Everybody has their own routines for setting up their own computers when they first get them, e.g. installing patches/updates, installing certain programs to secure their PCs, etc. Excluding the obvious firewall & anti-virus software, (a) what would your routine be with a brand new computer; (b) how would you do it (with regards to possible partitioning of the HD, etc); and (c) in which order would you do it all in?
This sounds too big a query for Ask Jack -- it should probably be an article -- and it probaly depends a lot of individual needs. For example, installing Microsoft Office is a very high priority for me, but not even on the list for many.
Step 1, I think, is to set my usual operating system preferences, take some sort of system snapshot, then hit the Microsoft update site to install the latest patches. After that, I'd download Avast and/or AVG, Spybot Search & Destroy and/or AdAware, and a proper firewall, which has been Sygate Personal, but will be something else next time.
I wouldn't partition the hard drive. I used to, with DOS/Windows, but I don't think it's needed with NT/W2K/XP.
Step 2 for me is to install Microsoft Office: it's where I work. OpenOffice is, of course, an alternative, if you really need an Office suite. At this point I can do most things via Yahoo Mail and/or Gmail.
Step 3 is to get POP3 email working, and download Firefox or Opera to provide an alternative to IE. I might also download Thunderbird, but I'm currently an old-time Eudora user.
Step 4 is to copy across a whole bunch of utilities that I use from time to time and mostly have on CD (copied from a folder called My Downloads). Some of these are no longer available (DiskState), or I can't remember where I got them (Power Renamer). They include old versions of programs that do what I need, so I haven't bothered with upgrades. In some cases -- such as Startup Inspector, Process Explorer and WinRAR -- I might check for updated versions and download them, but it takes too long to redownload all of them. Also, I don't do this all at once, just install as necessary.
Step 5 is to download a few utilities, such as Google Toolbar and Yahoo Desktop Search. At this point, I'm not such which ones I'd download, except for the free DivX (taking care not to install the media player).
Step 6 should be to take a proper back-up, so I don't have to repeat steps 1-5.
Any thoughts? What have I missed?
