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Well I agree you can just use a proxy and beat all of the above, but when it comes to drivers...WTF are you doing man? Seriously what the hell? you are using a search engine to find fricking drivers?

Let your friendly neighborhood repairman Hairyfeet help you out there grasshopper, learn how us old greybeards get a system from blank drive to up and running with NO effort in less than an hour and a half, here we go.

1.- Go to Driverpacks and download the packs for any OSes you are gonna be installing, you can even put them all on a thumbdrive or DVD for ease of use.

2.- Go to WSUS Offline and download their update generator. Again simply check the boxes for what you want, they have XP-7, 32 and 64bit, you can even get all the MS Office and .NET patches while you are at it. I personally have every patch from 2K-Win 7 X64 on a shared drive, couldn't be easier to use and the nice thing is you'll never have to waste bandwidth downloading a patch or service pack twice, one time takes care of it

3.- Once you have the machine up and running, after you have run the driverpack and WSUS so you have it all patched and set up nice and neat go to Ninite to take care of most of your third party stuff, your flash and codecs and the like. Again just check the boxes for whatever you want and run it, couldn't be simpler.

4.-The final icing on the delicious cake is to go grab a copy of Comodo Time Machine and when its installed have it make a snapshot and lock it. That will give you your own "roll back to factory state" just like the big OEMs but with all the patches and drivers and third party softare installed. Then set it to make a snapshot daily and if your user bones anything, even if they make it unbootable, they can be back up and running in 15 minutes or less, easy peasy.

Well there you have it, 4 simple little steps that will take you from blank drive to running system hassle free. Your actual interaction time? less than 10 minutes since the majority of its completely automated so you only need to make the selection and go do something while it runs. But don't hunt for drivers on the net, that's just a waste of time and you are just as liable to get a trojan pretending to be a driver as not.

http://ninite.com/.net-7zip-air-chrome-firefox-flash-flashie-foxit-java-opera-pdfcreator-reader-safari-shockwave-silverlight/

that covers just about everything you would need download (on another computer) shove it onto a flash drive and then run on your new computer (must have network connection)

what could work is

1 the ballot program should have a picklist of different browsers and then in similar fashion to Ninite grab the current version(s) and install them
http://ninite.com/.net-7zip-air-chrome-firefox-flash-flashie-foxit-java-opera-pdfcreator-reader-safari-shockwave-silverlight/
will install all of the "Top 4" other browsers and a few other things.

2 just go ahead and install all five of the top browsers and be done with it

I use the Pro version of Ninite to keep things updated at work. When checking whether they had already gotten the Java update in, I found that Ninte has released a Pro version for free for a week. I recommend the free version to friends/family, and it should be good for most people, but the Pro version is worth a free try if you manage lots of computers and don't have an automated update solution already.

http://ninite.com/flash-flashie-java-shockwave/

and as an added bonus it skips installing the "extra" [redacted] for you

Have they removed the pop ups yet? The last time I installed LO it complained left and right because the system didn't have Java on it, one of the reasons I don't ever install LO the traditional way anymore, I just go to Ninite and use their fully automated install for LO along with any other must have software the user needs, no bitching about Java with Ninite and no Java install either, double good.

okay
A 1on your system download WSUSOFFLINE and build a patch set
      2 download (but don't run) http://ninite.com/.net-7zip-air-chrome-firefox-flash-flashie-foxit-java-pdfcreator-shockwave-silverlight/

B 1 at your fathers house Dissconnect the Router
      2 Wipe the Harddrive and reinstall Windows (you do have a record of the key right??)
      3 run the WSUSOFFLINE update installer
      4 do whatever other settings fixes you need to (enable Windows defender??)
      5 reconnect the Router
      6 run Ninite
      7 spend the time Ninite is running explaining things to your father
      8 Run FireFox and install AdBlock (or do the same to Chrome)

Bit of advice? Try Asus, I've been getting quite a few from them for customers and the amount of trialware was very low, just your standard MS Office trial and the option of having a Norton trial if you wanted it. If you didn't you simply said no at first start and voila! No Norton.

BTW once you have the PC set up the way you want it, which I suggest using WSUS Offline for the patches and Ninite for the third party stuff like Flash? Well once its set up all nice and clean and fresh smelling you can just use Comodo Time Machine to make it pretty much unfuckable. Just lock the first snapshot (so you have your own version of a factory restore) and set it to take a snapshot daily and tada! Even if they manage to make the machine unbootable you can have it back up in under 20 minutes by phone, all they have to do is hit the Home key when they see the clock (right after BIOS) and then pick which snapshot they want to go back to, couldn't be easier.

I agree about the trialware infections though, last time I had to deal with a factory reset on a Dell mini I wouldn't to pull my fricking hair out! We're talking an Atom single with 1Gb of RAM and they had something like NINE things running at startup! What a fricking mess, but once I had him all nice and ready to go CTM means I won't have to deal with that crap again, its a life saver if you have to deal with clueless people. But I've tried dealing with ARM friend and you do NOT want to go there. What you end up with is pissed off people because they can't run their dumbass Windows programs, it wouldn't matter if you sold them a dual core netbook for $40 they would still be pissed that it couldn't run whatever crapware program they wanted.

Why don't they make it so that you can download the installer (for use on other computers) without using TOP SECRET BURN BEFORE READING links??

oh btw a cool way to get all the "stuff" is http://ninite.com/.net-7zip-air-chrome-firefox-flash-flashie-foxit-java-pdfcreator-shockwave-silverlight/ download that file and then run it to get everything installed (and yes i did include both chrome and firefox)

Let old Hairy show you how to seriously cut the time down on a boot and nuke there friend. First go to WSUS Offline and have it download the patches and/or service packs for whatever version of Windows it is, you can then put 'em on a thumbdrive or DVD and have them ready to go once the OS is installed. Once the patches are all installed just go to Ninite on the now clean machine and check the boxes for any third party software you need, AV, flash, media players, codecs, etc.

