Lifehacker has put together a great PC Rescue Kit for all of us who tend to spend more than a few hours during the holidays fixing computers for family members – not that there’s anything wrong with that…
Next week here in the U.S. many of us will be heading home to see family, share a turkey feast, watch some football…. and help out our less technically-inclined relatives. The pumpkin pie might not even be on the table before you get that inevitable request: “Can you take a look at my computer? It’s been really slow lately.”
Last year we covered how to how to fix Mom and Dad’s computer when you head home for the holidays. This year, we’ll save you the trouble of chasing down half a dozen PC fix-it tools in the midst of your post-turkey coma. Instead we’ve put together everything you’ll need to right your famliy’s borked computer into one meaty Thanksgiving download.
Introducing Lifehacker’s Thanksgiving PC Rescue Kit
After a large dose of turkey and tryptophan, the last thing you want to do is cruise around the interwebs downloading this, that and the other to get the folks’ PC in order. So we’ve gone ahead and done the work for you. Right-click the following link and choose “Save As:”
Lifehacker’s Thanksgiving PC Rescue Kit (17MB)
This zip file contains half a dozen free tools we recommend to scan and clean and protect a malware-laden PC. Either download right now and save to your thumb drive, or bookmark this page for next week’s tech support session. The entire file is less than 17 megabytes, which will leave room on your USB drive for those Neil Diamond tracks Mom asked you to download for her.
Also, don’t forget to run Windows updater to be sure the system software is up to date and run a scan disk and disk deframenter as well.
And if you really want to have fun, change your parent’s browser from Internet Explorer to Firefox. That might save you some headaches in the future.
