PC Persuasion

Now I must say, I’m not an affiliate for Microsoft and no Bill Gates is not holding my hand while writing this. I say this as I want to bring up the one thing that I personally think all PC users should have installed if they don’t already. “What is this absolutely wondrous piece of software”, you may ask? Microsoft Security Essentials, three medium size words that packs a huge punch.

I have been doing minor technical support on; my own, family and friend’s computers and if it is not running it as usually it is not, this would be the first item I installed before proceeding to repair. I can say without a reasonable doubt due to the amount of users I have switched to this now that it works! Now don’t get me wrong, would I trust it on a workplace server in a huge company to keep my data safe? Well I can’t answer that with 100% certainty as I have never been in the position where it was ever tried.  Most people take for granted that every time they turn their systems on that they are just going to work perfectly every time without a catch and grant it you could be very lucky. I know before I started using it, I’ve lost countless pictures and work I had saved to come back too as well as tax documents ugh the horror.

The free program which is available on the Microsoft Windows Page is a simple install solution in my opinion to take care of anything your PC could get infected with. I have mine set to run early Sunday Morning once a week, however, you can adjust the time and frequency you desire. Remember this, it will put a small picture of a house on the taskbar, if it’s green all is well, should it be any other color open it and see what the issue is. Usually it is a matter of running a very quick scan and quarantine of an effected file or removal. There are a couple of stipulations here, but very trivial and should be done anyway. The first is ensuring you keep you Windows up to date by running Windows update (this will also update windows live essentials) and the other is performing maintenance on the PC with Disk Defragmentation and disk cleanup. My general rule of thumb for a home pc that gets regular usage is to back up at least once a month ( I do every 2 weeks) and a defrag and clean up  once a week. Is this overkill? Well ask yourself this two part question instead, Can you afford to replace your pc every 6mths to 1yr or do you enjoy losing personal or valuable information?

After reading this, should you have any questions or need help please comment I would be happy to help where I can and if I don’t have the answer I will do my very best to find it for you!