And then finally once you have it just the way you like it slap in Comodo Time Machine and have it set to make a snapshot on boot. personally depending on how stupid the user is I have CTM take up 10%-20% of the drive, this way next time they do something stupid you can walk them through restoring the system in about 15 minutes. Nice thing is even if they hose the machine so badly it won't boot you can tell them to just hit the Home key on boot and run Time Machine from there. With these little tricks you are talking maybe an hour and a half, maybe six clicks all told, and once set up it'll be damned hard for them to pwn it again. Personally if it were me I'd use Comodo Internet Security for the AV as its not only free it plays nice with time machine, although I've also used Avast and its played nice too.

As for TFA its not like there aren't a bazillion and one warez sites out there, i'm sure if Demonoid goes tits up another will take its place by the end of the week. You'd think they'd learn its like whack a mole with those things but if the *.A.As want to pay some Media Pretender to play whack a site? their money to blow I guess.

Yeah you really gotta watch for the flaky PSUs. I had one customer, in the same building mind you, that kept bring his PC back because "it'll run for a little bit and just die" so after the first PSU replacement i called the super and had him check the line....it turned out his outlet was getting less than 87 volts on average which would stress the PSU as it struggled to boot and then it'd cook.

Be sure to also test the RAM though, i've been noticing a LOT more chips coming down the line with bad cells. my guess is because its a race to the bottom they are just cranking those suckers out with little QC and a bad cell will act a lot like malware or a flaky drive.

But if you don't already know about 'em WSUS Offline and ninite make a nuke and install pretty much a "clicky clicky, go have a smoke" kinda deal. Just let WSUS update all the patches (and service packs if your Windows disc is behind) ahead of time and when the OS is installed just let 'er run, you can put 'em on a DVD, flash, hell I just leave 'em in a network share, and when its done ninite will give you all the third party stuff like browsers, AV, flash, etc. Can't be simpler so when you DO have to nuke you don't have any real work, just clicky clicky and go.

She got what we call a "bundle bite" which is common as dirt friend and comes from "free" software, all that means is she just went "clicky clicky next next next" and refused to even take 4 seconds to look at what she was agreeing to. Since most of the bundle bites have a checkbox that you can uncheck to keep out the toolbars I'd be hard pressed to call that one anything but PEBKAC since unlike a bug they aren't trying to trick you, they just figure you're too damned lazy to even uncheck a checkbox.

BTW next time she needs some software, mind a suggestion? Ninite has all the third party stuff most folks want, media players and browsers and messengers and all kinds of software and TOOLBAR FREE so she doesn't even have to uncheck any checkboxes, its fully automated. Just have her check a box for each piece of software she wants and run it, simple as that. You can even use it to see if you have the latest versions as it'll skip any install that is up to date.

Actually I've found you lose money on Linux because its a fucking support nightmare from hell. How do you tell if that new device will work with Linux? you can't, any hardware lists are horribly out of date, its a total crap shoot. Hell try the Hairyfeet challenge, take ANY distro, your choice, from just 4 years ago (less than half the Windows support cycle) and update it to current using JUST the GUI as any normal user would be expected to do. Know what you'll get? A broken mess, that's what. In just the last 4 years you went from ALSO to Pukeaudio, KDE 3 and GNOME 2 to KDE 4 and GNOME Shell, and that's just the top layer stuff, the guts are even worse off, with all kinds of incompatible bullshit down in the networking guts especially. Any Windows machine I sell will continue to function for the life of the Windows install barring hardware failure, possibly even longer as I have a few customers that only recently retired their Win2K machines. Linux? Can't do it, the whole system from the kernel up is in a state of flux and shit breaks constantly.

Finally if you'd taken just 10 minutes of your time before install you'd never have had that problem with drivers as there is this place called DriverPacks where you can simply download a pack with ALL the drivers for damned near every piece of hardware, all compressed with a nice little GUI that will do the work for you. Just pick the OS you are planning on install or do as i did and download the packs for every Windows OS and you are good to go. Once done you can simply slap them on a DVD, put them on a flash, whatever, and run it once you get to the desktop and go make a sammich, it does ALL the work. Finish up with Ninite while you have your dessert and tada! From a blank drive to a fully loaded and ready to go Windows in about an hour, an hour and a half if you use WSUS Offline to install the windows updates which you have had it download previously. I keep it on a shared drive but you can use DVD, flash, whatever floats your boat. Again hassle free and an hour and a half and maybe 4 clicks total, couldn't be simpler.

Nobody gives a shit about ZFS but server admins. Just to make this clear, pathetic as it may be that I have to spell this out for FOSSies but apparently they are too clueless to understand this, that or they know they can't win on the subject at hand so they move the goalposts so here goes: We are NOT talking about your LAMP, your cell phone OR your toaster. the majority does NOT care about these things and are NOT the subject at hand which is DESKTOPS. Go run your benches on your LAMP and post them to "Nobodygivesafuck.com" thanks.

As for repos if you are TRULY not smart enough to go to the site of the person that makes the software and download it? Then you should stay on Linux because you are too retarded to run anything else. But if downloading Adobe Flash is soooo damned difficult for you there is Ninite which is "check box, push button" and I might remind you your much touted repo system? yeah they were serving malware in the form of an infected Quake 3 for over a year and a half, sorry. And that's just one we KNOW about, not telling how many we don't because if you honestly think a handful of guys can check a revolving door of 20,000+ packages and understand even what 25% of them are doing I have some magic beans you might be interested in.

It doesn't change the fact that Linux? completely pointless on the desktop. this is why no B&Ms carry it, why both Walmart and Asus dropped it, its just pointless. The only REAL legitimate gripe, which was Windows requiring one to run as admin, was fixed half a decade ago. Even one of the Red hat engineers admits the Linux desktop model is broken but of course since that goes against your RELIGIOUS DOGMA you will probably say he's a M$ Ninja, sekretly working to attack RMS with fungicide on them nasty feets.

