Solid Advice for Microsoft Users

I get a LOT of phonecalls and email from friends, family and other poor souls who are having problems with internet connected personal computers running Microsoft Operating systems.

I thought i would publish the advise that i give for home users who operate their computers in a non commercial environment while connected to the internet via broadband technology such as ADSL or CABLE;

My advise to computers users in a corporate envionment is to speak to your local system administrator and dont follow these steps, the local administrator will know your computing environment inside out, following the advise here could ruin the administrators hard work.

"My computer keeps getting slower & slower!" is the normal form of complaint that i get from Windows XP/98/ME/2000 users, here are some steps and 'free' software to help matters.

1. DEFRAG -Defragment your hard disk drive, Microsoft operating systems don't write data to the hard drive in a sequential fashion, this leads to partial elements of single files being on many differing physical areas of the disk. Thus when reading and writing, the disk heads have to move greater distances thus reducing the hard disks performance. Microsoft have built into their systems a special program to solve this problem, which is documented in the link below for XP.

See this article on microsoft.com regarding XP defrag

If your hard disk refuses to to defrag, go to step 2 and check for virus activity then retry this step.

2. ANTI VIRUS - Install a free anti virus protection program if you do not use a anti virus program currently. An anti virus program or suite of programs ensure your computer is protected from computer viruses by detecting their presence on hard drive during a 'scan' or as you access files on hard drive. Please Note you can only use AVG and AntiVir without charge if you computer is used for non commercial purposes.

AVG anti Virus - www.grisoft.com
AntiVir - www.free-av.com

Download the software from the sites above (this may require online registration of your personal details), install the software, scan your hard disk drive for viruses, clean off any virus programs that are found, make sure you enable 'on access' scanning within the anti virus configurations. Each software suite above has instructions as you install and is pretty easy to use.

3. Spyware - Spyware is a family of computer software which sits on your computer and reports back all sorts of data to the programs author. Most spyware is to be found via webpages and downloaded without your knowledge to the computer you are using. As more and more spyware is installed on your PC the slower it will get as the spyware consumes system resources. Use the two free editions of the software below to detect and remove almost 100% of known spyware, also both software suites are free of spyware themselves. You can again only use these free programs if your computer is used for non commercial purposes. again on screen instructions are provided as you install the software.

Spybot
Adaware
4. Install a firewall - Windows XP includes a firewall, other Micosoft OS's do not, well windows 2000 has a facility that could be used but its not easy to use (learn more here). In simple terms a firewall stops other users on the internet connecting to services on your computer. Without a firewall in place your computer may offer services such as file and print services via TCP port numbers, i wont go into detail on TCP/UDP ports here but use this link to learn more - LEARN MORE HERE.

To enable the Internet Connection Firewall in Windows XP look at this microsoft article - Enable my XP Firewall

If you are using Windows 2000/98/95/ME then a free firewall can be installed, a good software firewall is the free edition of the zonealarm firewall, find it here at the zonealarm website, the company are owned by checkpoint a very well respected security company.

Also if you have a broadband connection check the microsoft update web page at least once a week and check the SECURITY SECTION OF THE MICROSOFT WEBSITE FOR ADVISE

This page has links to update the microsoft operating system you are using and gives you good advise on how to keep your computer protected.

5. Web Browser - Although Microsoft internet explorer web browser technology is very good, i would plump for using FIREFOX the free netscape browser variant, it has some great features and i consider the browser to be more secure than the microsoft product in terms of anti spyware features - Get the software here

Please note the above step is optional.......

5. Conclusion - If you are running a Microsoft powered computer you can operate safely on the internet and not suffer slowdown with very little damage to your bank account, if you follow the steps above. Another crucial step is to keep your computer software updated with the latest security software fixes, latest anti virus signatures, latest spyware signatures by updating the software (spybot/avg/antivir/adaware) you use AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK. You should scan for spyware and virus programs at least once every couple of days. Of course keep yourself updated to what is going on in the IT industry - a good source of daily information is to be had a this site - www.theregister.co.uk.

I stopped using microsoft operating systems for desktop use some time ago and swapped to Linux, my choice of Linux OS distro is SUSE, now owned by the big Novell corporation. I find the 'personal' desktop versions of their software very easy to install and maintain and i use the 'professional' versions heavily in my workplace and at home - check it out here