I just got a brand new Laptop with Windows 7 on it, and I'm unsure of what to get next on it, what will come in useful?

 

Do you have a ritual, a set of software or setting you change when you get a brand new PC, or reinstall Windows?

 

So far I've got:

Getting rid of all the preinstalled crap

Getting firefox + addons

Avast Anti-virus

Microsoft office 2007

Bit torrent

Daemon tools

MSN

 

I'm sure im missing plenty of things here.

For me:

 

- Drivers

- Wireless drivers

- Antivirus (avast!)

- Browser (Firefox)

- IRC client (mIRC + nbs-irc)

- IM clients

- Network meter (NetMeter)

- Media players, codecs (foobar2000, Combined Community Codec Pack, Media Player Classic Homecinema, CoreAVC)

- Various other software (uTorrent, Speedfan, etc)

Ditch Avast for Microsoft Security Essentials or Avira Antivir.

 

Avast has too many false positives from what I've seen, and seems to have more false positives than actual detection.

1. I totally 2nd Microsoft Security Essentials.
   
2. If your OS isn't Windows 7, then turn off the indexing service.
   
3. if you have less than 2GB of RAM, then Disable Superfetch.
   
4. You might want to take a look at RecketDock, it's a very good toolbar/Launcher and it's free!
   

My Ritual.. not that I have a choice, this is all stuff I need to job my job ASAP on a new build.. fun list...

 

SP2

Disable Windows Firewall and automatic updates.

Drivers

Google Chrome

7zip

Camtasia Studio 5 & 6

WinSCP

Codecs + Players

Skype

Office

Teamviewer

FullTilt Poker

PostgreSQL

Hold'em Manager

Flash Player

 

 

As for the useful things..

HijackThis

 

My security consists of a bastard hardware based blacklist at the router, so I don't have to configure it all the time when I format or bring a new machine into the network.

.

Now that I've began using (Arch) Linux, my "rituals" have changed a lot. Here's what I'm going to do to the computer I will build soon:

 

- Building the computer

- Install CD in

- Launch the network driver

- Some basic configuration

- Partitioning

- Choosing to install the drivers required for networking on the hard drive

- Actual install

- First, hopefully successfull, boot to the system

- Installing X Window System, desktop (Xfce), hal (for plugging in USB devices and such), sound drivers, graphics drivers, and such

- Installing some very useful programs - Firefox, aMSN, Flash, Java, Rhythmbox (media player), GIMP, OpenOffice, Transmission (torrents), FileZilla (to upload files to my websites)

- Actually getting those programs to work :x

- Final configuration - starting network and desktop automatically etc.

- FUN STUFF!!! :thumbsup: This includes NetHack and Dwarf Fortress and other fun things

 

That's it, takes about one day to do everything... but after it's done I can begin to have fun quicker than most users' Windows (or even most Linux distros) even boots :D

you don't remove the crap applications you don't need, you format all drives then reinstall the useful applications again

Here is what I do after a typical build/repair.

 

Run Prime95 along with core temp to see how warm the processor gets at max load for 6-12 hours.

I then install MSE and do automatic updates.

I then install items like Open Office, Bit torrent, Ccleaner. Defraggle, ect, and any other drivers needed for items such as mice,keyboards, audio software.

After all of that I do another system Benchmark test at 6 hours with prime95.

I also overclock if need be.

 

It can take me up to 4 days to fully redo a system after windows installation.

 

I keep all of my software on a flashdrive as well as a backup DVD and on my storage server.

sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get install inkscape blender fontforge banshee meld hugin ufraw gimp-ufraw wine ktorrent lamp-server sysv-rc-conf

sudo apt-get build-dep blender

 

Get the nVidia driver.

Restart.

Done.