and easy backups and data redundancy. It should stay at her apartment so she has a backup of her work and data if the notebook is lost, stolen or broken.

Phil
 
Wow. Thanks for this information. I am busy writing this all down and downloading.

I could use a little more help on backups and patching.

- What is the easiest way to make a complete backup of the drive so that if the hard drive crapped out I could reload onto a new one?
Is it to use whatever utility comes with Vista or should I do something else?
(I will probably buy an external USB drive today to back up onto.)



Also,
Dunhausen said:
#1 thing to do before connecting comp to the internet: patch and firewall.

For patching, I would highly recommend Autopatcher. It's a quite nice program which additionally will let you install many useful addons/features (either provided by microsoft or simply very good/popular). Unfortunately, MS recently sent them a cease and desist letter, but the last version is still up to date.
Click to expand...

Duhausen – Thank you. You obviously know your stuff. Forgive my ignorance – what is the “patching” doing? Also, I am having trouble weeding my way through the links to find a download of Autopatcher. Am I going to be in over my head if I download and install this?


Thanks everyone. I am busy downloading programs on my computer today and will be setting up her computer tomorrow.

--SAK
 
For restore discs follow the instructions on your computer. I had to use top quality DVD discs and it took at least an hour to make two discs , but they are necessary !!
 
SAK said:
I could use a little more help on backups and patching.

- What is the easiest way to make a complete backup of the drive so that if the hard drive crapped out I could reload onto a new one?
Is it to use whatever utility comes with Vista or should I do something else?
(I will probably buy an external USB drive today to back up onto.)
Click to expand...

The easiest way is with a drive imaging software. Norton Ghost and Acronis TrueImage are the best tools available, but they're not cheap. Freeware really hasn't kept up in this department yet.

If you have install disks/copies of the software, the cheapo solution is two steps. First, run belarc advisor (http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html) and save/print out the results. This will give you the license keys and list the configuration and software installed.

Then copy the data folders to the external drive on a regular basis. You can automate this somewhat with Microsoft's Briefcase tool which comes with the OS. But a weekly drag and drop overwrite isn't bad either.

...autopatcher...
Click to expand...

Autopatcher collected past updates to the Microsoft software so you can download and install them in bulk. This makes it easy to rebuild a crashed computer without all the download and as much rebooting. It's a great tool that did something MS should have been doing all along. But MS has sicced the lawyers on 'em now.
 
FireInvestigator said:
I'm saving this thread. Thanks in advance
Click to expand...

I am too, I just thought I knew stuff about computers, thanks guys, all good information. Don't forget the revo uninstaller though. It is Fine! Urge someone to just try it on an uninstall and see all the junk left in registry by normal uninstalls. It uses the program itself (the uninstall that came with whatever program to uninstall, then it finds the junk and finishes it up.)

James
 
This is another great tool, but it's more advanced to use and is more for XP than Vista.

http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

This creates another tool in your Control Panel for handling programs that run automatically at startup. The nice thing about this is that it combines stuff from the Startup folder, msconfig settings and some TSRs in a simple interface. Uncheck programs so you don't have so much drag on the computer at boot up and too many crapplets in the tray and sucking up memory. If you screw up a program you really need, go set the checkmark to reactivate for the next boot.

Phil
 
SAK: Any of those links will work. They change over time, though, which I why I linked you to the google listing instead of the actual torrent file.

phatch explained the nature of patching. Basically, you want your computer to be up to date so that it can't be infected, but there is a big catch-22 if you have to connect it in order to update it. Autopatcher is awesome because then you can download the updates on another computer and then install them without ever connecting the first to the internet. It also has utilities like the StartupCPL that phatch mentioned integrated with it. (there will be a checklist so that you can choose what you want to install)

phatch said:
The easiest way is with a drive imaging software. Norton Ghost and Acronis TrueImage are the best tools available, but they're not cheap. Freeware really hasn't kept up in this department yet.
Click to expand...
Partimage and g4u are pretty decent, IMHO.
 
I agree with all of the above. Zone Alarm is a fine free firewall; been using it for years. Occasionally, you'll have a conflict with a game, but all those have been quickly resolved.

AVG is as good a virus program as any, it's free, and has automatic updates.

Ad-Aware and Spybot will rid your computer of the nasty little tracking bots and other low-level naughties that sneak through.

Another useful site is PC pitstop, which you can use to run online scans of your rig. It'll check disc state, internet connectivity, and a variety of other things for free.
 
As mentioned above:
AVG
Spybot search and destroy
ad-aware
all free, all work. just make sure she updates all of these programs on a regular basis, and not like my kid when they come home for summer. later,ahgar
 
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