About to install vista this weekend, what should I allow and deny when setting it up?

[gntolng]

Like the title says, I am a bit new to formatting my own drives. In previous systems I have denied most of the windows stuff like firewalls, automatic updates and those kinds of things because I ran my own firewall and I updated when I saw there was an update. My question is, in order to maximize system efficiency what should I allow to run and what should I deny. From reading this forum I shouldn't allow WMP to automatically check for MP3 licencing which is pretty obvious, but what about the auto updates and firewall and the like?

 

[jt91294]

keep the firewall up, turn automatic updates to ask you to install them when new ones are available, then disable UAC so no more "allow deny" shit.

 

[whomeohno]

I'm sorry, what exactly is UAC? Should I run an additional firewall or is the vista one sufficient?

 

[kessin72]

user access control, its what ask you for every little thing "allow or deny". The XP and Vista firewalls do a very good job.

 

[Rock Hard]

yeah UAC is annoying..... ive still got it turned on now though

like ScrewDrvr said, set the Windows Updates to notify you when it finds new ones (not just auto-install them)

i haven't had any troubles with MP3 files, but i dont use WMP at all for audio (Foobar ftw)

 

[charece]

The only thing I changed from default during the install was to auto-install critical updates only.

Of course, once you get it running you will see how much customization there is. The new start menu, favorite links in explorer and open file dialogs, and gadgets, naturally.