My rule number two: Install an Anti-virus program and keep it updated.When you first set up Windows, you have few choices to select what you want on your desktop. By default, Windows will install a lot of unnecessary files, programs and services which cannot be removed by the "add/remove programs" in the control panel. These needless files are potentially unsafe and can be used by hackers. In an office environment, some default programs make no sense: who needs to play with Movie Maker, Games (Freecell, Hearts, Solitaire, etc.), Messenger or the accessibility options (on-screen keyboard, Narrator, etc.)? To harden and speed up your operating system, you should install only what is required. Removing such programs may be not be easy, but you can use a dedicated tool such as nLite by Nui (freeware) or xplite from LitePC. But, be careful to make sure that you do not remove important files.
My rule number three: Remove all unnecessary files, programs and services.
Updating Windows is now essential. Attackers use security weaknesses to exploit vulnerabilities in some programs. Critical updates are crucial to security, to fix bugs and close unsafe doors to the outside An easy way to check if your Windows is up to date is to go to Windows Update in Internet Explorer; but if you have many PCs to manage,
Iwould suggest MBSA (Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer), a free vulnerability assessment tool for the Microsoft platform.
When you are dealing with few PCs, this is not a big problem, but for a large corporation it is not an easy task. Fortunately administrators have several possibilities to update PCs quickly and efficiently using SUS _ Microsoft Software Update Services (free) _ or a specialised patch management tool such as Ecora Patch Manager, HFNetChkPro or UpdateEXPERT.