13 Things You Must Do First With Your New PC

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13 Things You Must Do First with Your New PCCreated 12/25/2009 - 11:00am

Posted 12/25/2009 at 11:00am | by The Maximum PC Staff70Comments

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A new computer is like a blank state--there's a lot of potential there, but without some work on your part, it's useless. It'snot hard to get started, but there are some essential first steps that everyone should follow when breaking in their newPC. In this guide, we've compiled a step-by-step list of essential tips, tricks and advice from many of our other features, toprovide you with just the information you need to get off to a great start with any new PC. So if you got a new rig underthe PC under the tree this year, or even if you're just thinking about getting one in the future, read on to find out more!

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If your new PC is a premade system, and not one that you built yourself, it’s likely that your operating system came with a fewlittle “bonus” features, like toolbars and other crapware. You can take the time to decrapify your PC if you want, but you’reassured better results by simply reinstalling Windows.

And while you’re reinstalling, you should check out vLite, a tool for making a custom, slimmed down Windows 7 (or Vista) installdisc with all the features (and only the features) that you want. You can also include drivers and hotfixes on the disc, which willbe automatically installed with Windows, saving you time later. Because of this, even if you don’t need to reinstall Windows rightnow, it’s a good idea to make a vLite install disc for the next time you need to reinstall.


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Making a vLite disc is a pretty easy process, but you’ll need to have your Windows 7 disc handy. To learn more, check out ourVista vLite guide (the steps are basically the same for Windows 7).

No PC is an island—your system best flourishes when it’s connected to the internet and other locally networked PCs. So one ofthe first things you’ll want to do is ensure that you’re properly set up with you local network. That means more than just pluggingan Ethernet cable from the back of your tower to the router.


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First, you’ll want to configure your PC’s Workgroup domain so that other systems on your network can detect it. If you’re usingWindows 7, you’ll need to determine whether you’re on a Home, Work, or Public network. This will allow you to tweak your file,folder and printer sharing options so your PC will play nice with others. You’ll also need to adjust the file-sharing encryptionsetting to 128-bit to secure your local connections. Additionally, Windows 7 PCs should have HomeGroups synced up forincreased protection and streamlined setup. Refer to our Windows 7 Networking guide for more details.


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Next, you should consider switching over to OpenDNS to improve the responsiveness of your internet connection. We have astep-by-step guide for how to do that here.

If you’re planning doing a lot of PC gaming and P2P file-sharing on your PC, you’ll need to configure port forwarding for thoseapps. Refer to http://portforward.com/ for detailed guides to forwarding ports for any router make and model.

Finally, link up your PC with any NAS boxes or Window Home Servers on your local network. Use these servers to store or backup your media database.


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Software is what takes your new computer's raw processing power and turns it into something actually useful to you. Of course,what "useful to you" entails differs from person to person, but we've compiled lists of software that we think just about everyoneshould have.

First, you’ll need to secure your computer with antimalware and antivirus software. Our recommendation for antimalware softwareis Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware, and SUPERAntiSpyware. For antivirus, we recommend Microsoft Security Essentials. If you feellike you need the added protection of paid antivirus, we recommend Symantec’s Norton Internet Security 2010.

After you’ve secured your system, check out our list of 33 awesome utilities. We think they're all great, but pay special attentionto these 5 for a new machine:

Dropbox7-ZipKeePassFileZillaRevo Uninstaller


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Then hit up our list of 32 essential apps. All of these will help your PC do more for you, but we especially recommend these 5.

SkypeDigsbySteamFirefoxPicasa

If you've got backed up data from your last computer that you want to transfer over, now's the time to do it. In Windows 7 andVista, the bulk of your user files are located in C:\Users\your user name. Since your new drive is so deliciously empty, you cancopy the contents of the directory over to your desktop. This will let you go through the folders and conduct a spring cleaning toweed out, say, that 10GB of blurry photos. One thing you can instantly do is move your iTunes directory over, after first installingiTunes on the new hard drive.

Windows XP users can find their iTunes folder on the old drive by looking in C: \Documents and Settings\your user name\MyDocuments\My Music\iTunes; Vista users can look in \Users\your user name\Music\iTunes\. Copy the contents from there to thesame place on the new drive.

