Steps for maintaining a healthy computer.

J

Josef Stalin

After reading a significant number of posts, I've come to the conclusion how
little I really know.
I'm soliciting your advice on what additional steps I should be taking to
keeping my computer up and running.

Here are the actions I'm currently taking:

Download Microsoft Critical updates on a timely basis.
Hardware/software firewall.
Run anti-virus program with current data definitions.
Run SpyBot/Adaware with latest data defintions.
Run full ScanDisk on all partitions of both disks (regular HDD and backup
HDD) before backing up. At least monthly.
Backup OS partition weekly or before & after making significant changes.
Backup HDD stored off-line.
Minimum weekly defrag's.
Delete temp dir's daily.
Put the paging file on a different partition than the OS partition.

I have a ton of RAM to minimize paging.
I don't use any registry cleaners as I've read here on this forum that they
are a waste.

Any advice/opinions would be greatly appreciated.
Naturally, this is related to W2K.

Uncle Josef
 
P

Pegasus \(MVP\)

See below for my personal view on the various items. I expect that some
people will disagree with what I say.


Josef Stalin said:
After reading a significant number of posts, I've come to the conclusion how
little I really know.
I'm soliciting your advice on what additional steps I should be taking to
keeping my computer up and running.

Here are the actions I'm currently taking:

Download Microsoft Critical updates on a timely basis. *** Yes
Hardware/software firewall. *** Absolutely
Run anti-virus program with current data definitions. *** Certainly
Run SpyBot/Adaware with latest data definitions. *** Yes
Run full ScanDisk on all partitions of both disks (regular HDD and backup
HDD) before backing up. At least monthly. *** Probably a good idea.
Backup OS partition weekly or before & after making significant changes.
*** I make that six-monthly, plus before making significant changes. The
trick is to keep an old image file of known quality rather than overwriting
it.
 
C

Carl Fenley

Here are my comments for what they're worth...

Josef said:
After reading a significant number of posts, I've come to the
conclusion how little I really know.
I'm soliciting your advice on what additional steps I should be
taking to keeping my computer up and running.

Here are the actions I'm currently taking:

Download Microsoft Critical updates on a timely basis.
Hardware/software firewall.

Personally, I would never bother with a software firewall except on machines
that I was using to experiment with viruses. A software firewall would
prevent the virus from spreading... maybe.
Run anti-virus program with current data definitions.
Run SpyBot/Adaware with latest data defintions.

Both are good, but if a user is in the habit of maintaining a healthy
computer, neither tool should ever find anything (except alexa registry
entries after an IE version update).
Run full ScanDisk on all partitions of both disks (regular HDD and
backup HDD) before backing up. At least monthly.

I would make this six-monthly.
Backup OS partition weekly or before & after making significant
changes. Backup HDD stored off-line.

We're talking a workstation here, right? I would never bother backing up
the OS. However, I would (when possible) go into the registry and change
user data file locations for programs that don't save user data in the
Document and Settings tree (like Diablo II). All my backups begin at
Documents and Settings...
Minimum weekly defrag's.

Maybe once every six months for typical workstation use.
Delete temp dir's daily.
Put the paging file on a different partition than the OS partition.

Perhaps, but I think most machines with significant RAM would see little or
no performance change either way.
I have a ton of RAM to minimize paging.
I don't use any registry cleaners as I've read here on this forum
that they are a waste.

Any advice/opinions would be greatly appreciated.
Naturally, this is related to W2K.

Other than redirecting user data back into the Documents and Settings tree,
my only addition to this would be programs users like to download.

Don't use "browser enhancers" (though I admit to using the Google Toolbar).
Especially stay away from programs like Comet Cursor or Bonzai.

Don't use file-sharing apps like Kazaa. They are a security a hole.

Stay away from warez sites and illegal music trading sites.

Don't ever run a self-extracting zip file or installer unless you absolutely
trust the site or person it came from...

Never ever ever never post your real email address on an internet message
board, usenet newsgroup, or on a web-site. Spam bots will pick it up.

- carl
 
R

Ray at

Download Microsoft Critical updates on a timely basis.

Timely=immediately, imo.
Hardware/software firewall.

I feel comfortable using a homestyle router with a firewall and not running
any firewall software on my home computers.
Run anti-virus program with current data definitions.

Yes, I agree with this, although I hypocritically don't run any av software.

Run SpyBot/Adaware with latest data defintions.

Yes. I just spent half an hour on my girlfriend's computer cleaning out all
her spyware. She had a version of Ad Aware that she just downloaded 2 weeks
ago. After scanning and deleting everything, we decided to see if there
were any new defs for Ad Aware. There were. And after scanning with the
new defs right after this scan with two week old defs, 98 new objects were
found. Eegs!

Run full ScanDisk on all partitions of both disks (regular HDD and backup
HDD) before backing up. At least monthly.

Thanks for the scanning reminder. :]

I backup everything every night. I'm just doing some poor man's xcopy
backups from my server in the basement to my computer in my office. I
figure as long as my house doesn't burn down, I should be okay. I could
live through just the second floor burning down OR the basement flooding at
least.
Backup OS partition weekly or before & after making significant changes.

I don't find this necessary. I figure if something gets screwed up, I'll
just reformat and reinstall my OS. I do that every 3-6 months as it is
anyway.
Backup HDD stored off-line.

Yes. Backup! Nice!!
Minimum weekly defrag's.

Thank you for this reminder also.
Delete temp dir's daily.

I suppose it couldn't hurt. I'll pay more attention to this now too.
Thanks.
Put the paging file on a different partition than the OS partition.

I think this is closer to an urban legend than a real performance gainer. I
don't believe that any normal human could perceive any performance increase.
~~Possibly~~ if your pagefile is on its own HD on its own IDE channel,
maybe. But, then there's the whole freeing of disk space on your OS
drive/partition, so maybe that's what you mean. That also can't hurt. :]
Any advice/opinions would be greatly appreciated.
Naturally, this is related to W2K.

Imo, there is really only one way to keep a computer running nice, and that
is to think about everything you're doing. So many people just blatently
download and install anything that they come across without doing any sort
of research or knowing what these things will do. Personally, I install
next to nothing that isn't from MS, Adobe, or perhaps Macromedia. (And
Helios Textpad!) I certainly won't open any executable/scriptable
attachments in e-mails or anything like that.

I don't think that you have to get all crazy and disable cookies and
javascript and other things that give environments the functionality they're
meant to have. People who do all that stuff should spend more time learning
what these things are and what they do instead of listening to all the
paranoid psycho conspiracy theorists.

Compute smart, which it sounds like you're doing. Good job. :]
 

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