This is why i enjoy laughing at FOSSies, like Moonies or any other religious loonies the amount of hoop jumps they have to go through to justify their dogma in the face of logic is just as funny and entertaining. Just admit your logic follows the circle of loon already, otherwise please go back to compiling something as the vast majority of the world really DOES NOT CARE, it really really don't. Oh and guess what? Android shows what we have been saying all along, that as soon as Linux was a valuable target it would get fucked by the malware writers and surprise! android malware is all over the place. great security you have there chief, really makes it worth the bullshit and hassle. of course if you prefer that "security by obscurity" thing maybe you should go with haiku instead, that would make you REALLY leet, LOL!

No because that was the root cert revocation that MSFT released to cancel TFA. if you are truly worried about Windows update frankly there is NO reason to run it the old fashioned way, especially when you have more than one machine as it'll just be a waste of bandwidth.

Instead just use WSUS Offline which will get the updates directly from MSFT using WGET and drop them in the folder of your choice, all nice and neat and complete with a simple .exe launcher. It can also take care of .NET, MSE updates, and MS Office from 2K3 up if you have any of those that also need updating. Its great and takes the hassle out of updating, especially on a new build but works just as well for any Windows from XP-Win 7 X64. Combine this with Ninite for third party software and frankly anybody can have a Windows system fully patched and loaded with the basics with almost zero effort.

Actually friend its really not, you just haven't had anyone show you the correct way to do so. before you do a wipe and reinstall you need to go to WSUS Offline and have it download any patches and service packs you need for later. In mine I have every patch and service pack from Win2K through Win 7 X64 so no problems there, just launch once a month to have it update the latest patches. If you use MS Office you can have the service packs and patches included with WSUS, same with MSE antivirus. At this point you can download the latest drivers if you wish, but I only go for the graphics and wireless usually as I've found some of the OEM drivers for sound and NICs to be more buggy than the Windows defaults.

Next once the OS is installed you run WSUS, depending on how far behind your OS disc is from current this could take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour but since its all automated who cares. My discs have the last service packs already so only the patches after the last release are needed, about 30 minutes or so depending on the system. after that has finished and you see all the drivers are checked out you simply go to Ninite and pick any of the third party stuff you need,browser, Libre office, codecs, flash, whatever. the only third party I use that I don't get from Ninite is either Pale moon (a Firefox fork compiled for newer CPUs) or Comodo Dragon (Chromium based with some nice security features) but since I have both of those on my network drive along with WSUS no time there. Once that is installed i go to Ninite and pick Klite, flash, Hulu TV (my customers enjoy having Internet TV) LO, Foxit, and PDF Creator. I usually give them Comodo Internet Security but if you use MSE or Avast you can just skip that step or grab Avast at Ninite.

Voila! You are talking about maybe an hour, hour and a half tops and since the majority of it is fully automated you only have to look in once in a while and see if you are ready for the next step. Since I usually have the systems on my KVM all I have to do is click over once in a while, couldn't be simpler friend. That is why I only charge $50 plus tax for the same service MSFT is wanting $100 for so I don't see why MSFT couldn't do it even quicker and cheaper than me.

That would be like saying "anybody that can't rebuild an engine shouldn't drive" which is stupid. nobody can be an expert on everything.

For my customers as well as my family i recommend either Comodo Internet Security or Avast Free. Comodo is free for business OR home use but until recently needed more fiddling as it does have some pretty fine grained control, but now its default mode is just as simple as Avast, pretty much install and go. Both have sandboxing as default for the browser and both do scan before load on webpages so either one will do the trick and keep most users perfectly safe without having to know anything.

Personally I am leaning towards Comodo as Avast does pop up occasional offers for their other services, but either AV is good and AFAIK neither have had any "lets make the PC unbootable!" problems, at least as long as i have been recommending them which is a couple of years. if you have a clueless relative and want to give them Avast just use Ninite. all you have to do is send them the link and tell them to check the box, couldn't be simpler.

Actually the description is a lot larger and more complex than the actual action, which is

1.- Go to Ninite check box for revo and run it, while open go ahead and do same with ATI driver 2.-Pick .NET from list and uninstall it, 3.-Download latest .NET and run it. 4.-Download latest AMD driver and run it

And unlike Linux this is 100% GUI, no having to tweak CLI gobbledygook which is usually the case. Hell you can even send screen caps and your average grandma could do this one since revo is left at default settings. This is why I have said for years if Linux wishes to go anywhere CLI HAS TO BE BANNED because otherwise lazy devs use it as a crutch.

Whether Linux devs wish to accept it or not there is one little bit of reality that simply can't be argued with and that is this: GUIs are explorable and discoverable, CLIs are not. if you don't already know the proper syntax conventions for that CLI then it might as well be in Chinese for all the good it is gonna do you, whereas with help files and tooltips even someone who has never used a particular GUI can find their way around enough to perform the task needed.

No ya don't friend, here let old Hairy help you out...Ninite to the rescue! See how easy that was? While you are giving them your choice of CCCP or Klite (I prefer Klite myself) you can go ahead and check the boxes for Flash, Java, .NET, CutePDF Printer, hell give 'em all the good stuff. simple as check boxes and run installer, oh and NO TOOLBARS or any other crap, just what you want. between that and WSUS Offline Windows couldn't be simpler to set up, hell you can even check the boxes with Ninite if you think they have the older version and it'll skip anything that is up to date. its free and easy, what could be nicer? enjoy!

That is why I have just given up. I no longer download distros and even block linux articles from showing up on /. because i just tired of dealing with the crazy. things are NOT getting better, in fact with the DEs being gutted and pulseaudio if anything things are more unstable than they were even 5 years ago!

