Thread: Advice please
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Old 02-21-2008   #3 (permalink)
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Re: Advice please

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Getting my new system in a few days and it will have Vista Prem 64bit installed.

The new system is going to be used for gaming and some surfing, all other stuff such as downloading and internet banking will be done on this machine which is running XP along with Avast and Comodo.

My question is- For the gaming machine I'm going to use Avast AV but do I need a separate firewall or is the one built into Vista good enough?

Also I have heard of windows defender, is this already on Vista?

Any other things/suggestions I need to do as soon as I start the new machine up? I was thinking of doing a system restore point before I put anything on it!

Never used or seen Vista so I don't know what to expect.

Thanks
The Vista firewall is good, but difficult to configure for outbound. However, I have never tried Vista Firewall Control : Sphinx Software mentioned above. I would want a firewall in addition to Avast AV and would use Commodo Pro (free). This firewall is easy to configure for outbound and includes malware protection.

Defender is on Vista, Commodo will disable it (as I recall)--which is a good thing IMO.

On startup, I would set Windows Update to notify me of undates, but not install them automatically and set Windows Sidebar not to start upon startup. Doing an immediate restore point is a good idea although Vista will create one pretty soon anyway. The big thing I would do is get Acronis TrueImage and make complete computer backup on an external drive for future use and disaster recovery. As you add programs, then you can add to the image incrementally provided you are happy with the way your system is performing given the installations.
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