new pc - things to do list

fiddiwebb

CJMITSystems wrote: »

Thanx for that post, Not sure what condescending is but hey if you do not like my advice then do not take it.
And the "we" stuff is all about the people that spend time coding the open source "free" apps, It does take time to do it and even if they do it for the love of it they also need to eat and pay the electricity.

I do agree that Sandboxy is lighter however it will allow the user to save data to the local disk and then you have the Virus problem again. check out "revision3 . com / hak5 / ultrasandboxes" +- 9:40 into the show they do a test on Sandboxy...
An alternative is Comodo Internet Security.

But as I say thanx to davidmt83 for the points.

Not related to CMITE who is spamming the boards then?

Richie-from-the-Boro

espresso wrote: »

Richie-from-the-Boro

My point is that your post was not necessary and not helpful.

- by whose measure, I mean apart from the laid down rules [ below ] who decides what is necessary or helpful ?

- shouldn't we, you and I, stop this now ? I know I will !
- it's clogging a thread and of no use to the O/P

"ADVERTISING

This site is free from advertising. Posts on any board considered to be advertising goods, services and/or companies will be removed. We also do not allow advertising via PM

Examples of this can include anything from a specific sales post or a link to your own website in which you attempt to sell something to someone offering their holiday home to forum members. Unfortunately we cannot allow any advertising of any description no matter how honourable the intention.

This includes the Referrals Board (see below).

If you think you have a genuinely good deal please contact a Board Guide for the board you’d like to post it on. If they agree with you they’ll contact the MSE Team and it will be considered. Any final decision will be that of the MSE Team. Please do not question the response with the Board Guide.

nomoneytoday

On the flip side, with my mac, I opened it, put in my name, email address and network details and it "just worked"

My Vista installation and personalisation took an afternoon to get it working "just right" (taking off UAC, Virus checking etc etc)

espresso

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

- by whose measure, I mean apart from the laid down rules [ below ] who decides what is necessary or helpful ?

- shouldn't we, you and I, stop this now ? I know I will !
- it's clogging a thread and of no use to the O/P

If you consider a post is advertising then report it. There was no need for your contribution - read the rules yourself!

ih8stress

sharkie wrote: »

Have you tested them so you're able to boot from the DVDs without using the o/s on the disk, and also the DVDs contain all the files, rather than a subset?
I haven't tested them. Not sure exactly what the procedure is TBH.

Personally, I'd use the free clonezilla, and save the image to at least one usb drive.Not heard of clonezilla, do you have a link? Do you mean an external usb hard-drive? If so, don't have one (at the moment)

For myself I have partitioned my disk into 100G + 400g partitons. Only the system and really important and essential files are stored on the 100gig. The benefits are quicker recovery times, quicker to do a chkdisk, and quicker defrag. Should that partiton get messed (or os upgrade), then usually only that 'small' partition needs to be re-formatted and the data in the other is kept.I'm not techie enough to attempt this sort of thing myself yet:)

Thanks for all your advice

ih8stress

alanrowell wrote: »

Not having a firewall?

I have Windows Firewall + my router, thanks.:)

ih8stress

Redman30 wrote: »

Windows Firewall does a fine job.

What you really need, rather than all the 'cure infection' tools, is to become more savvy about the kind of sites and things these come from. Don't download pirate music, software or films, or install the programs that enable this. Pay attention to the links you hover over on less reputable forums etc.I don't download music or films of any kind. The software is just free ones gleaned from this forum (like the ones listed in my original post)

If it looks to good to be true, is offering free whatever, and is a site unknown to you, then you're compromising your system by using it.A lot of sites are unknown to me, which is why I usually check them out on this forum:)

Thank you for your good advice. I am pretty cautious and also a technophobe which is why I ask questions in this lovely forum:D

sharkie

if you reall hate stress: if you do not know how to restore your backup, then it is pointless and stressful when things go wrong. Some restores require you to install windows first before doing a restore. Clonezilla is a menu driven linux boot disk which takes a copy, snapshot, picture of your hard disk at that particular moment. Others like ghost will work on the fly and Acronis True image (which is very good) both costs ££. As said, if it is a windows product and does not boot from cd, then you need to reinstall windows first - often a big part of the build.

Now this clonzilla image is just a file of data, and can be saved to usb stick??? but usually to a usb disk due to size. Would recommend you do it regularly what ever method you choose and if it is to usb disk, then have multiplr copies

I am not going to rob you of the experience by googling Clonezilla for you and providing you with a link

in my case, in the distant past, used ghost and have to copied an image of my system partition and placed it on my data drive, this allowed nearly instant recovery of my drive - I had to test various packages and needed to roll back. These days there are otherwaus, but that is a different topic, and I would not recommend this in your case.

For many people one partion and/or one drive is ample, but just want to put a bee in your bonnet for the future.

Clonezilla is a good way to go for full disk or partiton backups with minimum effort, disk upgrades and recovery disk. It is no good for getting back files or directories, or backing them up, as often other solutions are used.

You may as well start reading the spyware sticky to become familiar, and the 'help, my pc has a virus/trojan....' posts - it is only a matter of time

aaronm_2

congrats on having a new PC and enjoy it

ih8stress

sharkie wrote: »

if you reall hate stress: if you do not know how to restore your backup, then it is pointless and stressful when things go wrong. Some restores require you to install windows first before doing a restore. Clonezilla is a menu driven linux boot disk which takes a copy, snapshot, picture of your hard disk at that particular moment. Others like ghost will work on the fly and Acronis True image (which is very good) both costs ££. As said, if it is a windows product and does not boot from cd, then you need to reinstall windows first - often a big part of the build.

Now this clonzilla image is just a file of data, and can be saved to usb stick??? but usually to a usb disk due to size. Would recommend you do it regularly what ever method you choose and if it is to usb disk, then have multiplr copies

I am not going to rob you of the experience by googling Clonezilla for you and providing you with a link

in my case, in the distant past, used ghost and have to copied an image of my system partition and placed it on my data drive, this allowed nearly instant recovery of my drive - I had to test various packages and needed to roll back. These days there are otherwaus, but that is a different topic, and I would not recommend this in your case.

For many people one partion and/or one drive is ample, but just want to put a bee in your bonnet for the future.

Clonezilla is a good way to go for full disk or partiton backups with minimum effort, disk upgrades and recovery disk. It is no good for getting back files or directories, or backing them up, as often other solutions are used.

You may as well start reading the spyware sticky to become familiar, and the 'help, my pc has a virus/trojan....' posts - it is only a matter of time

Thank you for your reply. I have looked further into Clonezilla both by googling and on this forum and think that maybe getting an external hard-drive and Acronis True Image may be a better option for me:)
So, if anyone out there knows of any cheap deals on Acronis True Image coming up, please:D. I understand there is a 15 day trial, is this any good?

I have, and do, read the sticky guides as well as other posts but sometimes this can either make me more confused than when I started:eek: or 'go over my head'.

With regard to backing up files such as my photos, documents etc. I already have these on dvd-r discs and usb flash drives.