MS Windows is a system in my opinion that is targeted by viruses, worms, Trojan horses and the likes. Windows does crash, or at least some of the system files get corrupted and you have to reload your system. I have had very good results with very basic solutions that helps postpone the inevitable Windows reload. It’s not rocket science, but very simple basics to follow that makes your reload a whole lot simpler.
My number one would be, when you reload your PC create two different user accounts, one for the administrator, and one for the normal day to day user. The idea behind this is simple, you don’t need admin privileges to work on your PC. You can do most things with your normal user account, you can work on your documents, play music, movies, games and do your day to day work. Going this route has the advantage of not being too vulnerable by not allowing threats like viruses and the likes to have administrator privileges. Doing it this way helps when you do get some trouble, most of the time you’ll have trouble with your normal user account and creating a new user account will sort the problem out. You must just keep in mind that you’ll have to setup things like your mail setting and where your documents are kept. Please keep in mind that this is no guarantee that you won’t have trouble in future, but it does help to save you from reloading every time you have problems with your user account, which I think accounts for most of the problems.
My number two basic Windows idea is having your data on a different partition. When you’re reloading your PC and you only have one hard drive, partition your drive with two partitions, in other words, say you have a 160GB drive, create two partitions of 50%, so you’ll have close to a 80GB C: and 80GB D: (or whatever your second drive letter is). Then load Windows on C: and use it for installing software like MS Office and your games and other programs. This way you’ll have a partition just for user data. I’ll go as far as to say it’s a good idea to create a folder for your software like Adobe Acrobat Reader and all the things you have to load when you do a reload. I also have a folder for system drivers which is very useful when reloading Windows, this way you don’t have to search for all your drivers and you don’t have to download anything for your system to work, this is especially handy with things like network adapters to get onto the web if you have an unsupported network card.
The nice thing of doing things this way is that when you need to reload, you don’t have to make a backup of your user data before the time because it’s not going to be influenced by the format (but be careful not to format your D: drive). It’s always a good idea to keep backups of your data and no matter how careful you are, there is always a chance of loosing it.
Please don’t take this as the only way of doing things, most advanced users would have a way of doing things their own way which could be simpler or more time consuming or whatever, but please keep in mind that the idea behind this post is to help novice users to get the most out of their PC experience and learn the basics. Also remember if your data is important to you, make regular backups, make backups before you attempt anything you’re not sure of, and don’t keep me responsible for any loss of data.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED TO MAKE BACKUPS
