Freeware Spotlight — Preparing your PC for Windows 11

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ISSUE 18.38 • 2021-10-04 BEST UTILITIES By Deanna McElveen Nothing can ruin the excitement of a major Windows upgrade like an error message halfway th
[See the full post at: Freeware Spotlight — Preparing your PC for Windows 11]

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lmacri, rc primak, abbodi86

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First thing on our list is checking for malware…The first anti-malware scan we are going to run is the daddy of all malware scanners, Malwarebytes…

Windows 10 build in Defender not to be trusted ? You need to run another 3 a/v apps ?

Graphics cards

NVIDIA
AMD

Intel : https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/19344/intel-graphics-windows-dch-drivers.html

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rc primak, WSDKS01

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It’s not that Windows Defender is unreliable.

It’s the old observation that different AV products maintain different antimalware databases, and hence are checking for different malware. Especially with PUM/PUP and adware, WD does let some items slide which others like AdwCleaner and Malwarebytes Free flag and remove. (And WD also flags some third-party system utilities which are not flagged by other AV programs.)

Most of the additional findings are annoyances rather than things which will interfere with an update or upgrade. But who needs annoyances if they are fairly easy to remove?  It’s the old story of not putting all of your eggs in one basket.

As for Super Antispyware, last I read third-party reviews and saw the Test Results, it doesn’t provide much benefit, and can itself interfere with things like driver and system file updating.

I scan monthly with WD Full Scan and Malwarebytes Free Full Scan; weekly with Quick Scans. The Quick Scans take trivial amounts of time. I disable the MBAM Free Trial immediately after each update of the Program.

Also useful in removing adware are CCleaner and Glary Utilities. Their routine cleanups get some annoyances taken care of without formal antivirus scanning. Just don’t over-clean the Windows Registry — this can result in major problems with updates and upgrades.

-- rc primak

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cmptrgy

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I use Super Antispyware free edition for several years and it does detect and clean out ad-based browser cookies well and does NOT interfere when installing Windows updates

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rc primak

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doriel wrote:

Maybe your comment is more about …

I moved it.

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Now we need to get Doriel’s comment about the misplaced comment out of this thread, if we can do that.

-- rc primak

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doriel

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Done.

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rc primak

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Nice article Deanna.  And I love your sense of humor.

“Nothing can ruin the excitement of a major Windows upgrade…”

Yep, that’s a task right up there with the “excitement” of having dental work done or cleaning out the septic tank!

 

 

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I have no compelling reason to move to win 11 until win 10 expires.

I watch videos, play non triple A games, and process photos. The thrill of installing a new OS is gone!

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rc primak

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You and about 80% of all home users don’t need to upgrade to Windows 11 any time soon. I have bought new hardware recently, so I’m in the 18% who may want Windows 11 sooner than later. The other 2% of home users would be better off with Linux or a Chromebook.

-- rc primak

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Some of us have entire PCs made by Intel, or mostly built from Intel components. Intel maintains its own Drivers and Support Assistant:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/detect.html

This Assistant also handles checking for and downloading BIOS Updates.

-- rc primak

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well I on the other hand have a few AMD based PCs that work as well as their Intel counterparts (maybe slightly better & more reliable, hah!)

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Thank you for the valuable advice. Readers might want to know that while Malwarebytes is a decent program there are plenty of free alternatives that surpass its effectiveness. In recent real-world tests by av-comparatives, for example, MWB was 14th in a field of 17 and had a high rate of false positives. It had nearly 3 times the failures of Microsoft, and 7 false positive to Microsoft’s 0.

Different testing labs will get different answers, as will tests performed on different dates, but Malwarebytes is rarely near the top of the list.

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b

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* be aware that Malwarebytes and its partner AdwCleaner will flag any software from Iobit as harmful and recommend removal … some time ago I asked them about this but got no reply

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I have one suggestion for Deanna. I’m not familiar with the OldGeeks website, but Malwarebytes will give you a free version of their product which has been reported to me as a permanent thing.  Even more important is that if you download the software from its provider you can be sure you get the latest version.

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Excellent article and it generated one question which I have not seen answered. I used to disable my AV (Norton after McAfee) for driver updates and Win updates. I have since moved to Windows Defender or whatever it is called now. I presume since it is a MS product it is not necessary to disable it? Or should I be safe and also disable it when upgrading? What should we do with other security software such as Malwarebytes? Disable or not?

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I followed Deanna’s protocol which went smoothly through AntispywareBlaster. Then I downloaded DSIM_GUI and clicked SFI which indicated it found corrupt files but was unable to fix them. So I restarted as instructed. Loaded it again and clicked REPAIR which ran and indicated it could not repair the problem. It said the source files could not be found; for more information follow the link to https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=243077 and it took me nowhere. I believe it was a DNS problem but it was late at night and I am a novice, I chose the prudent course of giving up. When I looked at some of the long logs, I noticed at the very end that it said problems were resolved which is confusing to me. I am not planning on installing Windows 11 but I do like to keep my computer efficient. 1. Since my computer works as I expect, should I let sleeping dogs lie? 2. Is trying to play in this arena (DSIM, etc.) beyond the scope of casual computer users? 3. Are there tutorials herein that expound upon these DSIM matters? Thanks for any help you may be able to give.

Windows 10 Home. HP 12GB RAM 256GB SSD 4year old desktop.

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TenForums.com has a useful DISM tutorial:

How to Repair Windows 10 Image using DISM

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Interesting article, thank you. I have an Acer laptop and wanted to check drivers as you suggested. The link you give takes you to the Acer support download page which lists 27 drivers and 8 BIOS/Firmware. How do I know what needs updating? Is there a utility you trust that will check this?
Thanks

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