What programs should I install before I go on-line (new PC)?

I just finished building my first “not out of a box” PC (new mother board/processor, case/PS. The HD is old but was completely wiped before installation.) Due to the O/S I’m using (Win2000Pro…a friend had an old legit copy he hasn’t had installed for years), I want to make sure I’m secure before I go on-line for all the updates. I have access to a T-1 at work and can D/L onto my external hard drive.
So far, I’ve got AVG, Zone-Alarm, Spybot Search & Destroy, and Firefox downloaded and ready to install. What other programs would the Dopers suggest besides/instead of the above?

Thanks in advance - DESK

About the only thing I’d add is Microsoft’s Antispyware app. And all the Win2K service packs. They’re up to SP4 now.

PS: Congratulations for picking AVG over Symantec’s bloatware.

When I start a new PC from scratch, before I even get it online, I get an antivirus program, anti-spyware programs, and a personal firewall installed (I usually have them on CD ahead of time. If you don’t, then go online to get them, but don’t go anywhere else to get them, then get offline and get them installed, pronto!!!)

Then I get all the service packs and Hotfixes there are for it next.

Then I install an Internet Explorer browser replacement (For me it’s Opera, but you may like Mozilla Firefox or something else. Whatever you decided to use, don’t use IE! I mean it… REALLY!)

The rest that I recommend are installed in no particular order and are at your discretion:
[ul]
[li]IrfanView[/li][li]Adobe Acrobat Reader[/li][li]RJHextensions[/li][li]FreeRamXPPro[/li][li]OpenOffice[/li][/ul]

Chiming in with a big “hear, hear” for not using MSIE. If you have friends use your machine, delete the Big Blue E from your desktop and shortcut bar, or leave it there and point the icon to Firefox or Opera. The amount of Bad Stuff[sup]TM[/sup] that accrues on MSIE machines is horrible.

Thanks for the help, all. It looks likes I’ve got everything I need to safely get my Windows updates on-line now.
Extra thanks to you, Dragwyr, for the list of other FreeWare. I’m a big OpenOffice and Infranview fan, but the others look very helpful too.
In case anybody else needs the suggestions in this thread any time, I’d like to suggest FilZip for any zipping/unzipping needs. I’ve used it on a WinME box for quite some time with no problems.

Peace- DESK

You want to apply SP4 and the Post SP4 SRP. You want to install a firewall like ZoneAlarm (check), and a virus-checker (check). I don’t know if MS’s anti-spyware app works on W2K, but if it does, install that. There’s no need to install a browser other than IE unless you prefer the other browser.

Another good free firewall is Sygate. For some goofy reason, ZoneAlarm, which used for years, would not let me connect when I switched to broadband cable.

Personally I prefer NOD32 for anti-virus. Tiny footprint, daily auto-updates that apply within seconds of bootup, excellent detection. I ponied up for a 3-machine licence rather than put with my ‘free’ :dubious: copy of Norton IS 2005 any longer.

Which email program were you thinking of using instead of Outlook Express, or will you be using webmail?

I’ll second this; I’ve not used ZoneAlarm though, so I can’t make a fair comparison.

You’ll be wanting some kind of spam filter, I would imagine; SpamPal seems to be a popular one, but I stopped using it after I had problems with it (can’t remember the exact nature of the problems) I currently use Cactus Spam Filter, which is pretty adequate.

FYI, here is the complete list of software that I use both at work and at home. I have listed either the title of the product, or the filename, and a brief description. Searching either the title or the filename in google should take you to where you can download it.

AdAware Personal SE - Cleans up Adware/Spyware
Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0
Audacity - Powerful open source wave/sound form editor
cdex_151.zip - CD Track ripper - Encodes CD tracks to MP3 and other formats
Cdm32s_571.zip - Convert .mod formatted music files to wav, mp3, and other formats
DCOMbob.exe - Windows DCOM Exploit Vulnerability testing tool from GRC
Western Digital Data Lifeguard - Better than WDDIAG.
DiskKeeper Lite 7.0.414 - Free Disk Defrag Tool for NT/2K/XP
Ethereal - Network Packet sniffer and analyzer
Mozilla Firefox - A powerful, fast, open source web browser
Macromedia Flash 7
Free Ram XP Pro 1.50- Memory manager for Win98 and up
freeundelete.exe - Free utility to undelete files
The GIMP - Powerful graphics editor (Photoshop substitute)
GTK 2 Runtime environment - (Required to run GIMP in MS Win)
irfanview_plugins_395.exe - Plug-Ins for Irfanview - Expands IrfanView’s capabilities
IrfanView - View and do basic edits to picture files
Java Runtime Environment
leaktest.exe - Tests firewall installed on windows PC - From GRC.com
Microsoft Windows Memory Diagnostic - Creates a boot disk to test memory on PC
MIRC - An IRC chat client
Netscape 8.0, full version
Opera 8.5 - FREE, no Ads, fast and powerful web browser
Open Office - Free 100% compatible alt to MS Office
PDFCreator-0_8_0_GNUGhostscript.exe - Free, Open Source PDF file creator
PixelToolbox.zip - Utility to create icons for MS Windows
QuickTimeInstaller.exe - Installs QuickTime
RADTools.exe - RAD Video tools - For basic video editing and conversion
Real Player 10
rjhextensions.zip - Add useful functions to the context menu of Windows Explorer
saverstarter140.zip - Allows control of screen saver activation
sdelete.zip - Command line utility for securely deleting files and cleaning unused disk space
Macromedia Shockwave
shootthemessenger.exe - Easily enable/disable windows messenger service - From grc.com
socketlock.exe - Raw Socket Abuse Prevention system for Windows XP - from grc.com
sockettome.exe - Tests Windows XP systems to see if Raw sockets support is on - from grc.com
Sam Spade - IP address information utility (Ping, Tracert, and more!)
Sygate Personal Firewall 5.5
Spybot Search & Destroy 1.3 - Cleans up Spyware and more
stinger.exe - Cleans up sasser and ms blaster worms
Mozilla Thunderbird - Free Open source E-mail client
TMPGEnc-2.521.58.169-Free.zip - Converter for computer video formats
Trillian - Chat client compatible with MSN, YM, AIM, ICQ, and IRC
truecrypt-3.1a.zip - Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows XP/2000/2003
VirtualDub-1.6.10.zip - Video converstion/recording utility
Winamp - Plays a variety of music files including mp3
Winzip 9.0 - Compresses and uncompresses .zip files
WinPcap_3_1_beta4.exe - Needed for Ethereal to function properly
ws_ftple.exe - FTP client
yamp33.zip - Yet Another MOD Player - Plays a variety of music files, similar to WinAmp.

Also you can find more great open source software at The Open CD project.