Windows 7 : General Maintenance Tools (part 1) - Updating Your Computer

Windows 7 provides a wide range of tools to help you maintain your computer. They include the following:

Automatic Updates

Allows you to keep your computer up-to-date with the latest hot fixes and security updates

Disk Cleanup

Allows you to check disk drives for files that aren’t needed

Check Disk

Allows you to check disks for errors in the filesystem and on the disk volume itself

Disk Defragmenter (Dfrg.msc)

Allows you to optimize disk performance by reducing fragmentation of files

The following sections discuss how you can use each tool to perform preventive maintenance and routine checkups on your computer.

1. Updating Your Computer

Ensuring that your computer is up to date with the most recent hot fixes, security updates, and service packs is the most important preventive maintenance task you can perform. The great news is that you can completely automate the update process so that as updates become available, you can have your computer automatically download and install them.

The feature in Windows 7 that handles updates is called Windows Update. Windows Update is an enhanced version of the standard automatic update feature included in earlier releases of Windows. With Windows Update, you can be sure that all operating system components and related programs that ship with the operating system are updated automatically. If you installed the Windows Live desktop programs, these can be updated automatically as well.

You can even take this process a step further by having your computer download and install updates for related Microsoft products, including Microsoft Office, via an extension component called Microsoft Update. Microsoft Update extends Windows Update to provide a total update shield for your computer and key Microsoft products.

1.1. Installing Microsoft Update

When you install some Microsoft products, Microsoft Update is downloaded and installed automatically. For example, if you downloaded and installed the Windows Live desktop programs, Microsoft Update is installed automatically as part of the setup process.

You can determine whether your computer is using Microsoft Update by following these steps:

1. Click Start→All Programs→Windows Update. This displays the Windows Update page in the Control Panel.

2. If your computer is configured to use Microsoft Update, you’ll see the following message in the lower portion of the page:

   You receive updates: For Windows and other products from Microsoft Update.

   
   

You can install Microsoft Update by completing these steps:

1. Click Start→All Programs→Windows Update. This displays the Windows Update page in the Control Panel.

2. Click the “Get updates for more products” link. This opens the Windows Update page at the Microsoft web site in Internet Explorer.

3. After you read about Microsoft Update, scroll down, select “I accept the Terms of Use,” and then click Install.

NOTE

When you are using Microsoft Office, related Office applications, Visual Studio, and some other Microsoft products, you’ll want to use Microsoft Update to ensure that your computer downloads and installs updates for these programs according to your Automatic Updates settings. This will help ensure security patches, updates, and service packs for these applications are installed as they are released.

1.2. Configuring Automatic Updates

You can configure Automatic Updates by completing these steps:

1. Click Start→All Programs→Windows Update. This displays the Windows Update page in the Control Panel.

2. In the left panel, click “Change settings.” This displays the “Change settings” page, shown in Figure 1.

3. You can now specify whether and how updates should occur. To download and install updates automatically, select “Install updates automatically” and then set the interval for installing updates. By default, your computer periodically checks for and downloads updates when you are connected to the Internet. However, updates are installed only on the specific days and times you set. If you shut down your computer after updates have been downloaded, the updates are installed automatically before the computer shuts down, unless you elect to shut down without installing updates.

4. To ensure that recommended updates for device drivers included with the operating system and other optional updates are downloaded when they are available, select the “Give me recommended updates the same way I receive important updates” checkbox. Recommended updates are not installed automatically. Instead, you are notified when recommended updates become available.

5. To ensure that you receive updates for other Microsoft products and periodically check for new optional software from Microsoft, select the “Give me updates for Microsoft products and check for new optional Microsoft software when I update Windows” checkbox.

6. To receive detailed notifications about optional software from Microsoft, select the “Show me detailed notifications…” checkbox.

7. Click OK to save your settings.

Figure 1. Configuring your Automatic Updates settings

1.3. Checking for updates

You can check for and install updates manually at any time by following these steps:

1. Click Start→All Programs→Windows Update. This displays the Windows Update page in the Control Panel.

2. As shown in Figure 2, statistics are provided regarding the most recent check for updates, the last time updates were installed, and the current update configuration. If you want to check manually for updates, click “Check for updates.”

3. If updates are available, they are downloaded. To install downloaded updates, click “Install updates.”

Figure 2. Checking for updates

1.4. Viewing update history

You can view a detailed update history and a list of both successful and failed updates by following these steps:

1. Click Start→All Programs→Windows Update. This displays the Windows Update page in the Control Panel.

2. In the left panel, click “View update history.” This displays the History page shown in Figure 3.

3. On the History page, updates listed with a Successful status were downloaded and installed. Updates listed with an Unsuccessful status were downloaded but failed to install.

4. To remove an update while accessing the History page, click Installed Updates. Then on the Installed Updates page, right-click the update that you do not want and select Uninstall.

Figure 3. Viewing the update history

1.5. Removing updates and resolving update problems

Occasionally your computer may experience problems due to installing updates. Although this happens rarely, it does happen. You can remove updates if you need to by following these steps:

1. Click Start→All Programs→Windows Update. This displays the Windows Update page in the Control Panel.

2. In the left panel, click “View update history” and then click Installed Updates.

3. Select the update you want to modify or remove and then click Change or Uninstall as appropriate.

A problem I’ve experienced several times with Automatic Updates occurs due to a conflict between McAfee Security Center and Automatic Updates. As this is an equal opportunity conflict, I’ve also seen it occur due to a conflict between Norton Security and Automatic Updates. Normally, when you shut down your computer and there are updates to install, these updates are installed automatically. The problem I’ve experienced is that the update process gets locked when I shut down my computer, and there are multiple updates that affect components protected by McAfee or Norton as part of their antivirus or antimalware protection. To shut down my computer, I had to press and hold the power button—something you should never do when updates are being installed. When I later started my computer, the computer froze as soon as either McAfee or Norton started, and I was at a complete standstill. If you experience this problem, too—and you might—you’ll need to boot your computer to Safe Mode

1.6. Restoring declined updates

If you decline an update that you later want to install, you can restore the update so that you can install it by completing these steps:

1. Click Start→All Programs→Windows Update. This displays the Windows Update page in the Control Panel.

2. In the left pane, click “Restore hidden updates.”

3. On the Restore Hidden Updates page, select an update you want to install and then click Restore.

4. Windows 7 will unhide the declined update. Click Back to display the main Windows Update page, and then click “Install updates” to install the previously declined update.