That's why you ought to try Win 7, i got into Linux when the crapfest that was Vista came out but frankly i never had as many bugs with Vista as i did with Linux, but 7 is as stable as a rock and purrs like a kitten, be it on my cheap ass $350 netbook or my hexacore gaming PC it "just works" without crashes or bugs or hassle. Hell for shits and giggles I even stuck in on a 1.8GHz Sempron with 1.5Gb of RAM just to see how it runs and you know what? it runs quite well, I just don't have Aero (which i turn off anyway) but other than Aero its smooth and responsive.

But as long as you are on XP you might want to check out Comodo Internet Security along with Ninite, both are free (I'd give you the link to CIS but the URL is crazy long) and I use these along with Comodo Dragon on my XP boxes I sell and frankly not a single bug yet. the nice thing about CIS is it will sandbox the browser of your choice and scan all pages before load so that you don't have to worry about any malware links, even if you are on XP.

But this is why i have given up even attempting to discuss anything with them anymore, they just won't listen. last time i loaded up one of the Linux articles it was nothing but a giant groupthink circle jerk, with everyone trying to top each other in the crazy dept. But as long as nobody will stand up as a group and tell the devs that the itch scratching BS is over then things will never get any better, only worse.

You are right nobody will do the work but i think its much worse than that, i mean look at how many help files are just CLI lists or "to do" placeholders? without any monetary motivations the devs don't listen to anyone, and with so many of the FOSSies pushing out the FOSS advocates nobody will ever call them out over it. i mean look at how many here worship RMS and he's a fricking squatter at MIT that doesn't even use the Internet! I mean how do you get through to people that will actually listen to and deify a guy that thinks its okay to squat on a campus and even worse pull off his shoes and socks ON STAGE and eat some toe funk?

if you want to keep trying to talk to them Barbara go right ahead, but as you saw with that one you posted the chapter and verse on copyright law for only to have him continue to argue black is white its like trying to explain evolution to someone that believes Noah rode a dinosaur, you just can't penetrate the dogma. All they will do is tune you out and keep spouting their religious beliefs. kinda sad that free software now is treated like religion, but frankly the nutters have taken over the tent and all you can do is pack up and move on before they make you a nutter too.

BTW, thank you for that great link (Ninite [ninite.com]). That's going to save me tons of time when I do another clean install.

And it all depends on what the neighbors actually DO and if they are decent folks or not IMHO. The ones that originally moved onto the land behind my mom's place frankly trashed it, not only did they cut down the trees but they put a couple of mangy horses out there which wiped out the grass and caused little mudflows down onto my mom's property, just a real mess.

Lucky for us when my mom found out who owned that land behind her and called him to complain he was like "What renter? I haven't touched that property in years, i was waiting for my daughter to finish college before i built her a little house out there" so he called the cops and had them evicted and their mobile home hauled off. Now his daughter is in her little house up there and not only did she plant a bunch of nice trees and fix the place back up but when her husband is out there running the chipper and fixing up the place he'll come over onto mom's property and help her out by cutting any dead limbs and putting a little mulch around her trees to make them nice and easy to mow. So i'd say it all comes down to attitude, a little consideration goes a long way. Hell those squatters could have stayed there another 3 years with nobody the wiser if they just wouldn't have acted like assholes.

As for TFA, you do something for free? Tough fucking luck, you knew what you were getting into. I'm sure /. and LinuxInsider is making money off everything i post on either site but so what? does that make me entitled to a cut? its not like anyone forces me join in to Ms Noyes little round table discussions or to comment on /., i do so because i enjoy the conversations with other geeks and trying to find geek hangouts where I live is practically impossible, so having discussions on tech where people actually understand what I say is quite pleasant after dealing with people all day that don't know the difference between HDDs and RAM, or a tower and the monitor. TFA sounds like a bunch of whiny entitled types that got butthurt because nobody would pay them for their "incredible insight". Well if you think your "words of wisdom" are worth so much write a blog and quit giving it away for free, duh! of course if they did that then most likely they would have readerships in the single digits if they are lucky. at least here on /. I can point folks towards good software they may have overlooked like Comodo Dragon and Time Machine or QTWeb, and great sites for geeks like Ninite (Godsend for new installs, check it out) and it gives me a nice warm fuzzy feeling when someone comments "Hey, thanks for pointing that out, I tried it and really like it a lot" and THAT is my payment for posting.

Microsoft are planning this, more or less.. mostly less, of course, because they're Microsoft.

That said, one site that I've seen suggested before is:
http://ninite.com/

It's not just open source software, and it's not even 100% free-as-in-mythical-free-beer (trial version of MS Office, for example), but it does have a great many open source applications listed and makes installing them and keeping them updated pretty simple.

It's not a complete set, but it is probably 'enough' for the casual user - and the concept could easily grow to accommodate more applications without losing sight of the fact that having 100 applications that all do the same thing is more confusing than helpful.

If I install Ubuntu, I'd still have to install a ton of programs that I use, that may or maybe not compatbile with that specific release. I like to install my software one-by-one. because I like to know what is in the system and what dependencies the packages have. Blindly installing stuff just because it's available on the repositories is a dumb idea.
As for Windows, there are some tools available to create packages of most-used freely available software, such as http://ninite.com/. I can't vouch for warez in pornsites, as I tend to buy the commercial software that I use, but I don't really see the difference between buying for Windows or for Linux. The software still has to be installed, right?

Hey I don't have a problem with you being on XP friend, if it works why fix it? I have windows 7 on one machine and XP on another, why bother switching the older XP machine?

My question would be why are you trying to run Adbobe reader at all when there is both Foxit and Sumatra on Ninite. Just check the box, click the download button and run it, that's it. then you can say goodbye to crappy Adobe Reader.

