Hello PC

So, I just bought my 1st PC hardware (laptop). And some of you know that I've been a Mac user for many years... So I figured I'd ask you fella's what are the do's & don't. What sofware is suggested for viruses, trojans, spyware etc. And off course. Any suggestions are welcome.

Sadly, this one came with 64bit Vista Premium I have read in the past of compability issues and what not. 4GB Ram, Intel Dual Core. With Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD (sounds errrr... crappy but oh well). As said, I just want to know what programs I need for protection and all. Free ones would be good lol.

http://reviews.cnet.com/windows/windows-vista-ultimate/4505-3672_7-32013603.html

I found that review if you wanna read it. As for myself, it's just feel the same as XP, I own a desktop with XP and a laptop with Vista. I just changed the them so they both have the Classic windows theme on and aside from the icons you really don't see a big difference.

Nomad said:

Sadly, this one came with 64bit Vista Premium I have read in the past of compability issues and what not.

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Vista 64 in the Premium or Ultimate version is the best Windows OS you can get for your laptop at the moment. I don't know of any serious compatibility issues you could encounter with a brand new computer.

Nomad said:

With Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD (sounds errrr... crappy but oh well).

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Yeah, it's not that great... But why buy a laptop if you want a powerful graphics card anyway?

Nomad said:

As said, I just want to know what programs I need for protection and all. Free ones would be good lol.

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You can install Avast if you want to stick to a free antivirus. Personally I've never bothered. As long as you know what you're doing an antivirus isn't absolutely necessary.

Thanks for the replies. As far as video I'm not really all that concerned, as long as I can send decent HD video to my HDTV I'll b fine. Anywho, I'll give that antivirus a try. I_think I know what I am doing but I rather play it safe. Currently I'm trying to get some sort of decompreser, the only one I keep seeing is WinZip but apparently it ain't free. Man I feel like I'm online for the 1st time lol. Sorry, I'm just really lost here.

Nomad said:

Currently I'm trying to get some sort of decompreser, the only one I keep seeing is WinZip but apparently it ain't free.

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http://www.7-zip.org/
http://www.altools.com/ALTools/ALZip.aspx

Pick one of the two.

I'm telling ya. Your wife is lucky I'm not a girl lol. Thanks bro.

Welcome to Windows nomad and congrats on your upgrade ^_^ just keep your windows patches up to date and beware shady looking websites. Remember always Antivirus can be a virus themselves (since they usually slow the hell out of your machine). So if you are going to use an antivirus you might want to use a lite one like AVG or avast, I personally don't use any.

ELEKTRO said:

Welcome to Windows nomad and congrats on your upgrade ^_^ just keep your windows patches up to date and beware shady looking websites. Remember always Antivirus can be a virus themselves (since they usually slow the hell out of your machine). So if you are going to use an antivirus you might want to use a lite one like AVG or avast, I personally don't use any.

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Ha ha, thanks man. Funny thing though, I was downloading some decent looking wallpapers and got my 1st virus last night lol. But it's all good now, BTW (and I hope you read this soon) I'll be in PR next week. Give me a buzz if u wanna hang out bro. So far so good on the PC side. Still trying to get comfortable with it, I'm satisfied with the performance so far. Thanks for the advices guys.

I would have told you the first thing you want to do is not buy a PC. I've been using a PC all my life and I'm sick of it and fed up and its BS and I'm moving to Mac myself.

avidwriter said:

I would have told you the first thing you want to do is not buy a PC. I've been using a PC all my life and I'm sick of it and fed up and its BS and I'm moving to Mac myself.

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Fortunately Nomad receives better advice from the people close to him.

avidwriter said:

I would have told you the first thing you want to do is not buy a PC. I've been using a PC all my life and I'm sick of it and fed up and its BS and I'm moving to Mac myself.

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I_am a Mac user. And I wouldn't trade it for the world, however I allways felt the need to learn both. PC and Mac can very easy compliment each other in their strengths. For my use, I just wanted something cheap and decent for me to carry with me in my travels. Though I am no fan of Vista... It has changed my view of it since the day I started really using it. Granted, in my eyes Mac OSX is still a better operating system for my liking... But Windows has not been as bad as I expected. But this is me at my early days with one. Maybe my opinion will change, but for now I am content.

Oooh and ummm... at least I don't feel like an outsider to my friends when computer topics begins!

As long as your hardware is Vista compatible (most newer hardware), then you won't experience many, if any, hiccups with the OS. The nightmarish reputation it's gathered is specifically because it was packaged with newer PCs that weren't necessarily compatible. Big blunder on the manufacturer's part, but it won't affect those that build their PCs themselves (like me).

I used Macs for 10 years, almost exclusively.

Switched to PCs in order to do 3D and programming work for games. After a few years of working primarily on a PC, going back to Macs feels ... really clunky. Neither one is ideal, but the Mac interface is a lot more windows-oriented, so I find myself moving windows around, resizing, and generally doing "screen management" busywork than I do on Windows.

The only things that I really recommend for everyone are an anti-spyware program (Spybot is good, though I use both Spybot and AdAware) and a good firewall (I really like Agnitium Outpost Firewall). Anti-virus is not entirely necessary if you limit your online behavior (ie, have a routine) and use caution. Also get: Firefox, Opera, or some other non-IE browser. For music, use foobar2000 -- After years of cursing at iTunes for eating up hundreds of MB of memory ("All I want you to do is play music...!"), it's nice to have a music player that only takes up 12MB of memory when I'm using it (not that memory is a concern, but it's nice when software isn't bloated to hell). If you need some kind of office programs and you don't have the Microsoft Suite, get OpenOffice.

Thanks again for the replies guys. As far as software office related things, I would only be interested in Word (vista apparently only offers a trial version). Still very happy with Vista so far. Though there's a ton of things that vista brings in which I know I'm not going to use, and I could use the space... is there a safe way to uninstall these things? Games, certain applications and such? or do I just right click and delete? Again I apologize for the storm of stupid questions here. And no worries, My wife allready picked up Vista for dummies lol soooo...

Anything is better than buying a laptop the moment you just get all set up and go online you discover that because there is two anti-viruses running at your computer at the same time it really doesn't do a thing and for a week you using it and your full with viruses

Heh, so far so good on that side. However, my Vista OS is buggy (keeps on dumping files in awkward places) and sometimes gets moody (work specific softwares whenever it feels like it). I guess it's all good at the moment. Currently, I am trying to figure out better ways to convert MKV videos in HD that could play both PC's and well... in my case PS3. There's quite a few converters out there. But still trying to figure out the cheats and tricks to it. Everytime I decide to convert a MKV file to PS3, the size goes from 9gb to 2gb, Add one more once I set the video to "highest quality". but that's about it. Anyone here has any experience in the matter? Is there a better way to convert these videos?

What I have done to convert some video files whether is .avi,.mpeg, and .mkv is that I open it on windows media player, then go to File > Save As and choose the extension file I desire. Example I have video.avi I choose to save it as video.mp4 and it does it. the size hasn't changed and I"m able to view it on my psp. I don't know about the PS3 since I don't own one. But that's what I do and it works for me. Typically mp4 files should work on both Mac and windows. It would be better chance of playing them if you have the current codecs or Quicktime player on both Operating systems. Media PLayer classic is a good player to play almost any kind of video file.