Good Morning, I want a configuration whereby I can use my new laptop without fear of the operating system slowly degrading. I loved the idea of virtualisation but I want to use my laptop to play games. Has anyone got any ideas on how to achieve my aims? Many Thanks, Joel
-avoid porn sites and other places where you'll get infected -if windows is installed on an HD and not an SSD, defrag it about once a week (with auslogic disk defrag, not windows' defrag tool) -ccleaner every few days to clear caches -avira antivir free for light antivirus protection and most of all ... good judgment
Best way to do it imho is to install windows, install all the programs you like, and then make an image that you can restore from time to time. Aside from that, what ghys sais also helps a great deal.
Try using Deep Freeze. I've never used it before but what it does is save all your setting, files, programs, profiles... and never lets you change them. Every time you reboot all the setting.... are restored to the point in which you setup Deep Freeze. Don't worry you can turn it off and add a partition in case you would need to save email, files... http://www.faronics.com/en/Products/DeepFreeze/DeepFreezeCorporate.aspx But it isn't free
- Use Windows Vista or Windows 7 as your system will be auto-maintained. (Also, set a schedule time for the defrag) - Use Microsoft Security Essential for the best free anti-virus around (based on reviews). It's super light, scans fast, and very good at detecting viruses and spyware. - Don't install/uninstall many programs, especially big ones. Small ones are usually safe as they do good job cleaning them self at uninstall. - Keep Windows Updated - When you update a driver, make sure you uninstall the old one first, restart your computer, and now install the new ones - As mentioned, avoid untrusted web sites, like p0rn ones - Avoid P2P (unless it with friends), and torrents. - Do not install any tools bars. - Avoid program with multiple components, like iTunes (try Zune, foobar, Windows Media Player 12 32/64-bit, and others as free alternatives). - Use CCleaner every now and then to empty any cache, history, temp directory and all that (no need to do this everyday, once every 2 weeks or once a month, is fine). The above has been followed on my laptop (Dell Latitude E6400). I did not re-install my system since October 2009 (when Win7 was out), up today and still going strong. System still feels like super fast, like a fresh install.
Why would it degrade ? Unless you got tons of malware and viruses, or it corrupted itself in some way. I'm not sure about these people that constantly reinstall windows "but I like a 'fresh' install". I had vista on my comp for 3 years and then clean installed win7, and I didn't notice any difference in speed. You could set your self up as a 'user' rather than 'admin', then if you cock something up you can just delete that user account.
Don't install all kinds of crap. Me, i'm happy with Firefox, Thunderbird, MSE, WMP with the Shark007 codec pack, WLE and GIMP. Oh and of course i have Steam on there. I installed Windows 7 when it came out and it's still clean. I could use IE and Outlook for a super integrated feel, but to be honest it still makes me worried whenever it goes click click click.
This ish is for real. In 2005, I was able to get into this techology in education convention, (My buddies and I were 16 and we wanted to go, so we volunteered the day before to stuff bags so that we could meet some staff and try to get some free student tickets). We succeeded, and went into the convention, and had a whole lot of fun since the big mainstream companies were there (Intel had a huge booth, Apple had a gigantic booth, Microsoft had a pretty big one, etc.). We talked to the Faronics guys, and they showed us Deep Freeze on the first day of the convention, and told us that we couldn't get through it. We said that we were sure we could, so they told us that if we broke through Deep Freeze and were able to delete OS files or cause issues, they would give us the laptop they were using to demo it for free. Now, at the time, we had already figured out how to get around the high school's PC security settings and had helped the IT guy make a new group policy that was far more secure. So we thought, hot dayum, getting a free laptop. We played around on it the first day, and tried small stuff in windows. The second day, we came armed with CDs of software to try to break it. The last day, we brought bootable Linux CDs and tried to just delete the hard drive partition. None of it worked. We searched online. We asked people we knew (we had all just gotten MSCA certs that year, so we knew a thing or two) But nothing we could do to break into the OS worked. Nothing we could do to try to get around the OS or remove the OS worked. Finally, after seeing how hard a trio of 16-year olds had tried, on the third day they gave us each a Faronics T-shirt for free.
No crap like MSN+ or Infected Smiley Pack Avoid all fake Anti-spyware software or Auto-download link Make your Boot Startup lite as possible Do not put your laptop on a pillow, or you'll scrap the Fan someday.
You have good chance to scrap the fan, Bearings do not really like dust you know. So the fan will stop and to be safe the laptop won't start anymore, exept if you install a new fan.
In my experience, do a reinstall on your laptop, and don't install all the OEM rubbish that comes with laptops these days, it improves system speed no end. Like others have said do a disk defrag every week. What I'd tend to do is if you can migrate your data to some other form of disk - either a second disk or via online storage. This way you can do make a system image once your programs are installed and its been defragged. Then load the image every few months - will keep your laptop operating at its fullest speed.
I used to have this problem with Vista, where the boot time from power on would increase, and the shutdown would lag a bit. But Windows 7 has been running on my PC now for over a year and I can't detect any noticeable slowdown. In fact its faster now than when I started, as I doubled my ram in the meantime!
