The Care and Feeding of your Windows XP Computer

Welcome to Care Of Windows XP.  If you want to keep your computer under your control then you've come to the right place. This site has been produced for all the normal people using computers on the internet. Y'know, people who don't spend their lives working on the intricacies of computers!  (There is a Take Action section below by the way if you want to skip the background...)

 

When the people at ARPA (defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) designed the foundation for what we now know as the Internet, they didn't realise how widespread it would become, or how much its usage would change. The Internet wasn't designed to include security, or protect the traffic or users on the network, or for e-commerce, or many of its other modern uses that millions of us get great benefit from.

But there are some people out there waiting to take advantage of others...

• Do you have adverts just pop-up without you having clicked on an Internet link?
• Is your Internet connection slower than it used to be?
• Does your computer exhibit strange behaviour that it never used to?
• Do you receive emails with files attached that you don't know what to do with?
• Concerned about the use of Instant Messaging?

Most of us have more important things to do in our lives than to defend our computer from hackers, viruses, worms, spyware, malware or any of the other nasty things lurking, ready to attack our computers or steal our information. Using this website will quickly give you the results you need; your computer under your control. This way you can spend more time doing those things you would actually like to do.

The Good News

There are things you can do (or avoid doing), as well as computer programs, that will help defend your computer from these issues.  By avoiding certain practices, installing the right software and giving a small slice of time regularly to keep it up-to-date, we can take advantage of the best things on the Internet without suffering the worst.  Sound like a good idea?

Think of your computer like you would your car: if you keep your car maintained through regular servicing and keep putting fuel in the tank, it keeps running. Spending a small amount of time regularly to care for and feed your computer can keep it under your control.

Take Action

If you want to keep your computer under your control then start with our six recommend actions;  actions that we've taken ourselves and have served us well:

The Six Actions we recommend you take (just follow the links for instructions): Upgrade your computer to Windows XP Service Pack 2 Turn on Windows Automatic Updates Buy and install a good Firewall and anti-virus security product (find our recommendation here) Install at least two anti-spyware products If you have children consider content protection Back-up your computer regularly

 

This site

Once you've got your computer under your control by following the actions above you'll find plenty of other areas of interest on the site.  We also have a free application called Home Page Creator for those who subscribe to our free newsletter, in which we'll let you know about new content on the site and useful alerts about Windows XP.

Use the navigation options on the top of the page to access the main areas and then the left hand toolbar to navigate within the area. If you're already quite familiar with a particular subject then just skip over that one to go straight to the subject which interests you now.