STEP 1 – Operating System Installation

Assuming you are installing your operating system from scratch, here are some items to pay attention to;

• When choosing the file system, select NTFS (not FAT) as you will need this file system in order to provide file and directory level security (great for a single home computer with multiple users – Mom and Dad have administrator level access and provide kids with their own user and file system). If your operating system is already installed and you want to convert to NTFS, open a command prompt (start > run > cmd), and use this command - CONVERT volume /FS:NTFS (volume - Specifies the drive letter followed by a colon – for example C:).
• It’s a good idea to create multiple partitions (a C: and D: drive for example), in order to keep your operating system and its files on the C: drive and personal data on the D: drive.  Microsoft operating systems keep getting bigger and computers continue to ship with lots of memory, so a 10 to 15 Gigabyte C: drive should suffice (since modern hard drives are rather large).  If you only have a 10 Gigabyte hard drive, you might consider adding an additional hard drive and stick with one partition for the time being.
• Minimize the packages that are selected during install – if you don’t know what it is, install it later.  Most home users only need the bare bones operating system, Internet Explorer, Media Player, and an image editor.   After installation, disable any unnecessary  or potentially dangerous windows services.
• Choose a complex password for the Administrator account during install, rather than leaving it blank (something with capitalization, punctuation, and numbers – for example !!12Secur3).