As for why Adobe can't build a secure reader? you answered it yourself friend when you said you thought it was " one program to do basically one simple enough thing" when to try to sell copies of Acrobat Adobe has been piling shit into that program for years. That is why frankly for production software like Acrobat i really wish they'd go to a yearly license model like AV companies use. that way instead of being pressured to constantly add new shit to the program so they have an excuse to upsell you they could just focus on making it better and more secure and get paid without having to add crap.

Seems to be a $9.99 yr fee.

Sorry but this is old new and why most of us builders have been avoiding CNet like the clap for awhile. I'd loved to see their before and after website visits stats because i wouldn't be surprised if many are doing like me and the instant they see the article is on CNet closing the tab.

For those that need that "80%" software, the stuff you pretty much install on every system? Let old Hairy introduce to a really nice place with a weird name...Ninite. it has all the latest versions of the software everyone installs, your flash, codec packs, VLC, LibreOffice, several AV and antimal to choose from, and NO TOOLBARS are allowed, no crapware, just the program you want pre-packaged as an unattended installer that's as simple as "clicky clicky" and let her run. great for not only new builds but when you need to help someone who lives a good distance away who is having trouble or doesn't know where to find the above basics.

I used to swing by CNet all the time back in the day but since i don't support spammers and spyware pushers they can go pound sand. With ninite all the basics are covered and if you can think of others you'd like just drop their name in the suggestion box and they'll add the most popular choices to the list. I suggested Klite with MPC and voila! There it is, and more popular apps are being added all the time. Enjoy folks!

Uhhh...Bill? you can just go to Ninite and just use the latest flash you know. i've found it runs better than the built in chromium one anyway. with the chromium flash SD video is skippy and sucks more CPU on the Sempron nettop and it uses more power on the Brazos netbook but with the latest flash its smooth as butter and lower power usage. Frankly it wouldn't surprise me if it uses the Intel compiler but i also heard it uses GCC which frankly isn't much better so i honestly don't know who to believe on that one. why they don't just use the Open64 compiler which works great on intel AND AMD I don't know.

But I can tell you that it is NOT just the compiler because there is also Pale Moon which is a custom compiled FF with the SSE flags properly set and the choice of 32 or 64 bit and i can tell you even the 64 bit version gets stomped by dragon and Chromium. And FF 7 and 8 is NOT lighter, it just trades memory for CPU time which IMHO is worse as the RAM uses that same power regardless while the CPU spikes suck batteries dead. And frankly IE could be offered to me with $1000 hookers and I won't take it, got burned enough from IE6 not to mention look at the number of patches for IE holes VS everything else. By removing and blocking IE from my win 7 installs I went from over 1.9Gb to get RTM to current to barely 730Mb!

BTW one of the reasons i learned of ninite was because i got tired of dealing with badly out of date Adobe crap on the machines the local worst buy sells. i often get called and paid $65 a pop simply to restore to factory settings and "get rid of the crap" because of my rep when it comes to cleaning and optimizing mobile devices. Now I just run decrapify, set Windows to the non granny settings, run Ninite followed by my tweaks and finally coretemp and AllCPUMeter. makes it easier to control power usage IMHO but honestly my Asus EEE wasn't that badly crapped. it had Adobe crap and 2 startup apps i didn't need, that's it.

Oh if you see ballmer tell that fat bastard i'm STILL waiting for my apology and free copy of Windows 7 for being burnt by ME and Vista. Where is my apology you fat fucker? WinME was against the Geneva Convention!

Well if you were doing it just because you are old, since DOS hasn't been around in a decade? I apologize but you should just use MS or MSFT, because M$ belongs to the FOSSies now, a bunch of absolute batshit zealots that honestly can't even type the word microsoft, much less say it. I had one tell me last week I MUST be a "M$ Ninja Shill!" for saying IE SUCKS! Shows you the insane troll logic they use when INSULTING a product is suddenly shilling FOR said product. i guess the only thing you are allowed to say in front of a FOSSie is "ZOMG Gates eats babies!" or some shit.

As for Avast? Lord let me count the ways. 1.-Has sandboxing built in for ANY app, and you can even tell it to sandbox ALL the apps by default, or you can pick and choose. 2.-Has a built in "scan before load" web shield that stops drive bys cold, in my own tests I found that MSE would happily let the code load and run while Avast screamed and killed it before the page ever loaded. 3.- butt simple to customize the protection for the user, for example i don't use IM or P2P so that cut a good 20% off the memory footprint. by customizing it to the user it will often be a LOT less than MSE. 4.- stops IM and P2P bugs cold, again MSE only seems to catch something if the user tries to run the file, autoloader bugs seem to be able to slip past. in fact from what I've seen MSE (which was actually Giant AntiSpy before being bought by MSFT) really only works on things the user RUNS, not drive bys or autoload malware pages. 5.- It seems to slam the CPU a LOT less when scanning, including large file scans. 6.- Has a gamer mode that is as easy to activate as right clicking on the icon that will keep everything it does in the background, MSE doesn't care what you are running and will happily start a weekly scan right in the middle of their MMO.

heck I could go on all day but since its free why bother? try it yourself. I put it and Comodo right at the top, Comodo for those that like to fiddle or for XP users as it has an excellent two way firewall, and Avast for grandma and Win 7 users. If you want a butt simple way to give it to them just have them uninstall MSE and send them this link. Also great for those "always install" programs like flash or LibreOffice or Klite Codecs. Oh and no toolbars, even on programs that try to shove them or chrome down your throat, always of the good.

I'm sorry but if you can't have a PC go from a pile of parts to POST in under an hour? Uhhh...you suck. Its not like you are being asked to stamp the sheet metal here folks, parts go in box, cables go in box, plug in power, stick in Windows disc, done. If you use WSUS Offline for the updates and Ninite for the third party software you are talking zippola on the OS install too.