For Steam games, download the latest version of Steam and install it. In Windows 7 and Vista x64, copy over the Steam Appsdirectory from \Program Files (x86)\Steam\ to the same directory on your clean drive. Relaunch Steam and your games will beready to play. Windows XP and 32-bit 7 or Vista users will find the files in \Program Files\Steam\.


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In this increasingly-mobile age, your desktop PC takes on the responsibility of being the home base for all of your mobile devices.So make sure you’re set up to take advantage of mobility, using this checklist:

* Are your email inboxes and contacts synched? Using a webservice like Gmail can help keep your emails on your desktop,laptop, and even your mobile phone.


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*Do you have the software you need to manage the music on your mobile media player? If you have an iPod, iTunes is ofcourse the way to go, but if you don’t we recommend Songbird, an open-source media manager.

* Do you plan to use instant messaging on your desktop and your laptop? If you do, we recommend Digsby, which stores allyour contacts in the cloud, regardless of what IM service you use.


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There are a lot of ways to get more out of Windows 7, from learning new hotkeys to tweaking your settings. We've written acomprehensive list here, and reprinted a few of our favorites below:

Hotkeys:

Windows + Shift + Left/Right

If you are using two or more displays (and who isn’t, these days?), memorize this shortcut to easily move a window from onescreen to the other. The window retains its size and relative position on the new screen, which his useful when working withmultiple documents. Utilize that real estate!

Windows + [Number]

Programs (and new instances) pinned to your Taskbar can be launched by hitting Windows and the number corresponding to itsplacement on the Taskbar. Windows + 1, for example, launches the first application, while Windows + 4 will launch the fourth. We


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realize that this is actually one key-press more than just clicking the icon with your mouse, but it saves your hand the trouble ofleaving the comfort of the keyboard.

Windows + T

Like Alt + Tab (still our all time favorite Windows specific shortcut), Windows + T cycles through your open programs via theTaskbar’s peek menu.

Explore from “My Computer”

Windows Explorer’s default landing folder is the Libraries directory, but some of us are more comfortable with using “MyComputer” as the default node, especially if we use multiple hard drives and external storage devices.To change the default node, find Windows Explorer in the Start Menu by typing “explorer” in the Start Menu search field and rightclick the first result. Select “Properties”. Under the Shortcut tab, the Target location should read: %SystemRoot% and the Targetshould be: %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe


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Paste the following in the Target field: %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /root,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

New instances of Explorer will open up to “My Computer”. You’ll need to unpin and replace the existing Explorer shortcut from theTaskbar to complete the transition. Just right-click the icon, hit, “Unpin this program from the taskbar” to remove it, and then dragExplorer from the Start Menu back into place.Accelerate your Start MenuThe Start Menu hasn’t changed much from Vista, but there are some notable improvements. The default power button isthankfully changed to Shut Down the system, as opposed to Hibernation, as it was in Vista. This can be changed to do otheractions from the Start Menu Properties menu.


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Additional customization brings Videos and Recorded TV as links or menus to the right side of the Start Menu, next to yourDocuments, Music, and Games. Feel free to mess around the Customization options since you can always return to the defaultStart Menu settings by clicking the “default” button at the bottom.

Pin-Up Your Favorites

Explorer’s Jump List shows your seven most frequently visited folders, but you can manually bookmark some favorites to the topof the list by pinning folder locations. Just hold right-click on any folder, either on your desktop or from an open instance ofExplorer, and drag that folder icon to the Explorer shortcut on the Taskbar. You’ll see a message that reads “Pin to WindowsExplorer” before you release the mouse button. The folder will appear under a “Pinned” section of the Jump List, and you canremove it by clicking the “Unpin from this list” icon on the right side of the panel.

Take Control of UAC


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Despite good intentions, User Account Control pop-ups were one of the most annoying aspects of Vista, and a feature that mostof us immediately disabled after a clean install. UAC in Windows 7 displays fewer warnings, but you can also fine-tune itsnotification habits by launching the UAC Settings from the start menu. Just type “UAC” in the Start Menu search field and clickthe result. We find that setting just above “Never notify” gives a comfortable balance between mindful security and incessantnagging.

