With Vista, the one place to go for a lot of the following suggestions is Control Panel, Security. There, you can do a quick check to see the state of your security by going to the Security Center. All four: Firewall, Automatic updating Malware protection, and Other security settings should be on (green). If not, do a quick fix if you can, but look at the suggestions below, regardless.
Though this is for Windows Vista, a lot of it is very similar for Windows 7. Another note to make is that the later versions of Vista are actually quite good, compared to how crappy it was when it first came out.
***Make sure that each semester those with Windows check these at home, via a homework assignment.***
From "Start, Control Panel, Security":
1. Auto updates: @
Go Start, Control
Panel, Security, Security Center, and click Turn automatic updating on or off. Select Install updates
automatically, and have it occur Every day at a time that your computer is most
likely on.
2. Anti-virus: @
Make sure you have
Anti-virus software installed. And make sure it is scheduled to update the
virus definitions frequently; once every day at least. Also make sure that it
is scheduled to regularly scan your computer for viruses, at least once a week. Other than opening up your anti-virus application, you can go Start, Control Panel, Security, Security Center, and make sure the Malware category is green; if it isn't do what you need to to correct it.
If you don't have
Anti-virus software, you need to go the computer store and buy some, or
download a good band-name anti-virus package (like Norton, McAfee, or AVG
anti-virus software). Alternatively you can download a free anti-virus
application; two I’d suggest for free are Avast! and AVG Free Edition (log on to download.com
and go to the Security & Spyware category).
3. Internet Options: @@
Also in Control Panel, Security, click on Internet Options, and check the following two areas of security: under the Security tab, have the security level at Medium or High, and under the Privacy tab, select Medium-high or High for the Internet zone. Applications such as the afore-mentioned ZoneAlarm and Ad-Aware will help with these security measures as well.
From "Start, Computer":
4. Check RAM Amount: @@
Check to see how much
RAM your computer has. Go to the Start Menu, and Computer, click on System
properties at the top, and you will see Memory (RAM) listed under System. You
should consider upgrading to at least 2 GB or more if you presently have
less. For all Windows machines I
would suggest getting someone who is tech savvy to do the RAM replacement/upgrade.
5. Check Hard Drive Free Space: @
Check the amount of free space you have on your hard drive. When you go to the Start Menu and Computer, all the drives will appear. Your main one is most likely named C. YouÕll see the graphical representation as a colored bar, and it will list the amount free of the total GB. The bar will turn red when the hard drive gets too full. So if you have more than approximately 80% of the hard drive full, you need to delete big files, and/or get another hard drive.
Big files to consider,
in particular, are movies; why not just back them up to DVD. And/or, for a second hard drive, the
easiest way to go is an external USB hard drive, and put all of your video,
music, and image files there.
6. Use Disk Quota: @@
To prevent your hard
drive from becoming too full in the first place, go Start, Computer, right-click your hard drive
(C drive), go to Properties, and the Quota tab. Then click Enable quota management, and
Limit disk space to be around 80% of your hard drive’s size.
First of all, remember that you always should BACKUP YOUR IMPORTANT FILES first - burn them to CDs or a DVD if you have no other means of backup; on occasion de-fragmenting can actually cause problems. But you should defragment occasionally, so go to the Start Menu, and Computer, right-click on your hard drive, and select Properties. Click the Tools tab, and select Defragment Now. The other thing to keep in mind is if this has not been done in a while, the defragmentation will take a long time; let it work away at it over night – and DO NOT interrupt it.
From "Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools":
8. Clean up your disk: @
Go Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup. Do this in the case that your hard drive is almost full, and there are some items in the list which are taking up many hundreds of MB. Check all the items except Thumbnails, unless there’s an obvious reason not to, like you’re not sure you want to delete the recycle bin just yet, or you use Hibernation mode, so need the Hibernation File Cleaner. This is not an urgent task, but it's easy, and could free up significant hard drive space, and so it is especially useful in a situation where you don’t have a lot of free space available. And free utilities like cCleaner can help as well.
...and there are a bunch of other accessories here too that may be useful.
9. Uninstall Frostwire @
And finally, in spite of doing the above, you should consider uninstalling Frostwire. Much of the adware, spyware, and viruses that you need to combat come through files downloaded from peer-to-peer applications like Lime wire. Furthermore you are very much opening yourself up to hacking, in spite of your Firewall's best efforts, through the use of such applications. Go to Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs to uninstall Frotstwire.
The following 3 items in this list can be covered by a for-purchase,
all-in-one utility program, or they can be handled separately by free
applications. IÕll list them
separately with free solutions first, and then offer an all-in-one suggestion.
10. ***Registry check: @@@
You should check/optimize
your hard driveÕs registry regularly.
Registry Mechanic and WINASO Registry Optimizer are both proven, and
though no longer free, are reasonably priced. Meantime the one free one IÕd suggest is Glary Utilities. For any of these go to download.com and
do a search for them.
Giacomo # 1 Recommendation (2011): cCleaner
11. ***Firewall: @
First of all do make
sure your Windows firewall is on; go to Control Panel, Security, and click on
Turn Windows Firewall on or off.
The Vista firewall should be good enough, but you might want to get another,
third party firewall, like Norton Personal Firewall. A slightly cheaper download possibility is ZoneAlarm, and the
totally free download IÕd suggest is PC Tools Firewall. Again, download.com is the safest place
to be looking for downloads such as these.
Giacomo # 1 Recommendation (2011): Comodo Personal Firewall
12. ***Adware/Spyware: @@
Adware/Spyware software
isn't as important as the above two categories, and the Windows Defender should
be enough. So in Control Panel,
Security, click on Windows Defender to make sure itÕs on. But another good malware application is
easy to obtain, and running it might help make your Internet access much
faster. The good free one we use
in the lab is Ad-Aware (once again, use download.com and look in the Security
and Spyware category.)
Giacomo # 1 Recommendation (2011): Spybot Search & Destroy
***All-in-one Alternatives:
The last four utility categories are possible to get all together by buying an all-in-one maintenance and security suite. And these suites will also have additional categories of security software not mentioned here. The all-in-one IÕd suggest (summer 2009) is Norton 360, available from www.symantec.com for a yearly cost of $79.99.
And a summary of the top 3 reasons kids have problems with their computer: ˆ Full hard drive ˆ Not enough RAM memory ˆ The use of Lime wire. etc., and the resulting malware.