Is my routine lacking anything?

S

steve_e

New member
While I don't consider myself an expert by any stretch of the imagination in dealing with computers and networking and what not, I often-times find myself helping people get a routine similar to mine going with basic PC maintenance. Basically what I do is every 2 or 3 days I will check "windows update" to see that I have everything up to par, even though I have automatic updates turned on. I will then delete everything from the internet options, delete section. Then I open up Spybot S&D, and if it asks me to clean up any temp files I always let it. I update Spybot, apply immunization, and then usually run a scan, and 99.9% of the time it says congratulations, no threats found. Also I have AVG running automatic updates and automatic daily virus scans.

Anyway this is my routine, and it seems to work pretty good for me. But I just wanted to see if there is anything else I could, or should add to it to ensure everything keeps running smoothely. I am more concerned with people who ask me for advice, and I tell them to follow my routine, but I would hate to find out I was giving shabby advice. Any input is appreciated! Thanks!

--- Steve E ---
 
Some of the core ideas within your routine are sound, though they are probably a bit more aggressive than required. For example, Microsoft normally only releases significant updates to Windows and Office on the second Tuesday of each month, though there are occasionally special 'out of band' releases for urgent 'Zero-day' exploits that can't wait. Generally though, your Automatic Updates setting (at minimum set to 'notify') should make you aware of these urgent updates, since they will always be 'critical'.

Also, having both anti-virus and anti-apyware, preferably including rootkit protection as Spybot S&D does is very important. There are several good free options of each and many more commercial options. These are basically your last line of defense though, the above and what follows are actually more important as your first line.

The notable thing you are missing is the update of all of your other applications. Since Microsoft Update (not Windows Update, since the OS is what that covers) also handles the Office applications, Microsoft itself is fairly well covered. What you haven't mentioned is maintaining your other applications such as Adobe (Acrobat Reader, Flash, etc.), Apple (iTunes, QuickTime), and other third-party apps like browsers (e.g. Mozilla, Chrome), Sun Java, etc.

Though many of these applications have their own internal update systems, knowing if they're all working and everything is current can be a nightmare. So looking at things like the Personal Software Inspectors (PSI) from secunia.com or a similar tool can help you confirm that these are all up to date.

Another way to keep on top of many of these and a range of other issues is to monitor web sites such as SANS Internet Storm Center or others that monitor a wide range of security issues. However, this can become tedious, so I actually prefer to watch the postings here in the General Security Alerts forum which is maintined by AplusWebMaster. I especially watch the 'Microsoft Alerts' and the general 'Alerts' threads, since these cover most issues affecting a wide range of PC software. I do generally try to read all of the posts in that forum though, just to keep abreast of what's happening in the world of security, vulnerabilities and malware.

So your own routine is basically a good start, but just appears to be lacking in the third-party application management area, though I suspect you might have simply forgotten to mention some of that. Since you advise others, I believe your time would be better spent reading that other forum here, since AplusWebMaster simply references many other sources and brings them all together here in a digest fashion. That way you can keep yourself aware of the broader issues affecting the entire PC world and simplify the monitoring of application updates with the Microsoft and Secunia provided tools, which are free for personal use.

Bitman
 
Good Point!

Yes generally if one of those other applications asks me to let it update itself, I will let it do it's thing. But you bring up a very good point, actually checking this stuff out for myself to make sure everything is up to date. That is something I will definitely have to make myself more aware of. I will check out secunia.com and make sure I become familiar with the operation of it. Also will pay close attention to those forums you mentioned here. Thanks very much bitman.

---Steve E---
 
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