With all your apps and files in place, it’s time to customize the Windows UI to your personal aesthetics. The point of overhaulingyour UI isn’t just to make it look pretty – you also want to streamline its functionality to suit how you use your PC. Differentiatingyour Desktop from the stock Windows theme is a great exercise in customization, and it can be a whole lot of fun.


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There are two Desktop makeover utilities that we recommend: Samurize and Rainmeter. Both let you create and import custom UIskins and utilize powerful applets that let you monitor and control your system settings.

We’ve written up a guide to creating basic widgets in Samurize, but you’ll want to explore the community forums for advanced tipsand user-created widgets.


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Rainmeter skins are just as slick, and there’s a wealth of resources online where you can download a premade skin to use ortweak.

Every new system needs to go through the benchmarking ritual before you can consider it broken in. System benchmarks let youquantitatively justify a new PC, compare it to other systems with similar specs, help you figure out system bottlenecks, and let youmeasure the benefits of tweaking and overclocking.


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Benchmarking typically falls into two categories: synthetic and real-world benchmarks. Synthetic tests mimic the computationalload of other common applications, simulating how your system handles extreme use cases. Examples of these include PCMarkand the popular 3DMark software. Real-world benchmarks, on the other hand, run actual desktop applications with settings that anormal user would have. This includes Photoshop scripts or using Fraps with in-game demos. Check out Will Smith’s explanationof proper benchmarking procedures here, and a list of free game benchmarks here.

Modern hard drives feature Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology, or S.M.A.R.T., which can warn you if your harddrive is starting to fail—before it actually does. Unfortunately, the OS doesn’t pay attention to these warnings. So, even thoughyou could have known a few months in advance that your drive was about to go tango uniform, the OS kept it a secret. There area number of good free tools available that can relay the message, such as SpeedFan and DiskCheckup, but their interfaces canbe a bit overwhelming for the average Joe or Jane.


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For something so simple that anyone can understand it, we run HDD Health. Install it, configure it to run at launch, and it will alertyou (even by email) if enough S.M.A.R.T. errors occur to rate a possible impending drive failure. A simple temperature bar andhealth bar will also help you decide if it’s time to start doing daily backups of the drive.

Probably one of the most important things you’ll need to do with a new system is to implement a sound backup strategy. Luckily,you have plenty of options when it comes to free tools to back up your data.


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Windows 7 has a decent Backup and Restore feature that lets you schedule backups to specified volumes and also create aRecovery Environment disc to boot your system in case of a crash.

If you’re using a Home Premium version of Windows without a Complete Backup feature, you should still create a drive image ofyour system with software like Acronis True Image or Drive Image XML.


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Cobian backup is a great free tool for scheduling backups to a NAS box, USB key, or even FTP server.


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Speaking of the online backups, the Cloud is a secure place to back up your documents. Read our guide to online backupstorage solutions here.


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Most PC lightweights simply ignore the BIOS and wait for their OSes to take over. Power users, however, know that the BIOS canbe a friendly and rewarding place to go spelunking.

Even though there are only two BIOS makers for consumer desktops today, AMI and Award/Phoenix, a multitude of BIOS variantsexists. In fact, a Gigabyte board using an Award BIOS can bear little resemblance to an Asus board using an Award BIOS.

In motherboards designed for enthusiasts, board makers typically unmask as many controls as possible. Unfortunately, thedizzying array of options includes both safe and unsafe tweaks. While some tweaks will just leave you with a system that refusesto boot, others can do long-term harm.

If you’re comfortable with the prospect of a little trial and error, it’s time you dive in and discover the many secrets your BIOSholds.

Change Your Boot Order


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Even if you boot your PC just once a day, you can save six or eight seconds of time spent waiting by changing the boot order ofthe devices in your machine. Instead of the PC checking on an old floppy drive or CD drive to see if it can or should boot fromthose devices, it will go straight to your hard drive.

To do this, go into the BIOS (hit DEL, F1, or F2 during boot) and search for the boot order. It’s usually plainly labeled as “Boot” orthe like. Make the primary hard drive that the OS resides on the first thing to boot. Now, just relish the thought of what you can dowith the time you save.

Every BIOS Setting Explained

There’s an almost endless supply of ways to speed your computer up, through hardware, software, and OS tweaks, but there’sreally only one way to get a virtually-guaranteed significant performance boost totally for free: overclock your CPU.


