Windows Computer setup guide

From YWAMKnowledgeBase

Contents 1 Preparing a Windows Machine for use 1.1 First Steps 1.2 General Setup 1.3 General Administration 1.4 Note for Linux users

Preparing a Windows Machine for use

It can take a long time to set up a Windows computer from install disk to the point when it has all the useful software on it you will need. This is a checklist I have composed to help me set up a windows PC.

I have tried to seek out the best in free software to save money and preserve our integrity when resources are few and the temptation to install software we have no legal right to use. There is a very functional free software stack that improves month after month, and I have listed the tools I use here.

First Steps

1. If machine is Windows 95,98 or ME give up now! (They are no longer supported by Microsoft hence will be come more and more vulnerable to problems, will not work on newer hardware and wont allow newer software to run on them). Proceed if 2000, XP or Vista
2. After checking all hardware is working right and installing drivers where needed...
3. Create Administrator and Restricted User (RU) accounts
4. Set Admin pasword properly
5. Run Windows Update and set to update automatically
6. For both Admin and RU log in and set Network drives.
7. Set wallpaper of Admin to RED so it is easy to see which user account is which!
8. Install an antivirus client (Clamwin http://www.clamwin.com/  F  , or AVG http://free.grisoft.com/  0  - personal user only; you must buy a licence for Charity use.). Set up for automatic checks and unpdates.
9. Install a firewall (optional)

Note Codes used here indicate

•  F  for Free software (Free as in 'Free Speech' - you will own this software and can modify, pass to others etc.)
•  0  for Zero cost software (Free as in 'Free Beer' - the software is not yours but you may use it but may not pass it on to others.)

General Setup

1. Set up the printers - local and network
2. Set up Software (productivity)
   • OpenOffice (with Java) http://www.openoffice.org/  F 
     • Add any fonts you want to use (like Orator)
     • Add any Templates the office users will need
   • Open Clipart http://www.openclipart.org/  F 
   • Firefox http://www.getfirefox.com  F 
   • Flash http://www.adobe.com  0 
   • Java if not combined with OOo above http://www.java.com  F 
   • Thunderbird http://www.getthunderbird.com  F 
   • Skype http://www.skype.com  0 
   • Pidgin Instant Messaging (MSN, Yahoo, Jabber and more) http://www.pidgin.im/  F 
   • Google Earth? Google Pack?  0 
3. Set up Software (creative)
   • PDF Creator http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/  F 
   • Scribus Desktop Publishing http://www.scribus.net  F  (download page) (NOTE this is hard to set up under Windows 2000 if you don't run it as a Poweruser, which I wouldn't recommend. Windows XP has no problems.)
     • Scribus needs: Ghostscript (Postscript) http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1897  F 
   • The Gimp (like Photoshop) http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html If you want Gimp with a more photoshop-like interface, then try Gimpshop http://gimpshopdotnet.blogspot.com  F 
     • The Gimp may need the GTK+ 2 Runtime environment (unless installed in Pidgin above)
   • Inkscape http://www.inkscape.org  F 
   • Adobe Acrobat http://www.adobe.com  0 
   • Realplayer http://www.real.com  0  (Download the Free version)
   • VLC Media player http://www.videolan.org/vlc/  F 
   • Audacity Audio recorder and editor http://audacity.sourceforge.net/  F 
     • To save to MP3 Audacity needs the LAME files: http://lame.buanzo.com.ar/  F 
4. Set up Software (Utilities)
   • 7 zip compression software http://www.7-zip.org/  F 
   • jkDefrag - for those that like to Defrag http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/  F 
   • Putty SSH and Telnet client http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/  F 
   • VNC http://www.tightvnc.org  F 
   • WinSCP secure ftp and scp explorer type client http://winscp.net/eng/index.php  F 

General Administration

1. install the Backup tool and set up
2. Plan and implement a regular backup

Note for Linux users

Linux users need only follow hardware and user setup stages plus the whole of General Administration. The software should already be there and Linux is already much more secure! Also most software can be downloaded and installed through the package manager in one operation.

Many of the software programs listed above are also available for Linux.