How to maintain a healthy Windows System


Recommended Posts

Intro

I originally wrote this thread over at the Steam forums. But registering here I didn't think it would do any harm in posting it (with a little bit of editing done). Although I'm sure there are lots of you who know how to do this stuff, there will be a lot who don't. So, enjoy!

Before you start. I seriously recommend backing up all your documents. Things like the ?My Documents? folder, game saves and other program configurations. Nothing should go wrong; but, if does please be prepared. You can also utilise Microsoft Windows System Restore ? always a good idea to do this before you make a major change to your computer.

www.nighthawk-f117.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk Is a HTML based version of this guide.

Basic Solutions[/b]nsSimplele Stuff

Keep these things in mind when using your computer.

  • Don't open E-Mail attachments from people you don't know, and if you do - be careful, run a virus scan on them before opening.
  • Don't run files you don't trust, especially if they are just bare .exe files from a dodgy source.
  • Once you've downloaded a file, run a virus scan on it. Just to make sure, it can't harm you.
  • If your antivirus tells you you've got a virus in your temp internet files, stop browsing that page immediately. Close all internet pages, clear the temporary internet files and run a full system scan.
  • Before running a virus scan, clear your temp internet files and clean out the Sun Java Temp folder.
  • Pay close attention to the task manager, if you see a new process there, and you haven't installed anything - be cautious, it may be legit - but do some checking anyway. Google the process name, and run a virus/adware scan.Windows XP Service Pack 2 2
    If you?re using Windows XP, and don?t have Service Pack 2 installed ? install it!
Microsoft?s Top 10 reasons to install Service Pack 2.
You can get it here. Once you?ve downloaded it, Microsoft and I recommend: Edited by Nighthawk-F117

You should add the following link to your "Basic Solutions" section:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/s..._october08.mspx

It shows users how to schedule disk defragmentaion & cleanup to automatically run, so they won't have to worry about it.

Also, in your "Virus/Trojan/Adware/Spyware Problem" section you note "I use all four of the above"... but there are five products listed. You might want to update that. ;)

:cool:

AVG is good, but I think AVAST Antivirus is much better!

AVG is annoying in how you have to do full scans just to remove a viruse, and then sometimes it can't remove it.

Avast is really awesome, auto updates, and has a really nice, clean interface, and detects viruses/trojans that Norton misses.. and its FREE!

www.avast.com

Otherwise, everything else you have on there is good stuff, except for those software firewalls. If your a gamer, or use lots of weird programs, or do lots of networking, the software firewalls (zonealarm and internet security) can block stuff youdn't want blocked and most times its easy to unblock stuff, but sometimes things come up that you can't get unblocked. I prefer a hardware firewall over software.

If you dont use a router or anything, you can make an old computer into a firewall, using smoothwall. http://www.smoothwall.org/

Great stuff man!

about firefox-internet explorer, there is an extension called user agent switcher so firefox will identify itself as internet explorer, now that works for some website so i am not sure about windows update

est nod32 is a great low memory comsuming yet powerful anti-virus

Good guide! Although I think its just a basic guide. Hope you will release more guide soon.

585552107[/snapback]

Yeh, I am working on more additions to the guide. Just making them perfect.

To the person that suggest Crap Cleaner, I'm currently testing it - to see what it's like against other products I am trying. The same with Perfect Disk and Diskkeeper.