As for what is keeping me on windows? i'll get hate for saying this but until a truly user friendly distro comes out that I can give to my customers i simply have no use for Linux. And before anyone trots out the usual suspects I've already tried them and not a single one passed my "is it safe?' test, go ahead, try it yourself. since Windows gets on average 7 years i cut Linux a break off the bat and only use a 3 year old distro CD, simulating what my customer would go through if they bought a Linux PC from me and tried to keep it current, standard best practices, nothing fancy. I install the OS, make sure ALL the hardware is working, then let it update/upgrade to current, what happens? things break, a LOT of things break. Sound or video gets flaky, maybe the network gets borked, settings in programs don't seem to stick or don't stick past reboot, its always a flaky mess.

I mean when i'm talking to a long time Linux server admin and desktop user about my problem and they confide in me "As soon as I'm done backing up I'm switching to BSD and if that isn't stable on the desktop I'm quitting" and most likely going to Mac? There is trouble in paradise folks. Funny how it used to be "Oh you have to wipe Windows and start over, while Linux is safe!" has turned into the complete opposite. I did a ton of in place upgrades from Vista to 7 for folks that didn't want to lose their settings, that is 5 years with another 8 years to go for 7, and it just worked. I've tried Ubuntu, PCLOS, Mepis, just about every supposedly "user friendly" distro I can find and not one has passed my "is it safe?" test.

I sell to and support normal folks, so telling them to play find the fix or spend a couple of days reading man pages and dealing with CLI gobbledygook is right out. I also can't plan my entire business around the LTS releases so if the bog standard release won't cut it then its no good. I'm gonna try Linux Mint and FreeBSD over the turkey week holiday and give them my "is it safe?" test if I can find the releases from 3 years ago. If they pass? yippee skippy i can have FOSS machines next to the Windows ones. if not? I'm just gonna have to give up for a couple of years and scour the earth for someone that will give me a good deal on Starter, which is actually a nice OS, especially for older machines.

That is why on first install I take my builds and refurbs over to Ninite and along with the usual (Klite, LibreOffice, irfanview) I install Sumatra PDF Reader. its fast, its lightweight, no extra BS, it just loads PDF VERY fast. And if you are in FF or Chromium based it'll just pop it up in a new tab, don't know about IE as I haven't used it for years.

But reading the comments it seems like those for having an internal PDF reader have basically been burnt by Adobe Reader but I'd say it'd be better to just ditch adobe for something that doesn't suck than to build in a reader and increase the risk. which BTW if it is still running with Firefox's higher permissions IS a risk. Does FF even support low rights mode yet? Its been nearly 5 years now and soon we'll be on the third version of Windows with low rights mode.

Hey don't pick on Norton! Do you have ANY idea how much work we repairshops get from that flaming POS? Hell its nearly as good as being located next to a Best Buy!

As for TFA I've never cared for Avira much myself, having always preferred either Comodo (for those that like to tweak) and Avast (for those that don't) although more and more I'm sticking with avast since it has been included in the PC builder's best friend Ninite.

If you have to support any friends or family as an admin, even if they live far away, or if you build boxes? Ninite should be your best bud and "go to" first response. they get told some site "needs to install flash" so they can watch the content? tell 'em to go to Ninte and check the flash box and if the site still asks to install flash its a Trojan. you need to get them off IE? Install codecs because a file won't play? Need a new media player? Libre Office? .NET or Java? Ninite has you covered.

I'm glad TFA worked out alright, unlike the AVG bug that boned the boot, but if Avira keeps making bonehead moves I'd have them uninstall it and get Avast or MSE from ninite. It is simple enough you can walk your grandma through it, no "clicky clicky next next next" oh and NO TOOLBARS ALLOWED even on the apps that try to give you Chrome or Bing bar now like CCleaner or Java. So if anybody has to deal with users I'd say bookmark this site, its really top drawer..

Whether you dislike Google's policies or not (I personally give my clients Comodo Dragon, it is Chromium based and has the speed along with some extra security features and NO Google phone home crap) I still don't see what made this deserve a front page slot on Slashdot. Is it a slow news day?

Its a false positive folks, it happens. It isn't even a truly nasty fp that trashes the system like the McAfee bug we had awhile back, and they fixed it in just a couple of hours from fp found to fp eliminated. That really isn't bad when you think about how they have to remove the fp but not the behavior the fp was detecting.

But if it truly bugs you or any of your relatives just go to ninite after removing MSE and check the little box that says Avast Free, then hit the go button at the bottom and run it. See how easy that was? They even have several browsers to choose from if you'd rather get rid of the Google phone home crap instead of MSE and they even have Revo Uninstaller to clean all the crap Chrome leaves behind.

I just don't see why this made front page, idle maybe, but how many fp screw ups are made each week? Probably more than the average tech can possibly keep up with. Would we have even seen this if it was AVG that flagged Chrome?

check http://ninite.com/

Ninite is a similar product with a wider range of software, although they charge $10 per year for their automatic updater.

Go check out Ninite.

Ninite will install everything without addons. If you want automatic updates, it'll cost you; but if you're willing to run it yourself manually once a week or month, it'll update everything just fine.

Ninite might be what you need. For scripting and corporate use, it isn't free but is pretty cheap.

Anyone sad about Google Pack being discontinued should check out Ninite. Also, if you're not sad about Google Pack and/or you don't know what Google Pack is/was you should check out Ninite as well.

Anyone sad about Google Pack being discontinued should check out Ninite. Also, if you're not sad about Google Pack and/or you don't know what Google Pack is/was you should check out Ninite as well.

As a PC builder and repairman I'd know if anyone was actually using it as I have to clean the crap out and I'd be getting "How do I open (name of file extension) and frankly i haven't had a single case of RealPlayer or anyone asking about it in over 5 years, hence why I dropped Real Alternative from my standard install image.

