Windows XP Virgin Install Part One

 Inspired by Scott McNulty's virgin install of OS X (documented at TUAW), I wanted to try the same on another machine. But not OS X, Windows XP. Anyone who has purchased a PC from any major manufacturer will no doubt tell you about all the useless or painful apps that come bundled with the PC. My VAIO came with offenses to the great GUI Gods that Sony will have to answer for someday (SonicStage makes babies cry). It's that "gunky" stuff I was happy to avoid. I happen to have a basic Dell Optiplex, and a fully genuine copy of XP Pro (SP2 naturally). So what's it like having a fresh, clean, gunk-free install? In a word, nice.

Over the next several weeks I'll be installing a number of things on the PC to see what happens. Mostly this will be freeware, and I might be setting up some web services to extend my presence... Hacks, scripts, mods, etc. what's the worst that could happen? But so far I did one thing wrong: I installed McAfee's Security Center/AntiVirus.


All I really wanted was AntiVirus. When I installed the software things went swimmingly. Especially compared to the bungled installs I've done over the years with Symantec (why does LiveUpdate kill the entire program, why?). Unfortunately I allowed the McAfee Security Center to overtake the Microsoft Security Center. Oh no, here we go again. Listen McAfee, all I wanted was AntiVirus! In the little dialog box there portends great doom and furious anger if you don't use their security center. So I did. Then I wised up and uninstalled both. My machine actually boots much quicker now. That McAfee antivirus is outta here... Personally, I prefer MS's tools.

Back to a purely pure install, and time to download some goodies. What's neat about a clean install of XP is that you can immediately see what Microsoft gives you to begin creating stuff. Keep in mind I have NO Office installed. No Word, Excel, etc. I do have a text editor, a paint application, MSN Messenger, Outlook Express, and Internet Explorer. Let's not forget Media Player, and apparently Movie Maker and Frontpage. Frontpage? Somehow I wound up with version 3 on here. No matter, as it (along with Outlook Express and MSN Messenger) will never be touched. If I get frisky I'll try to uninstall them later.

My first priority at this point was to get antispyware and antivirus apps. I went with Microsoft's AntiSpyware Beta (which is the best beta ever IMO), and Grisoft's AVG to handle viruses. Now I feel more secure.

Next up: the tools I need to blog about all this. As a personal preference I installed Firefox, then GIMP for image manipulations, RSSOwl for news, and OpenOffice for all those DOC's I'll be working with. I soon discovered I needed to install Java, which is annoying but understandable...

Well that gets me up and running for yummy blogging goodness. Stay tuned as I check out the best and worst of whatever free apps catch my fancy. As usual, if you have any suggestions, feel free to send them in via our tip form.

Tags: clean+install, CleanInstall, freeware, review, windows+xp, WindowsXp