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- Jun 22, 2008
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I've been out of the Windows loop for YEARS now, and only do the occasional fix here and there for family or friends whom own Windows machines. Just the other day though, a friend of mine bought a new Toshiba laptop which is running Win7.
She already bought MS Office and I've set up Thunderbird for her, as well as recommended Chrome and FF vs. IE. But aside from these very basic things, I thought it would be nice to brief her on how to keep a tidy and safe machine which would last her the course of her HD.
Of course I'll be talking to her about the logical things one should and shouldn't do on and off line, but I'll also need to back some things up with apps that compliment this logic. That said, I'm asking the Windows users here (I know that a lot of the senior OS X users still have to use Windows at or for work) what they think are the most up to date, useful products that a simpleton would be able to understand. Would like them to be easy on resources as well.
First and foremost, security. I'm thinking MS Security Essentials should be good enough since she's not going to be browsing any warez sites and such.
Are things like Adaware and Spybot still relevant and useful?
What else should I suggest that she use for general computer usage? All I can remember back from my Win days is having to run stupid spyware and adware software all the time, as well as running defrag tools or registry cleaners... Uuuccch.
Any good free defrag programs ? I used to use Diskeeper and liked it well enough. Wow, thinking back on all the time wasted with that stuff, it's amazing !
Doug
She already bought MS Office and I've set up Thunderbird for her, as well as recommended Chrome and FF vs. IE. But aside from these very basic things, I thought it would be nice to brief her on how to keep a tidy and safe machine which would last her the course of her HD.
Of course I'll be talking to her about the logical things one should and shouldn't do on and off line, but I'll also need to back some things up with apps that compliment this logic. That said, I'm asking the Windows users here (I know that a lot of the senior OS X users still have to use Windows at or for work) what they think are the most up to date, useful products that a simpleton would be able to understand. Would like them to be easy on resources as well.
First and foremost, security. I'm thinking MS Security Essentials should be good enough since she's not going to be browsing any warez sites and such.
Are things like Adaware and Spybot still relevant and useful?
What else should I suggest that she use for general computer usage? All I can remember back from my Win days is having to run stupid spyware and adware software all the time, as well as running defrag tools or registry cleaners... Uuuccch.
Any good free defrag programs ? I used to use Diskeeper and liked it well enough. Wow, thinking back on all the time wasted with that stuff, it's amazing !
Doug