Dan’s Wall of the Insanely Useful

With this post, I’m targeting the average PC user running some form of Windows. I don’t have to tell you that windows machines screw up a LOT. These are the things you really need to know and steps you can take to avoid most computer problems you might face when using Windows.

1. Straightaway, buy a Backup hard drive the same size GB as your computer’s built-in drive, and get a program that can automate regular backups like Acronis True Image. Backup incramentally at least once a day. Also, make sure you use the built-in System Restore function create a Restore Point before you do any major software installs. These strategies are absolutely essential – they will inable you to “Roll-Back” a machine that suddenly starts working poorly due to spyware, viruses, bad installs, etc. IYou will also have a backup of all your data should your computer’s hard drive die or you need to wipe the drive and re-install windows. If you listen to no other tip in this list, do this one!
2. When you first buy a PC, perform these tasks: (1) Use PC Decrapifier to wipe out all the installed trialware. These are advertising programs that will disable themselves after 30 days, and are thus useless to you unless you buy them. Nuke them now. (2) Install Revo Uninstaller so when you install programs you have a more detailed record and you can properly uninstall all their stuff. (The default Add/Remove applet sucks.) (3) Install Comodo which is a free firewall. Install Spyware Blaster and Spybot S&D, and update their definitions so your computer is protected from bad websites (4) Consider installing Winpatrol to know more about what is happening on your machine and be warned of incoming threats. (5) Run Windows Update and set it to automatically notify you of any new patches. Keep up-to-date with new patches! (6) Install all your drivers, but only use the drivers from the company websites instead of what’s on your driver CD (if you have a logitech mouse, go to logitech.com and look under mice/downloads). Use the DriverMax services to completely backup all installed drivers so you can re-install should a problem occur.
3. Prefer “light” programs over big, bloated ones. Notoriously bloated software programs that will slow down your machine tremendously are: Norton & Macafee (Pretty much ALL of the “system protection suites” out there), Adobe Acrobat, Winzip, AOL. Avoid these programs like the plague. Free alternatives that are faster, lighter, and work just as well are 7-zip, Foxit, NOD32 for virus ($$, but worth it), and Spyware Terminator or the paid Spyware Doctor (or a free version if you install from Google Pack.) If you MUST use AOL go to aol.com and connect through there. The web software at aol.com is as good if not better then the AOL software you download.
4. NEVER, BUT NEVER install a virus or spyware program that you see through an affiliate/banner ad on some random website (registry checkers too.) What these programs typically do after you install them is report false positives, then offer to fix these problems if you upgrade to the paid version. In other words, they try to scam you. As a rule, only trust software you download from the following websites: filehippo.com, tucows.com, or softpedia.com. Download.com is decent too, but it’s harder to find good progams because of how many people spam the comment system. Aways check that a program has a lot of good reviews before you bother to download it. Negative reviews are invaluable, because it means people have already tried the program and found it out to not work properly or scam them.
5. Free software is often better then commercial counterparts, because they tend to be open projects with a lot of people contributing. Try some of the good free stuff out there before you go about buying a big, bloated, expensive program. Very often for windows, if a program is really mainstream and has a lot of advertising dollars behind it, it usually sucks. Try using software from techsupportalert.com first.
6. Download and install the Firefox web browser, and never use Internet Explorer again. IE is not safe, is slow, and is a huge security risk if you use it. I don’t care if you’re using Vista and running IE in protected mode. You’re still going to get screwed over one day, mark my words. Plus, you can add a million and one extra features to firefox through it’s plugin system. (For marketers, check out the absolutely killer Firebug and SeoQuake plugins.)
7. Be extremely careful of installing piracy programs like Kazza, which typically screw up your machine. If you want to steal (ehem, “restore from backup”) software then the only choice is to use uTorrent and download stuff from Piratebay or BTJunkie. Make sure you check the comments section in Piratebay to see if any of the downloads have a virus, which many do.
8. Use Winpatrol to periodically check and purge aggressive and memory-hogging startup programs, active running programs, unnessary Active X plugins or BHOs (Browser Helper Objects, like toolbars found in internet explorer.) Also uninstall programs you don’t use often. Even if they don’t use memory, too many apps can clog up the registry and lead to more issues down the road. Speaking of cleanup, download and use CCleaner for registry purging, and JKDefrag for defragging (both are free). CCleaner is the only registry app I’ve used that hasn’t screwed up my machine, so I highly recommend it. A lot of other registry programs out there are complete crap, so beware.
9. Never allow a freeware program you downloaded to install a browser toolbar like google or yahoo for you without your permission. Generally, if you run an installer and it asks you if you want to install some unrelated 3rd party app, what’s going on here is the program is getting a kickback in advertising dollars for offering this to you. Google pays companies to include their toolbar in everything. Unless you REALLY WANT the 3rd party program for some reason, uncheck it so it doesn’t get installed along with your freeware. (Be relentless with this, or you might soon find out you have a bunch of toolbars installed, slowing down your machine.)
10. Burn a bootable Windows DVD or CD, so you have something you can boot off of and repair your main drive should serious problems occur. Really good bootable systems are BartPE (www.nu2.nu/pebuilder), and Hiren’s BootCD (www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd). The DVDs that include a PE or Preinstalled Environment fully boot into the Window GUI for you do to repair work. If you look around a bit on Piratebay, you will find even better, prebuilt PEs to download. Use your disgression. If it bothers you that some of these DVDs contain copywrited software, don’t use them. But BartPE can be built for free, and you can include your own licenced software on it if you want to. Make sure at the very least you build in your DVD a bunch of virus and spyware checkers, as well as disk repair and partitioning utilities. There are the free utlities I’ve mentioned, and if you need ideas take a look at someone of the other prebuilt PEs online.

Well there you go, some essential advice to keeping windows happy. The most important thing to remember is BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP! With a recent backup in hand, you can download, install, and otherwise mess all around on your computer with impunity, because everything you do can be undone. You might want to even want to get your computer with apps installed the way you like it, and then take a complete backup at that point. Then if your computer bogs down in the future, you restore this backup, and then you only have to restore your data from your most recent backup that you’ve been doing.

I hope these tips were useful.