I'll get my hands on Startup CPL to the person that said it.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Microsoft launches Godot Sample to streamline Xbox PC game development on the engine by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe Microsoft today announced a new endeavor that aims to make it simpler for Godot developers to get their products into the Xbox PC ecosystem. Dubbed the "XBOX Godot Sample," this is a new public reference for developers using the open-source engine. This is set to serve as an example of how Microsoft GDK, Xbox Services, and PlayFab can be integrated into their projects. The sample is available now on GitHub as a working example. This covers key features in gaming projects that developers may need to release their projects on Xbox PC, with everything from matchmaking and game sign-in to gamepad compatibility with Godot being covered. This release is being called the first step in giving Godot developers the tools to bring their games over to Xbox PC, with more changes to come based on feedback and issue reports. However, the company was clear that this is not related to bringing Godot projects to Xbox consoles. The engine's open development model stops it from accessing console SDKs due to the requirement of NDAs and legal contracts. Here's how it explained this Godot sample project's focus: This is a source-only sample, not a product. It's MIT-licensed at the wrapper layer; the GDK and PlayFab dependencies still require their own installs and license acceptance, consistent with our other XBOX samples. There is no set update cadence for support or maintenance. We’ll watch the repo, monitor issues, and iterate where it makes sense, but this isn't a commercial release. That said, we’re excited to hear your feedback and see any community PRs, as we evolve this together. This is the first step in bringing Godot for XBOX on PC. We plan to evolve it over time based on what the community tells us is most valuable. This sample is built specifically for XBOX on PC. It doesn’t include support for XBOX Series X|S or XBOX One. If you’re already building for XBOX Series X|S or XBOX One, please talk with your XBOX representative. If not, you can get started by signing up here. Game developers can find the XBOX Godot Sample by heading to GitHub over here. Documentation on how to get started with Godot for building an Xbox PC project can be seen here.
    • I don't understand the vision. Do people really want to buy a new computer from Dell with 6 browsers installed? We all keep asking for Microsoft to stop having so much junk on their OS, and adding a bunch of browsers seems to go against that. Ideally, we would just be asked what browser we want during OOBE but Google is just going to pay Dell a bunch of money to include Chrome. Additionally, would you want your phones to start including all the browsers too when you get them? The only thing I ever wanted was to be able to uninstall IE or edge and I believe you are now able to. I do agree that microsoft needs to chill with their "are you sure you don't want to try edge before you install chrome" ads when going to download chrome.
    • It is notable that around 70% of web browser users choose Google Chrome. However, it is puzzling why anyone on Windows would opt for Chrome when Microsoft Edge is often superior in many aspects and comes pre-installed. Edge collects less data, uses less RAM, and is more optimized for Windows as a native Microsoft product. While some may point to bloat in Edge, much of it can be removed with simple tools, requiring no more effort than installing Chrome. Meanwhile, Chrome reportedly downloads large amounts of AI data (4 GB) without explicit consent. I'm sure you Chrome users love that, or? Here is one example of a tool that doesn't even need to be installed to be able to use: https://github.com/TheBobPony/MSEdgeTweaker Although Microsoft’s aggressive promotion of Edge may be questionable, the browser’s current advantages make it a preferable choice over Chrome today, even if Chrome may have been better in the past.
    • JetBrains rolls out IntelliJ IDEA update with Markdown preview fixes and more by David Uzondu Image via JetBrains IntelliJ 2026.1.3 from JetBrains has landed, bringing several highly requested bug fixes that target common UI glitches and terminal rendering issues. If you run tmux inside the integrated terminal, the IDE no longer renders the cursor above the active line. The Markdown preview bug, which was fixed in this release, had annoyed developers for quite some time, as the preview pane failed to render images saved outside the project directory. Instead of displaying the actual image, the IDE simply showed a broken image icon, a problem that stuck around for two years before this update. Over on Windows, developers running WSL can now use wsl.exe to spin up their environments without losing terminal functionality. In previous builds, launching a terminal shell with something like wsl.exe -d ubuntu inside a Windows-based project broke both shell integration and active process detection. Other bug fixes in this release include: An issue where Gradle sync incorrectly reported success as a failure on WSL when using Gradle 9.5.0. A syntax highlighting bug that flagged valid Java for-loop initialization blocks with multiple statements as incorrect. A warning bug that triggered a false non-null local variable alert when using JSpecify annotations. A database generation bug that hid the option to use a DELETE statement instead of a TRUNCATE checkbox. A Kotlin highlighting failure where an assertion error in the Gradle redundant library inspection broke error highlighting. A UI bug where the ComboBox popup lacked a maximum height restriction. A Snowflake syntax error where DataGrip failed to support the "create temp" command. A Svelte syntax parsing failure that incorrectly flagged quotes inside inline expressions. A VCS repository manager deadlock that triggered thread pool exhaustion. A memory leak where the LazyTree component kept all previous versions of a tree in memory. IntelliJ 2026.1.3 is the third bug fix release for the IntelliJ 2026.1 series. The first one landed back in April with a fix for the WSL Python interpreter freeze, another fix for guest participants using Emmet abbreviations, and corrected WildFly server deployment errors.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Collaborator
      Asgardi earned a badge
      Collaborator
    • Conversation Starter
      mobandz earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • Apprentice
      fernan99 went up a rank
      Apprentice
    • One Month Later
      nothanks earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Month Later
      B2Proxy earned a badge
      One Month Later
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      468
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      243
    3. 3
      Skyfrog
      79
    4. 4
      FloatingFatMan
      73
    5. 5
      Michael Scrip
      60
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!