- Why You Should Worry About Keeping Your Computer Safe
- Getting to Everything Security Related in Vista
- What Spyware and Malware Are and How Your Computer Gets Them
- Symptoms of Malware on Your Computer
- Getting Rid of and Keeping Malware Off Your Computer
- Windows Defender
- What to Do If You Suspect Malware But Can't Get a Pop-Up to Close
- What Is a Virus and How Is It Different from Spyware?
- Protecting Your Computer from Viruses
- Determining If You Have a Virus
- The Importance of Automatic Updates
- Turning On Automatic Updating
- What Is Windows Firewall?
- Why You Should Back Up Your Computer
- Backing Up the Files on Your Computer
- Backing Up Your Entire Computer
- Where to Store Backups
- Restoring Your Computer from a Backup
- Automatically Backing Up Your Computer
- What Is Service Pack 1 (a.k.a. SP1)?
- How Do I Get SP1?
- How Do I Install SP1?
Turning On Automatic Updating
You can turn on Automatic Updating in the Windows Security Center. Just go to the Start menu and click on Control Panel. Under Security, choose Check This Computer’s Security Status. Just below the Firewall option is Automatic Updating. If the area around the text is red, that means Automatic Updating is totally off. If it’s amber, it means you have enabled some features of Automatic Updating but you’re not taking advantage of all of them. If it’s green, you can just stop here because Automatic Updating is already on and your job is done. So, if it’s red or amber, click on Windows Update at the top left of the window. In the resulting window, click on Change Settings on the left. Here, you’ll be asked if you want to Install Updates Automatically, if you’d like to choose the updates that are downloaded and installed, or if you want Vista to Never Check for Updates. I suggest clicking the Install Updates Automatically radio button. That way your updates are downloaded and installed automatically and your computer will be kept safer without you having to do a thing.