Windows 7 Day 3 - Load the software

At the end of Day 2, the computer now has Windows 7 as its operating system and if you have worked your way through "I've got a new computer" which you will find here, you will be ready for the next step.

When "I've got a new computer" was first written, spam, viruses and other assorted nasties were not the problem they are now so it was relatively safe to start loading programs before adding security to your computer. Now it is a very different story. One of our major universities decided to see what would happen if an unprotected computer was left connected to the internet. It was setup in a room with just an internet connection but not a network one so it paralleled a home setup. The computer had no Antivirus, spyware or firewall loaded so was completely unprotected. The computer logged on to the internet and the computer was then left to its own devices. Within 15 minutes it was infected and in less than half an hour it had been linked to a Trojan network. This is why you need to protect yourself at all times. So job one today is to install an Antivirus program, a adware and spyware program and make sure your firewall is up and running.

I use the free Antivirus program Avast Home and it has never let me down. You can download it at
http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html.

Let it install and run a boot time virus check.
Next download and install an adware program. The two most popular are Adaware which you can download from
http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php
and Spybot which you will find at
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html

If your connection to the Internet is via a router you will probably find that it has a hardware firewall built in but check your manual to make sure it has and that it is switched on. If you don't use a router then you need to think about downloading and installing a software firewall. Windows 7 has one built in but many of the writers in this field don't trust it. I am not one of them because I have a hardware firewall so don't have to rely on the Windows one but the one most favoured by the technical press is Zonealarm. You can download and install the free version from
http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us/zonealarm-pc-security-free-firewall.htm

Now taking the list you made of the programs you want on your computer that you made on Day 1, start to load your computer.

1. Remember to reboot your computer when each program has finished loading.
2. When the computer has rebooted, check that the program you have loaded runs properly by opening it and complete any registrations you may need to complete before moving on to the next program on your list
3. Don't get impatient and try to load more than one program at a time. Doing that is a sure way for things to go wrong.
4. Once all the programs are installed, run defrag to tidy up the HDD and then do a scan of the HDD to make sure there are no orphan files or files that have become fragmented. To do that a. Go to All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt, Right click and go to Run As Administrator
   b. In the DOS window that opens at the prompt (C:\Users\%Your Account%>) type dskchk C: press enter and you will get a result that looks something like this
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   c. Look down the list and see if any error messages are showing. If they are, run chkdisk again but this time type this chkdsk C: /f which will ask Windows to try to fix any errors.

That's it, you now have a computer that is ready for use. I have no doubt that as time goes by we will become aware of bugs in this new version of Windows.

You can download this blog as a PDF here