New Computer Setup Tips

This article is a guide outlining our top new computer setup tips. Whether you just pulled the computer out of the box, or if you just ran the system recovery disk from the manufacturer, there are certain things you should consider doing at this point to make your computing experience the best it can possibly be.

Top 5 New Computer Setup Tips

The following new computer setup tips are some of the recommendations we make to users in our forums. If you have any additional advice, be sure to let us know. While we also have more tips, these are our top five must-do recommendations:

1. Uninstall the crapware.  Unless you built the computer yourself and installed a full version of the Windows Operating System, chances are you have a lot of crapware on your system. Crapware is trial software that will continuously nag you for the next year and beyond. Even worse, crapware is software that automatically launches on boot and eats both memory and CPU cycles. This type of software can be Antivirus programs like Symantec or McAffee, game trials, and online backup software. Remove it all from the Programs section of the Control Panel. If you’re removing trial antivirus programs, be sure to use antivirus removal tools.


2. Install Windows Updates. Visit the Windows Update section in your Start menu or visit the site directly from here. Out of the box, your computer is lacking important security updates that put your system at risk of virus infection. Do not visit any websites until all patches are downloaded and installed.

3. Install essential programs, such as a backup web browser, Flash, Java and Adobe Reader.  A great free website that provides the installers for many of the most popular programs you would normally download one at a time is Ninite.com, you can now get them all in one fail swoop. Note: When installing security software, make sure you only install one antivirus.




4. Setup a local Network Attached Storage (NAS) backup device. A NAS is a quick and easy way to perform backups and share files with others on the network. Most NAS devices will ship with free software to perform the backups, but if your NAS has trial software, use SyncToy to automate the process for free.

5. Now that you have you system exactly the way you want it, make a System Image Disk in Windows 7 using its built-in utility, or if you have a previous version of Windows, try a program like DriveImage XML. Having an image of your setup means you can easily restore the computer back to this state in the future without having to go through most of the steps above. These utilities will have options to create a boot disk, so make sure you do.

New Computer Setup Tips Conclusion

While these new computer setup tips may seem like a lot of work, you’ll only need to do most of these steps once. You’ll then have an image of your computer that you can use to restore the whenever you need to (virus infection, new hard drive installation, etc). Unless you have an actual Windows install disk, you simply cannot rely on a system recovery partition or recovery disk to get your computer back to a working state. Taking the time to perform these steps while your computer is free of malware, has the latest updates, and is free of annoying trial software is the best possible advice we can give to users setting up their PCs for the first time. If you have additional new computer setup tips, please share them with us.