Setting Up Your New Computer
Getting a new computer is an exciting event. It speaks to all manner of possibilities and even adventures. However, adventure can often be another term for recklessness. And one needs to put a little care into setting up a new computer. There’s a lot that can go right with such a purchase. But there’s a lot which can go wrong as well. And it often comes down to whether or not one took the proper precautions when setting it up.
The first thing to consider when working with a new computer is the operating system. Operating system updates are often the most important installation one will contend with. An operating system has a tremendous amount of responsibility on a computer. As such, it always needs to be up to date. Likewise, companies tend to issue operating system updates on a fairly frequent basis. This means the operating system will almost always be a little out of date on a new computer. Thankfully they’re usually the easiest updates to work with as well.
In fact, the operating system update will usually be presented to one the minute they go online. As such it’s usually best to wait until that stage before worrying about it. This can make it a little harder to schedule. After all, one might need drivers to get online with a wifi chipset. If that’s the case then the operating system update will come a little later.
But in either case, before worrying about going online it’s best to get rid of bloatware. Many computer manufacturers get deals if they agree to bundle software with their systems. Some of this might be useful. But it’s better for a user to decide for himself. As such, the next step in setting up the computer involves removing any bloatware. There are some automated utilities that can handle this matter. But it’s usually fairly easy to simply go to the operating system’s control panel. From here one can choose to uninstall programs or apps. One will usually see a full list of installed applications. And this will, in turn, give on the ability to decide on what to get rid of.
The next step involves updating drivers. One will usually need to be online to do this. But if one isn’t able to get online than it’s usually itself down to driver problems. Wifi chipsets are notoriously finicky about driver incompatibilities. If that’s the case one could use an ethernet connection with the computer if that’s supported. USB based ethernet connections are also available. But in a worst-case scenario one could go to another computer. From here he’d download the wifi drivers for his new computer. And it’d then just be a matter of installing the drivers on the new computer. The hardware manager will also show any other devices which are having issues with proper driver support. It’s usually just a matter of going to the manufacturer website’s driver support page for a driver download.
Next, one will want to reinstall any commonly used applications from the old computer. Web browsers and word processors are the most common examples. But many people are already using cloud versions of word processors. And this would mean there’s no need to reinstall it if the browser has already been installed.
One might want to take special care to transfer over any password managers as well. But most modern browsers have something similar built-in by default. If that’s the case than passwords will be retrieved simply by syncing the new browser back to one’s account. And from there the new computer is ready to receive any file backups or the like.
