Advice please on using Windows

[RedRock]

Hi. I am partitioning my Mac hard disk and installing Windows 7 Pro, so that I can run Dragon Naturally Speaking v.13 (I use DNS 12.5 and Win7Pro at work, and it works well). I will also be trying COD4 and COD:UO in Windows native format, to see if they run faster or better than with my Mac (I know some maps will now be accessible on Windows that I can't run on the Mac, as I get a "Max Patch Planes" error and get booted from servers).

My questions, the advice I need, are about overall setup, plus any suggestions/tips you can give me. I've used WinNT and Win7Pro for a while now, so I know some basics, and this isn't an issue for MS Office, as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files are fully interchangeable between Mac and Windows and I have Office for my Mac and for my work PC.

So, to start, how much of my hard disk should I set aside for Win7Pro and some apps and storage space. I have nearly 1.2 TB available and 8 Gb of RAM and a decent video card (ATI Radeon HD 5750) with 1 Gb of VRAM as part of my Mac. I'll use Apple's BootCamp to do the partitioning.

Lamron recommended AVAST for antivirus. Any other suggestions?

Is there a system program I can get, similar to Norton System Works, to keep my Win stuff (registry, etc.) clean and functioning, some app that doesn't hog resources or cost an arm and a leg?

I don't understand about "start as administrator" (versus...what? I'll be the only user on my Mac of Windows and will be the only person logging in), and all those desktop shortcuts to launch apps with (COD4, etc.), so if anyone has a quick tutorial on that, I'd appreciate it.

Easy backup? I guess......***guess***......I can continue to use my Apple TimeMachine backup external HD and it will also backup the Windows side/stuff, but I don't know. But any native Win backup app you like/recommend?

I'm having a lot lot lot lot lot of popups with FireFox lately on Win7, and I am super tired of the "Are You Sure You Want To Connect To This Untrusted Site?" messages on FireFox on the internet sites, and can use Chrome, but I'd prefer FireFox, if anyone has any suggestions.....?

I am not interested in MS Internet Explorer, but I guess I'll have to have it for those sites that don't like FF or Chrome. It's a free download, right?

And is Adobe Acrobat Reader the way to go for reading and saving and filling in existing pdf forms?

I like Irfanview for viewing image files. Any other suggestions?

Thanks for this, and any other things you can suggest.

[RedRock]

Well, I'm using Windows 7 Pro on my Mac. It runs pretty good, better than my dedicated Windows machine I use at work. I ended up having to get MS Office, though. I have COD:UO installed on it, and it doesn't run any faster than the Mac-native version, so that's a little disappointing. And I already got a virus, when I downloaded some anti-malware stuff to help with a problem on Win7 with my work pc. Fortunately, the anti-virus found it (in a zip-file I had downloaded but not unpacked). I run Dragon Naturally Speaking 13 and MS Word, mostly, and it runs very well to help me with my work dictations and reports. There was an issue with brightness on the screen, though, as the iMac monitors are built-in and don't have external contrast/brightness controls. It took a bit of doing, but I found the control panel that lets me adjust the brightness.

But I have a question. I use a jump drive to go back and forth between my work pc and home Mac/PC and even between PC and Mac sides of my home mac. I notice that Win 7 (or windows in general?) adds multiple little files (4k or so) on my jump drive, especially, and on the hard disk, too, all with the same name as other files already on there (real files), but starting with ._ (that's dot and underscore). What are these files, and why do I have them, and do I need them? I've been deleting them wholesale from the jumpdrive and my hard disk, whenever and wherever I see them. They just take up space and clutter up my "details" listing of my files. So far no problems, but I worry.

[Lamron]

Its actually your MAC that's creating those files, it just treats them as invisible so you don't see them. Windows doesn't know what they are and shows them. They store some extra info that isn't needed.

www.cnet.com/news/invisible-files-with-prefix-are-created-on-some-shared-volumes-and-external-disks/


For anti-virus, cleaning, and malware removal, you can trust these free programs to do the job without causing their own problems.

AVAST
www.avast.com

CCleaner
www.piriform.com/ccleaner

Malwarebytes
www.malwarebytes.org


Each of these have upgraded paid versions, but the free version will do everything you need. Just make sure to decline all the additional offers during install.

[RedRock]

Thanks for the info, as usual!