castledoom.com

[JuntaJoe]

*System Cleaner. Disc Cleanup is very weak. CCleaner gets rid of old internet files, unused registry entries, old pre-fetch data, temp files used by 3rd party programs, and other trash that Disc Cleanup leaves.

www.ccleaner.com


*Disk Space Analyzer. WinDirStat tells you exactly what's on each drive or partition, along with how much space it's using. Perfect for dealing with full harddrives and deciding what to get rid of.

http://windirstat.info/


*Data Destruction. It's not hard for a skilled hand to recover something deleted from your recycle bin. File Shredder overwrites the data 15 times and makes illicit recovery virtually impossible.

www.handybits.com/shredder


*Security. Firewall, antiviral, anti-spyware, and anti-malware. These five securities are some of the most highly rated and totally free. The five set combo is used as the primary system for MaximumPC offices. Kick Norton to the curb!

ZoneAlarm Firewall: www.zonelabs.com

A-Squared Anti-Spyware: www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/

AVG Free Edition Anti-Viral: http://grisoft.com

Blacklight Rootkit Scanner: www.f-secure.com/blacklight

HijackThis Anti-Malware: www.merjin.org


*System Profiler. Belarc Advisor audits your system and givesa comprehensive list of all components, devices, and software installed. It tells you which user accounts have logged onto your system. It even generates a list of Microsoft hotfixes not installed. You can also run the CIS benchmark and see where you are vulnerable from a security standpoint.

www.belarc.com/free.download.html


*File Monitor. Ever wonder why a file is locked by another application and you can't deal with it until you shut everything down? Unlocker solves this with a simple right click and tells you which program has a hold on your file and will allow you to break the lock.

http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker


*USB Boot Management. Forget that boot floppy! Turn a USB key into a bootkey instead.

http://tinyurl.com/kaytz


*File Encryption. Hide your porn! Or perhaps your secret knitting habit?

www.truecrypt.org


*Windows Installer Manager. A new way to reinstall Windows is nLite. It allows you to add and subtract programs, service packs, patches, and hotfixes without all those reboots. You can even install your RAID drivers. One install and you are ready to roll!

www.nliteos.com


*System Recovery. Harddrive going belly up? BartPE allows you to boot your pc off a cd even when Windows won't work. Tons of available plugins to let you run last minute operations to pull everything out. Add Firefox, recovery software, Nero, anti-viral, or lots of other things that can make your last trip to your old harddrive a fortunate one. Burn you a disk today.

www.nu2.nu/pebuilder

[Eddy]

Excellent post! Most of these I've heard of, but a few I haven't.

[JuntaJoe]

Yep, free doesn't mean always mean lousy.

That five set security combo will turn your pc into a stone fortress.


And that Windows installer is freakin' amazing. I always dread a reformat because of all the time it takes. Poof! and there goes your whole weekend. Imagine slapping in everything in one fast shot!

[Brf]

I still swear by AdAware, which can be downloaded at http://lavasort.de

Hijackthis is becoming more useful as log interpreters come onlinr to pick out the baddees, otherwise it lists everything it finds in your registry that might possibly cause a problem... including parts of windows, your virusscan, and other stuff. I used it at home to identify a popup, and at work to fix LISP hijacks.

[JuntaJoe]

I use Adaware myself. I'm sure that employees at MaximumPC add their own redundancy on their personal terminals as well. This five program suite is merely the "standard" corporate security suite for all the terminals.

Redundancy in security is always good, but the first priority is a balanced coverage plan.

[Batchman]

OK, let me ask a question here ... what are the details about this install thing?

I have had my notebook for 2.5 years, and its gotten so clogged up with layers of crud that things don't want to work, and it is crawling.

Possibly there are some viruses in it, but if so, they hide well enough that multiple virus programs can't find anything (one at a time, not all at once.)

At this point, I just plan to wipe the drive and reinstall from the disc that came with the computer. I'm not looking forward to the actual work, because it will probably take two or three days to get everything done and cleaned up ... anything that might give the computer a true fresh start, yet be quicker and simpler might be a really nice thing.

[JuntaJoe]

First grab your images, browser links, and all letters/personal files and then burn them to disc or to a portable hd.

Then make sure you have the disc to install your internet software.

Then do a 100% reinstall. A hard wipe over everything. Terminate everything with extreme prejudice. When you have the fresh install then load your internet software and go to MS to update your OS.

Simple as that.


Only a total wipe ensures you cleaned it all out.