Newbie would like a little help

Hello all at Wilders

This is my first post in any forum of any description so excuse me if I'm a little unclear. Hope it's in the right forum.

Firstly, can I say congrats to all of you for the efforts, help and suggestions you make - quite remarkable ! I've been 'lurking' for some weeks and although I'm a novice I feel that I've learned a bit regarding security and will endeavour to learn more.

As a bit of background, during the last few weeks I have had the following running on my machine from suggestions made in these forums.


Spybot
Ad-aware
Ewido(on -demand free version)
Spyware Blaster and Guard
Bit Defender(on demand free version)
Zone Alarm Security Suite (full paid version)
Firefox browser

Have also trialled TDS-3 and Trojan Hunter

Other than the odd cookie, numerous scans have revealed no malware of any description so I feel reasonably sure that my system was clean.My surfing is limited and definitely not on the dark side.
However, I have been unable to do any Windows Updates for over 2 months using IE and it seems to be a problem with my ZA settings. Getting nowhere with suggestions to resolve this, in a fit of frustration, I have recovered and reinstalled my OS (XP Home) and therefore think this may an opportunity to nail things down tight.

Cutting to the chase, these therefore are my questions some of which are no doubt a bit naive, but hey we've all got to learn and would be very grateful for any feedback/suggestions.

1/ Using the Recovery and System CD's that came with the machine, does this mean my hard drive has been reformatted and I am now 100 % guaranteed clean ?
2/ Should I reinstall SP2 and do Windows Updates before reinstalling my security defences ?

3/ How can I be sure I am secure or how vulnerable am I whilst downloading my security progs and firewall and doing the Windows Updates. Do I simply have to rely on the Windows firewall during this process ?

4/ As a complete novice, my understanding of how the programs listed above actually work is very minimal and am therefore open to criticisms of my defence progs and suggestions as to what programs might offer better protection. In particular, from all the positives I've read
it would seem that this may be an ideal opportunity to give Process Guard a go. Is this is as daunting as it sometimes sounds ?
Also, I gather that the AV on Zone Alarm Security Suite is not top notch. Again, is this a good time to go for someting better.Is NOD32 the way to go and is it painless for a novice ? I think I got a litle overexcited with blocking things in ZA Program Control and am probably best with something I can't tinker too much with. Should I stick with the ZA firewall ? Is there a good order in which to download progs i.e Process Guard before AV etc ?

I think that's enough for the time being. Time and work commitments will prevent frequent postings so if any of you are kind enough to respond please be patient in waiting for my grateful thanks ! It will come ! Hope I can be of some help myself one day.

Cheers

 

If you chose to format you should be good.

If you are getting SP2 from the net I would make sure firewall is installed first. The others like AV/AT/AS don't really matter if all you do is grab SP2 and then reboot and then install those.

I would split my drive into 2 partitions so you can have your software installers and such on 1 partition and Windows and installed programs on the other. This way you stay unplugged from the net until you instal you Firewall. If you can not do this than you will have to rely on Windows firewall as you said. It is very low risk to do this but still a risk.

It really shouldn't be that difficult for you and you can always come here and ask questions if you need to.

Well this opens up a can of worms. Everyone has a different opinion of AV's and the like. I use and recommend NOD32 is all I can tell you without starting another discussion.

ZA is one of the easiest to use firewalls in my opinion. Probably there is more options in other firewalls so I say this is your best choice till you learn more.

I say install firewall or SP2 first as said above and then all other security apps and then Process Guard and then all other apps.

If anyone has better answers please feel free to post as I can always learn more as well.

Hope this helps,

Chris

 

Thanks for that Chris. I'll digest your reply tomorrow and I'd be really grateful if you could check on this thread again over the next couple of days just in case I have other questions on this.

Was getting a little worried there for a while that my initial posting didn't warrant any response at all !!

 

There is usually two options...with recover CDs

One just restores OS and preinstalled programs...The other Formats and
reinstalls system like the day you first got it.....You will lose everything.

There is an excellent Sticky in the Nod32 section, by Blackspear on how to
set Nod32 to max protection

 

Glad to help and I will keep checking in case you have questions that I can help with.

Thanks,

Chris