Keep your computer safe with Windows Vista

In Windows Vista, you'll find the most important security tools in a single place: the Windows Security Center. If Windows Vista thinks there's a potential security issue it will warn you by placing an icon in the system tray and popping up a message, but you can check the Security Center at any time by clicking on Start > Control Panel > Security > Security Center. Knowing what each section in the Security Center is and how it works is essential to keep your computer safe. We'll talk you through exactly what each bit means.

Windows Security Center

Click on Start > Control Panel > Security > SecurityCenter. You'll now see an overview of your PC's security settings, which uses a traffic light-style colour code: green is good, yellow means ‘needs attention’ and red means ‘needs urgent attention’.

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In this example you'll see we've got a yellow code because while Windows Defender is scanning our system, we haven't installed anti-virus software yet.

Expand to explain

To see more information about a particular category, click on the down arrow at the right. In this screenshot we've expanded Automatic Updating to see what the current settings are.

Safety First

The settings you see here are Windows Vista's defaults, and that means – anti-virus aside – all Windows' safety features are turned on. If you want to change individual security options, click on the links on the left-hand side of the window. We'll do that now – click on Windows Update to continue.

Essential updates

Windows Update will automatically check with Microsoft to see if any system updates are available, but it will only download essential ones such as Windows Defender updates or key security updates. From time to time Microsoft will also provide optional updates, which aren't key security updates but which might be useful; to see them, click on View Available Updates to load the Windows Update service in your Web browser.

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