Yesterday my friend brought around his computer... seems for the past several days it's been freezing quite a bit. After running the PC for a couple of hours, the bleddy thing must have sensed I was out for it because it behaved perfectly fine. Just for the heck of it, I decided to wipe the drive and try my 'new' Windows XP CD. It's one I 'made' integrating all the post-service pack 2 updates, a whole bunch of drivers, then stripped all the nonsense off the disc (leaving the actual Windows files at about 220 MB), and made it a full unattend installation. Now I have a light, superfast Windows XP I was dying to try out.
After installing Windows XP, I used the Autopatcher XP to install any updates I missed and also some additional applications (such as Flash, Shockwave, Java, etc) and to tweak Windows a bit. I can honestly say, if you have not been using Autopatcher, you are living in the dark ages of computing. Autopatcher took 1.5 hours to install everything I asked (my Windows XP took about 20 minutes and picked up all the drivers for every bit of hardware). The beauty of Autopatcher is that everything is on a disc so that people on dial-up or slow internet connections do not have to wait eons for downloads.
Then it was time for a special software DVD that I have all the software I commonly install on a PC. I started off by eliminating Adobe Acrobat Reader. At 20+ MB, it's terribly bloated and takes an annoyingly long time to install (for me anyway, I can be a bit impatient at times). So I used Foxit Reader which comes in at 1.67 MB, installs very rapidly and opens in seconds and best of all, it's free! I also used the free PDF Creator, to create a virtual PDF printer. Now my friend can print any document to PDF format.
That's when the PC decided to give up the ghost. The hard drive could not format, so I pulled out my trusty Hiren's disc, (you may want to send a donation his way, it's all a voluntary project for him), loaded up PC-Check, and found the hard drive to be bad. Changed it for a 40 GB drive. I know, that's not much space, but I only use a small drive for installation of the operating system and applications, not for storage. There is a separate drive for that.
After installing Windows XP, I used the Autopatcher XP to install any updates I missed and also some additional applications (such as Flash, Shockwave, Java, etc) and to tweak Windows a bit. I can honestly say, if you have not been using Autopatcher, you are living in the dark ages of computing. Autopatcher took 1.5 hours to install everything I asked (my Windows XP took about 20 minutes and picked up all the drivers for every bit of hardware). The beauty of Autopatcher is that everything is on a disc so that people on dial-up or slow internet connections do not have to wait eons for downloads.
Then it was time for a special software DVD that I have all the software I commonly install on a PC. I started off by eliminating Adobe Acrobat Reader. At 20+ MB, it's terribly bloated and takes an annoyingly long time to install (for me anyway, I can be a bit impatient at times). So I used Foxit Reader which comes in at 1.67 MB, installs very rapidly and opens in seconds and best of all, it's free! I also used the free PDF Creator, to create a virtual PDF printer. Now my friend can print any document to PDF format.
CCleaner and CleanCache, to clean the hard drive on a weekly basis. Irfanview for images, Getdiz for system files (allows the system files to be read as text files), Cacheman for memory management, Leechget for downloads, Firefox as the default browser (I also use Maxthon as my IE alternative), VLC Viewer (together with Media Player 11 and WinAmp complete my media package).
From Google, I use Google Desktop, Picasa 2, and Google Earth. I use Quicktime Alternative, Real Alternative, and the All in 1 codec pack.
For anti-spyware, I use Lavasoft Ad-aware, Spybot and SpywareBlaster (all together). Scan weekly.
All the software that I've kindly provided links for above (heh heh) is free. Yes, totally free.
In the line of paid software, I used McAfee Viruscan Enterprise for the antivirus but the AVG Free is what I would recommend for dial up users as the updates are frequent yet very small.
I used Nero 7.8.5 for CD burning and Office 2007. I was a beta tester for Office and liked it so I got my very own copy since. A free alternative would be Open Office.
I also use Diskeeper for my defrag utility. Windows Defrag lags behind this. It has a nifty 'Set It and Forget It' scheduler. But you can get Diskeeper Lite which is again free.
You will notice that almost all of the software in the computer so far is free, except for Windows itself. All these software give me everything I need from my PC, so naturally my friend was loaded with all these free goodies too.
After installing all this I realised it took a rather long time, several hours. I'd hate to do this again on his system, so I used Ghost to make an image of his spanking new HD installation onto a DVD. In future, he can very well do it himself.
Or walk with drinks. :-)
From Google, I use Google Desktop, Picasa 2, and Google Earth. I use Quicktime Alternative, Real Alternative, and the All in 1 codec pack.
For anti-spyware, I use Lavasoft Ad-aware, Spybot and SpywareBlaster (all together). Scan weekly.
All the software that I've kindly provided links for above (heh heh) is free. Yes, totally free.
In the line of paid software, I used McAfee Viruscan Enterprise for the antivirus but the AVG Free is what I would recommend for dial up users as the updates are frequent yet very small.
I used Nero 7.8.5 for CD burning and Office 2007. I was a beta tester for Office and liked it so I got my very own copy since. A free alternative would be Open Office.
I also use Diskeeper for my defrag utility. Windows Defrag lags behind this. It has a nifty 'Set It and Forget It' scheduler. But you can get Diskeeper Lite which is again free.
You will notice that almost all of the software in the computer so far is free, except for Windows itself. All these software give me everything I need from my PC, so naturally my friend was loaded with all these free goodies too.
After installing all this I realised it took a rather long time, several hours. I'd hate to do this again on his system, so I used Ghost to make an image of his spanking new HD installation onto a DVD. In future, he can very well do it himself.
Or walk with drinks. :-)