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Overclocking is daunting for some people (your futzing around with what is almost certainly the most complicated thing you’veever owned, after all), but it’s not something that has to be a major headache. As long as you’re patient, and willing to follow aguide, you should be able to get real performance gains out of your processor in no time.

Our guide for overclocking Core i7 CPUs is right here.

Our guide for overclocking Core 2 CPUs is right here.

The CPU isn’t the only processor in your computer, and it’s not the only thing that can be overclocked. The GPU in your videocard can also be overclocked, to wring out some extra gaming performance. Now, you won’t see the same system-wideperformance gains as you will from overclocking your CPU, but it’s definitely still worth looking into.

For more info about overclocking your GPU, check out page 5 of our guide to making your computer Better/Faster/Stronger.

Since a desktop PC doesn’t have a battery like a notebook, you might think that you don’t need to think about how power-efficientit is. But it’s worth paying a little attention to--if not just to be environmentally friendly, to save yourself some greenbacks.


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The easiest way to go green is to go into your control panel, and open the Power Settings. Click on the Advanced setting button,and choose and choose values for the monitor-off, sleep, and hibernate timers that are as low as possible while still fitting in withhow you use your computer.

What’s the difference between sleep and hibernate? When your computer goes into sleep mode, most of the hardware stopsreceiving power, but the data in memory is retained, and the computer can be “woken up” almost instantly. Power consumption isgreatly reduced, but not eliminated. In hibernation mode, your system simply writes the system state (the contents of your RAM)to the hard disk, and shuts itself off. When you start the system up again, it has to go through the boot process again, then loadsthe image, picking up right where you left off. Power consumption is as low as you can get, short of unplugging your powersupply.

If you want to get greener still, check out our roundup of free power-saving utilities.

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Links:[1] http://www.maximumpc.com/user/author1[2] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/13_steps_any_new_computer[3] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/howtos/howto_purify_your_new_laptop[4] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/how_to_streamline_and_customize_your_vista_installation[5] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/windows_7_feature_focus_networking[6] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/how_to_improve_your_browsers_web_performance_administrate_your_network_it_pro_using_dns[7] http://portforward.com/[8] http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php[9] http://www.superantispyware.com/[10] http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/[11] http://www.symantec.com/norton/internet-security[12] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/33_essential_utilities[13] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/maximum_pcs_32_totally_essential_apps[14] http://www.getsongbird.com/[15] http://www.digsby.com/[16] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/20_windows_7_tweaks_tips_%E2%80%93_every_secret_uncovered_date[17] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/howtos/how_to_customize_and_streamline_your_windows_desktop[18] http://rainmeter.net/RainCMS/[19] /article/howtos/howto_start_building_your_perfect_desktop_samurize%20http://www.samurize.com/modules/news/[20] http://lifehacker.com/tag/rainmeter/[21] http://gizmodo.com/5373379/computer-benchmarking-why-getting-it-right-is-so-damn-important[22] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/freeware_files_five_free_games_benchmarking_your_gpu[23] http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php[24] http://passmark.com[25] http://www.panterasoft.com[26] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/windows_7_feature_focus_%E2%80%93_backup_and_restore[27] http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/[28] http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm[29] http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm[30] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/howtos/how_to_choose_right_online_backup_solution_and_free_your_files[31] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/old_tech_new_tweaks[32] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/ultimate_bios_guide_every_bios_setting_revealed[33] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/ultimate_core_i7_overclocking_guide_we_push_nehalem_its_limits[34] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/overclock_your_pc[35] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/21_steps_make_your_pc_betterfasterstronger?page=0%2C4[36] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/maximum_green_5_freeware_apps_that_save_environment_and_your_cash[37] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/10_things_you_must_do_first_every_new_netbook


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[38] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/21_essential_steps_make_your_pc_betterfasterstronger[39] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/give_windows_a_clean_start_how_to_reinstall_your_os_right_way[40] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/the_32_totally_essential_and_free_apps_every_new_pc[41] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/33_essential_free_utilities_every_new_pc[42] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/list[43] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/new_pc[44] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/overclock[45] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/software[46] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/vlite[47] http://www.maximumpc.com/articles/features[48] http://www.maximumpc.com/user/login?&commentfragment=comments_top_anchor


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13 Things You Must Do First With Your New PC

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