Now I just use Ninite to install Klite and that takes care of your .avi DiVx/Xvid, wmv, H.26x, all the basics with DXVA hardware acceleration and call it a day. Once in a while I'll run into someone who asks about QT, simply from movie trailers, but those are starting to go H.264 now so all that is really left for QT is iTunes. I just wish Apple would let QT fucking die already, it royally sucks on Windows and is nearly as big a pile of suck as real was back in the day.

But unless like Jerry Lewis rmb and rma files are big in France I just don't see what is the fucking point. If Real wants to keep their precious IP let them have it and fucking die already. it would be like Intel suddenly giving a shit about Indeo video. Who the fuck uses that crap anymore? anybody? As you pointed out P2P has switched to mkv and avi so what is left? anyone? anywhere?

I frankly haven't seen rmb files in the wild since geocities. A few years after it quit being hip I had folks asking how to convert some rmb file but I don't even get that anymore, it is all flash now. So WTF? How are they even still around? Are they really making enough trolling to keep the doors open?

Actually there is even an easier way, as long as you don't mind using "wink wink nudge nudge" software friend. What you want is "Windows 7 all versions pre-activated" which i'm sure you can find a copy of. this disc has ALL the different versions, X86 and x64, all on a single disc and it gives you the option of inputting the OEM key at first install. With it all you have to do is input their legit key and voila! One disk to rule them all. there is also one out for Vista.

Then just use WSUS Offline (I keep it on a network drive) and Ninite and you can seriously cut down the times it takes from first install to completed system. I went from 3 to 5 hours to a flat 90 minutes using this method, with 90% of the time fully automated.

With XP sadly there is no "one OEM to rule them all" but I've found that the Dell and Compaq discs usually have most of the bases covered. There are a few Acer machines that won't take them but the rest will happily take the OEM keys from the machine if you use one of those two. And if you find one that doesn't? frankly the Indian help at MSFT don't give a crap as long as you can read them the key off the back they are happy to give you a phone code that'll activate it. all they care about is how fast they can get you off the phone so you don't screw the metrics, so unless you have used that key more than once they really don't care.

But by using those two discs, the 7 and Vista preactivated, I've cut down from nearly a dozen discs to four, one for 7, one for Vista, and one OEM Compaq for XP Home and Pro. I've found this will cover a good 80%+ of the machines out there and if you have the Dell XP OEM in a drawer that covers another 12%. Then like I said all you have to worry about is the occasional Acer or emachine, but I don't see those much around here so YMMV.

You work SMB or enterprise, yes? I can tell, because you haven't dealt with THE ABSOLUTE SHIT that is home user software. Sadly you DO have to babysit backups, because they almost never drop the data into my docs, it can be anywhere and everywhere. Take the one I just finished with my method. Doing a quick scan for malware Mr Brown's PC had data in my docs, in the root of C:, in the data folders of nearly 2 dozen different software packages, on a separate E: drive, on the desktop, hell where wasn't data dumped by software?

When the last XP and Vista machines are gone so data sanity is finally enforced? then repair installs might be the order of the day. but sadly until 2014 when XP is EOL there will be people that refuse to let it go and software that refuses to follow best practices. Hell try some of the Kodack software that comes with cameras, that crap not only has to be run as admin but dumps the pictures in C:/Kodack/Easyshare/Pictures. How many of those paths do YOU know? are you 100% sure you can have them all accounted for? Because if you don't you might wipe out pics of someone's dead grandma.

As for your problem sadly I could have fixed that for you in under 5 minutes. what you needed to do was go here and pick Revo Uninstaller, then have it do a deep scan on removal of Adobe. the reason you were having that problem is some screwed registry hooks, I've seen it plenty of times. Personally I give my users both Foxit and adobe and let them try both, most don't go back to Adobe after using foxit. Foxit also puts all its important data as an .ini file in its home folder so it is easy to nuke and reinstall if something goes wrong.

As for multi monitors? Don't have the room. My shop is a tiny thing, barely bigger than a single room apt. I find it keeps my costs down (it is only $75 a month, utilities included) and is only a single walk down the stairs from my home apt, so if I get an itch to try something at 3AM I can literally pad down to my shop in my PE shorts and sock feet. The neighbors have gotten so used to it they say "hey Kev, figured something out again?" when they see me padding down the hall.

My method isn't the safest, may not be the most optimal, but it keeps prices low and in a dead economy this keeps me backed up in work. Now if you'll excuse me I have to let Mr Brown know he can pick his up and then start pricing parts for these 4 laptops I have sitting here. Busy busy busy.

Nooooo....it has to do with you using an OS with such a low userbase nobody will even fucking bother to write a toolbar for it. After all you don't see the Ask toolbar for Haiku OS or ReactOS, but you don't hear them bragging "Here is yet another piece of software that won't run! Aren't you happy?"..

As for TFA this is soooooo easy to fix. Just use Ninite for all the "must haves" like Flash, Java, Firefox, messenger, etc and then you will NEVER see a toolbar, even on programs like Java that originally try to stick you with them. that is because Ninite removes the crapola and just gives you sane defaults. for everything else there is Major Geeks!

Tada! Solved in under 30 seconds while still having access to the literally millions of applications in the Windows ecosystem, many of which have NO real equivalent in FOSS BTW, such as Photoshop and QuickBooks, and of course having ALL the FOSS software that is worth giving a shit about.

Now don't you wish you'd have thought of that before you jumped in to a software ecosystem with poor documentation, 6 month driver borkages, forum fixes, CLI tweaking, and all the other BS? Oh and you could have had AAA games as well! if you wanted to "think different" you should have just gotten a Mac. At least there all the software is designed to work together and follow the UI design, instead of a hodge podge of software by dozen of groups that don't interact all thrown together and treated as a single unit.

Your best bet is Major Geeks. I have found the selection at the Major to be incredible, both of the latest and older stuff, and they don't try to push the crapola like CNET does now.

