Maintaining your computer is like maintaining your car - don't keep up and either will stop working sooner or later (N.B. Murphy's Law prevails, your computer or car will fail at the worst possible time). The list below provides some generalized instructions for maintaining a computer that has been set up and protected according to our Setup List. So feel free to highligt and copy the text below, insert it into a document of your own, and customize it for your situation. Then, we recommend you print it out and tape it right next to your computer monitor. Oh, and follow the instructions!
Daily Maintenance:
- Keep dust and dirt off the computer and screen. Clean screen with a slightly damp cloth, dust keyboard.
- Install any critical updates from Windows (popup bubble on lower right corner of screen) immediately when they appear (Windows XP SP2 users can turn on Automatic Updates)
- Read and act accordingly on any messages that come from your computer manufacturer or a trusted program (only trust your computer manufacturer, your operating system and commercial software manufacturers, and your antivirus, firewall, and anti-spyware software manufacturers).
Weekly Maintenance:
- Update your firewall, antivirus and antispyware programs to
the latest version, and with the latest definition files.
- Run Windows or Microsoft Update to check for updates and install
all critical updates, and any non-critical updates that appear and look useful.
- Run Office Update (if you haven't upgraded to Microsoft
Update) to check for and install any updates to your Microsoft Office programs (If
you use Office 2002 or earlier, you may need to insert the
installation CD)
- Check for updates to and any other programs installed on your
computer not otherwise listed here.
- Run your computer manufacturer’s update utility (e.g., "IBM
Software Update" for Thinkpads) and install any updates that appear and that look useful or recommended.
Miscellaneous Maintenance (do on whatever schedule you feel is appropriate):
- Run Disk Cleanup occasionally
- Run Disk Defragmenter occasionally
- Use your backup software (e.g., IBM Rescue & Recovery) to backup your computer. At least once, verify that you know how to (and can actually) restore your computer from this backup.
- Run a 3rd party antivirus scanner to validate your program’s effectiveness (use Housecall at www.antivirus.com, a free online virus scanner).
- Use a CD-R disk and copy all your documents and data files to it, as a redundant backup.
- Visit www.positek.net for updated safe computing guidelines and updated maintenance tips
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Why Bother? |
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Short answer - to retain your ability to use your computer! If you want to check email, surf the web, write letters and documents, do home finances, do online purchasing, etc., you need a working computer and lack of maintenance is a sure-fire way to NOT have one.
This list provides instructions on keeping a Windows computer system up-to-date and assumes you have safeguarded your computer system with a number of programs to protect yourself. Keeping these programs up-to-date is critical to uninterrupted operation and system reliability.
Please see our Safe Computing Guidelines, which give you advice on how to use your computer and the internet safely and protect your personal information and this system from harm.
For the list at left, we recommend you create a favorites folder called "Computer Maintenance" and copy all applicable icons from your All Programs menus and submenus into that folder. That way everything you need is in one place. Otherwise, you will have to hunt for the icons you need every time you do maintenance.
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