New Computer

Vandle

Vandle

Vandle

Soldato
Joined
14 Jul 2004
Posts
5,044
Location
Melbourne , Oz.
Just got myself a brand new laptop as I am leaving my employer and setting myself up as a consultant. I use a work supplied laptop all day 5 days per week so I haven't owned one of my own for over 15 years. Not much I need to do outside of work time that I can't do on an ipad. Our corporate IT look after everything and it all just works, pretty smoothly and with a surprisingly small amount of issues.

Anyway... not done much on my new laptop yet other than install gamepass and spotify but I don't want to mess it up. I cant just take it to the IT anymore to fix and downtime will cost me money. I plan on buying office etc shortly.

Any tips for setting it up? Its a lenovo Legion and its come preinstalled with a few trial editions of software such as MacAfee or Norton, don't remember which that have a few annoying pop ups. Same with some of the onboard lenovo stuff that just seems to get in the way. Everytime I boot it up I feel I am minimising some stuff that I just dont think I need.

Do I need an anti virus? I don't mind paying for it as I can offset the cost. Its running newest windows, fully up to date. I wont be using it to peruse gentlemen's art online.

I use chrome at work, got edge at home which I don't really like. Thinking of installing chrome and using the password manager as all of mine are tied up in apple keychain and I need to change a lot of them.

Any must haves? Or must do's? (Or do nots!).

Thanks
 
1: Uninstall any bundled crap (Mcafee etc). Uninstall them using something like Revo Uninstaller (edit, actually a more updated tool called Uninstalr was created by a reddit user, it's the go-to). These free tools will remove all remnants that are otherwise left behind when using the normal uninstall method through Windows settings.

2: Check to see that Windows Defender is enabled (the shield icon on the system tray). Defender is good enough and won't get in the way of day to day usage.

3: Uninstall any Lenovo utilities, or at the very least disable them from starting up (Task Manager > Startup tab, then right click disable).

4: Consider transitioning to Firefox over Chrome. Google now try to block you enabling adblockers on Chrome, and quite frankly Firefox is just better anyway. Firefox also has a very robust password/autofill manager that works across any device that can install Firefox.

5: Periodically you can run Windows Backup which can do backups of your internal drive to an external one. It works well and can be scheduled accordingly, or just do it manually when you need to run a backup etc. I'd very much recommend getting an external HDD or SSD (preferred) that matches the same size as the drive inside the laptop. You can then backup everything to that regularly for ultimate peace of mind. Given the recent Google issue with cloud file backups getting "lost" for a whole bunch of users, it's another nauil in the coffin for my dislike of cloud storage for backups, so will personally continue my backup runs on external storage like this.

That's about it really, you'll end up with a fast booting, fast running system, with regular backups stored on fast and reliable external SSD storage.
 
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Firefox up and running. Macafee removed however windows security has a little red cross and is flagging that virus protection is out of date. Concern?



Also with the lenovo stuff not sure what I need and what I wont. Vantage is a pretty cool dashboard that comes up on first boot up showing speeds and all that, not that I plan on overclocking it or anything. Legion arena seems liek its some kind of social gaming hub. Dont think I need that.
Can we bin any of this other stuff off? Not concerned about office as I'll be buying that shortly anyway but as its subscription based bit pointless now when I wont be working for a month or so.

Cheers

 
Vandle said:
Macafee removed however windows security has a little red cross and is flagging that virus protection is out of date. Concern?

Click to expand...
This is referring to Mcafee AV software being out of date which is normally updated through the AV software.

Personally I would remove that as well and use Windows defender. Is Macafee fully removed?

Have you rebooted the PC since removing Macafee?
 
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ED209 said:
This is referring to Mcafee AV software being out of date which is normally updated through the AV software.

Personally I would remove that as well and use Windows defender. Is Macafee fully removed?

Have you rebooted the PC since removing Macafee?
Click to expand...
Ah yes. Did a reboot and its fixed itself. Looking good and all green ticks. Now to disable the annoying Lenovo stuff.
 
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