Heck i'm surprised it took /. this long to run a tory about it, as I've been warning folks to stay away from CNET for a few weeks now. if I'd have known it had been run I'd have put it up awhile back but I just figured somebody else had done it and I didn't want to dupe.

But if you want the "basics" your best bet is Ninite which always has the latest CCleaner, flash, Java, klite, etc and NO TOOLBARS in software like CCleaner, all automated and easy peasy, and for the more offbeat stuff you can't beat the Major. those are my two "go to" sites now that CNET has become just another adware spammer.

I have to say THANK YOU TWINBEE for FINALLY getting it! oh and you want to see the future? here it is...Ninite and it is EXACTLY how you described. You simply check a single box by what you want, and hit go. That's it, no next next next, do fiddling, just sane defaults.

But sadly as you have seen in this tread as they become more and more desperate to come up with any reason why a CLI would be better (and failing horribly) it comes down to the fact that Linux nerds think CLI makes them leet and gives them gonad powers, like by having a blinking cursor they become a hacker ninja instead of just being someone dealing with a bad design.

But I have to agree if they user is doing more than 3 clicks to get to anything? Then you're doing it wrong. But just because there are some bad design choices in Windows (which I'd argue they are getting better about) doesn't mean one should fall back to 1970s design choices. it is stupid, pointless, and about as unintuitive and user unfriendly as one could possibly be.

I'd like to add something: WTF is it with Google spamming Chrome lately? I had a customer who didn't have the net and won't have it switched on for about another week and I needed some freeware to get him ready. Now normally I use Ninite (fricking brilliant BTW) to install all the little "must have" freeware stuff but as I said this guy didn't have his net up and running yet so I just downloaded the installers.

It seemed like every other fricking installer tried to dump chrome on his machine! WTF Google? it was bad enough when Sun used to pull that shit with Java, but now you gotta pull that crap too? Surely you have enough damned share you don't gotta spam your browser!

I can see why the EU and the DoJ are looking at them for possible antitrust. I mean you have them favoring their own sites in search, them being accused of dumping Android below cost while ignoring everyone else's patents, the whole Streetview datamining mess, and now they are dumping Chrome on anybody that doesn't pay attention and goes "clicky clicky" on popular freeware like CCleaner.

I mean for Pete's sake you're already at 90%+ do you really need to do spam dumping of your browser? It isn't like you can't push the thing on a website, say one that everybody and their dog uses daily when they need to find stuff?

And there is a simple way to mitigate that, it is called defense in depth. So far I haven't had a single Win 7 PC I did defense in depth on get infected. Here is what I do..I install Avast Free (which gives sandboxing and scans pages BEFORE load) along with Malware bytes and finally I add support for Structured Exception Handling Overwrite Protection and so far not a single bug.

I also do NOT install Java as I've found the vast majority have no use for Java, I use Sumatra PDF instead of Adobe (Sumatra is a simple PDF reader without support for a lot of the "features" that Adobe gets pwned for) and finally if they get a page saying "You need the latest flash" I have a bookmark already made for them on the bookmarks toolbar of Comodo Dragon (Chromium based that uses its own secure DNS that is separate from the OSes DNS, which helps block exploit pages) to take them to Ninite which is like a repo for Windows third party software and always has the latest and greatest. i tell them if after updating from Ninite the site still says it wants to install Flash it is malware and avoid it.

These additions take maybe another 20 minutes on a new build but is WELL worth it IMHO. I have some customers that on XP would get more viruses than a Bangkok Whore no matter what I did, but now with Windows 7 they are clean as a whistle, just to make sure I have scanned with several boot CDs with the latest defs and nothing, clean machines.

I just hope MSFT doesn't cock this up with Windows 8. Windows 7 is solid, easy to use, and easy to lock down. i'm just glad Win 7 is supported until 2020 so that I can avoid Win 8 if it turns out to be another Vista!

Oh, I'm sorry I misread. In that case...no you don't AGAIN, as you must not have heard of a little gift of love from the heavens above called Ninite or as we PC fixit guys say "instant happy"! It has ALL the software most users will want, and if there is any you don't see you'd like? Tell them, they are happy to listen to you. The Klite codec pack on there? That was me asking nicely. Oh and NO TOOLBARS or any of the other crap some like Java try to pack in, just the most used defaults, like the CCleaner defaults have the ccleaner right click on the recycle bin setting chosen.

So just remember that name...Ninite and your Windows installs will be easy and happy and...well just really pleasant.

You are most certainly welcome! Having to fix Windows boxes 6 days a week one tries to find ways to make them easy to use, hard to break, and reliable. Not always easy, especially with certain versions (Vista oh how I hated thee) but with a handful of tools one can make Windows a nice reliable OS.

The easiest way I've found is to use a combination of WSUS Offline so you don't have to wait on Windows Updates (If you have a server with a Fat32 partition you can just keep it there and update it once a month, easy peasy) and Ninite which makes it easy to give users, even if they are in another state, clean and malware free software. I would recommend Avast and Sumatra and Klite, the rest according to your users interests, and finally although it isn't free I can't recommend highly enough TuneUp Utilities as it is even more handy and useful than Norton utilities was in the days of DOS. Nice thing is its automatic, every three days it'll clean the cruft and make sure the drives aren't fragmented.

With these handy dandy tools it is easy peasy to setup a clean machine and keep it that way. For a browser I would suggest Comodo dragon, as it is based on Chromium but has some nice extra security features like better SSL validation. Finally if you DO come across one already pwned MSFT has a nice free system sweeper that will give you a CD to boot from that will wipe out the latest bugs. But if you added TuneUp (truly awesome BTW) and a nice selection of software from Ninite along with Avast Free you're talking maybe an hour and a half from start to finish, and after which they shouldn't need you for anything. I have customers running 8 years now, the only thing I do is hardware upgrades and blow out the fans. The key with Windows is a little time at the start saves a LOT of time down the road.