Preventive Maintenance for Your PC

December 3^rd, 2005 by Howard Jones

This handout will provide guidelines to prevent problems from occurring and will be published on our Website – www.tvcuc.org with links to the resources noted herein.

Right Out of the Box:

If you’re comfortable with the directions provided, and most are quite good these days, make all of the generally color coded connections and follow the directions for starting the computer. If you need help there are several skilled technicians in the club for you to call in.

Do not hesitate to read the manuals that come with your new computer. Once the computer is running, follow the on screen directions to make the initial setup of your preferences for the operating system. 

Depending on the brand of the new computer the manufacturer will have loaded executable files to “help” you choose an Internet service provider (ISP) to “samples” of other software that you may want to keep but in many cases just clutter the desktop with icons. Use your discretion in choosing software to keep or consult with club members, but most of these icons (shortcuts) can be deleted.

Most new computers from major manufacturers include an antivirus software program. These must be setup/configured to do their job and seldom have a life of greater than 30 – 90 days. Then, you must pay for a subscription, generally for one year. In today’s world an essential is adware/spyware protection, which you must select from several available, depending on your operating system (OS). There are enough excellent free antispyware programs available that spending money will not add benefit.

In summary:

• Configure your new computer’s OS to reflect your personal tastes
• Remove shortcuts if not programs, for unwanted/unneeded software
• Setup your antivirus or Internet security software
• Download and install an anti-spyware/anti-adware program

Settling Into Using Your New Computer:

Learn to use the programs you purchased with your computer. The “Help” menus, in all software, have been improved over the years and will generally provide adequate guidance. Take advantage of classes – TVCUC, TV Library, Loudon County Senior Center and local colleges. Many “How To” books are available from area bookstores.

Avoid buying/downloading software that does things the tools in your OS can do for you. Especially, don’t fall to the appeal of Emails or ads that “popup” telling you your computer is “under attack” by adware or viruses. In most cases these are attempts to sell you something you already have or don’t need. Another appeal is software to “make your computer run faster”. With today’s fast computers with adequate memory there’s no need to use software to improve their performance.

Select third party software that provides capabilities that aren’t included with your computer, such as genealogy, photo management, music, financial management, etc. Always examine the “requirements” for the new software in terms of your computer’s hardware – CPU speed, RAM, hard drive space – to make sure it’s compatible with your computer.

Periodic Maintenance/Keeping Your Computer “Clean”:

Please refer to the TVCUC Library – www.tvcuc.org - under “Presentation Papers” for “How to Tune Up Your Computer”. The process is still the same and is not repeated in this handout. In preparation for tonight’s focus on Preventive Maintenance I did a Google search for articles that provide Websites that cover information not in the earlier presentation. Links to those Websites are at the end of this presentation.

Now for the steps to performing your regular “cleanup”

1. Left click on “Start”, move the curser to “Programs”, then to “Accessories”, to “System Tools”, to “Disk Cleanup”. Left click on “Disk Cleanup”. A dialog box will ask you to select the drive you want to cleanup. Select (C:) and click OK. By continuing this process you will remove files that are not essential and free up significant space on your hard drive. But, let’s take a closer look at where these files are and where they come from.
2. Right click on “Start”, left click on “Explore”. On the left side of the screen you will see the organization of your entire computer. In W2000 and XP you will see “Documents and Settings”. Under the name of each user you will see a file named “Cookies”. Delete all cookies. The file “index.dat” will remain. In W98 “Cookies” will be in a file under “Windows”. All cookies may be removed.
3. While still in Windows “Explore”, in W2000 or XP, type %temp% in the address bar and hit “enter”. This will place you in the “Temp” file. Highlight everything and “delete”. In W98 there also are files named “Temp” and “Temporary Internet Files” under the Windows file and these files may all be deleted.
4. After deleting all unnecessary files, go back to “System Tools” and run “ScanDisk” and then “Disk Defragmenter”. In W2000 and XP the disk scanning utility is accessible as follows: by opening “My Computer”, select the local disk you want to check. On the “File” menu, click “Properties”. Click the “Tools” tab. Under “Error-checking”, click “Check Now”. Under “Check disk options”, select the “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors” check box.
5. It is recommended that you reboot your computer after each step in the cleanup process, even if you are not prompted to do so.
6. It is important to regularly run “Windows Update”.
7. It is also important to regularly update your firewall and antivirus software (renew your subscription annually) and to update your antivirus .dat (virus definition) files automatically.
8. Run your chosen anti-spyware/anti-adware software

PC Maintenance Checklist

REFERENCE DATA:

Firewalls

• XP (built into the OS)
• Norton Internet Security (NIS)
• McAfee Internet Security Suite
• Charter High-Speed Security Suite
• Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security
• Hardware – in more expensive routers

Antivirus Software

• Norton Internet Security (NIS)
• McAfee Internet Security Suite
• Charter High-Speed Security Suite
• Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security
• Grisoft AVG Anti-Virus

Anti-Spyware/Adware

• MS AntiSpyware – free download for W2000/XP
• Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE – free download – W98 up
• Spybot Search and Destroy – free download – W98 up

WARNING – Not all anti spyware is “anti spyware” – see this Website for details – Rogue/Suspect Anti-Spyware Products and Websites http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm

Suspected infections – If you see frequent “popups” or have let your virus protection lapse and think you may have been “infected” – go to the Trend Micro Housecall Website - http://housecall.trendmicro.com and run a free scan of your computer.

Supplementary Information: Following are Websites I found in preparing this presentation. They cover most of the information presented, in most cases in more detail. It is intended that they provide you with additional tools to keep your computers operating as they did when new. Also, it is hoped they provide some inspiration to use the Internet to learn more than what is covered herein.

From the Millbury MA Public Schools Website – an excellent guide -
http://www.millbury.k12.ma.us/~hs/techrepair/cleaning.html  

From the Webopedia site – very good information
http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Hardware_Software/2003/PreventiveMaintenancePC.asp

An example of what you’re missing if you don’t subscribe to Smart Computing -
http://www.smartcomputing.com/Editorial/article.asp?article=articles/2004/w1509/48w01/48w01.asp&guid=

Good info from PC World – two articles -
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,116583,00.asp
http://www.pcguide.com/care/pm.htm

Alamo PC Organization is South Texas' Premier PC User Group promoting computers for everyone: from beginner to expert. First, their Website followed by very comprehensive information -
http://alamopc.org/index.shtml
http://www.alamopc.org/pcalamode/columns/james/index.shtml

From the IT Services at Montana State University-Northern -
http://www.msun.edu/infotech/its/how/pm-checklist.htm

PCTechBytes – New to me but very comprehensive -
http://www.pctechbytes.com/index.htm
http://www.pctechbytes.com/pcmaintenance.htm