Hey, things you would want to install 1. Anti Virus (Norton is good or McAfee there are lot more to select from) 2. Personal Firewall (u can get some free online.. one of the good one is Cyber Armor) 3. FireFox. (its betteer than IE ;) hehehe just the microsoft thingy ) 4. Also Define users .. One user id for ur self and other user ids for other users .. this will help ur system stay clean and secure make sure u keep back ups .. u never know when the HDD may crash and such..