I've just been reading suggestions for remembering passwords etc. and the simplest seems to be the list in a notebook - so I thought I'd pass on what else is usefully listed.

I had a Friday-afternoon-build laptop, which came complete with the sort of warranty and backup which involves some underage individual who knows less than me (and almost nobody knows less about computers than me!) 'fixing' every problem, whether hardware or software, by saying 'well, you gotta virus' and reformatting the hard drive, and then being surprised that the problem didn't go away. (And every reader in the UK will by now be saying 'I know where that computer came from...') Then they would change the motherboard and/or the hard drive, reformatting the reformat, and... Well, suffice it to say that I actually do the backups as often as everybody recommends we all should.

After the third hard drive replacement (don't ask - no, of course it wasn't a virus), I started to keep a list of what programs I had put on, as well as the ones which came on the recovery disk, and of where they came from and whether or not I had disks for them.

Like: I have three business programs, all with disks and passwords. Fine. But all my anti-malware programs are the freeware ones: AVG, Spyware Blaster, Ad-Aware, ZoneAlarm, Winpatrol etc., and I use both Firefox and Thunderbird, and occasionally Opera and Open Office. Then there's half a dozen extensions on each of Firefox and Thunderbird, there's Miranda for ICQ, there's the printer I use at home and the one at work, the driver for the backup device, the router, and that's before the half dozen little things, the favourite games, the camera, the mobile phone etc., etc., cont page 94. When eventually I got a new laptop, it took me most of two days to get all the software I actually use installed.

So across the double blank page at the back of my desk diary is a list of what programs I've put on the computer, and any passwords/activation codes etc, and which ones I've got disks for, and where I downloaded the others from and what they're actually called - I mean, that useful little program which undid the problem with the photo file: was it called Unlock? Unblock? And where on earth did I find it? was it a link from the BleepingComputer forum, or the Mozilla forum? The AVG website isn't called AVG, it's called Grisoft; am I going to remember that? Doubt it.

Then once a year, as I transfer the list from one diary to another, I actually take a look and think: do I still use that? Could I uninstall it now? And once a year or so, I make sure that I've got the latest Thunderbird and Firefox and all the anti-malwares saved to disk - which means that if I have to do a complete re-install <hastily touches wood, spits, throws salt over shoulder> I can get a basic version of the safety stuff on without going online at all, and then update it, rather than hanging about unprotected while I find the download site, run the download, run the installation etc.

It's a bit of a pain to do the first time, but once you've got the basic list there's almost no work involved in keeping it up to date, and it can save such a lot of time!

MB

I do something similar, although more streamlined. Your method seems much more thorough, but I doubt I'd maintain the paper trail.

Every time I install a new downloaded program (whether freeware or paid), I put a copy of its installation file on CD/DVD, along with a text file with links to appropriate sites, as well as even some downloaded pages and files, such as plugins, FAQ, help, passwords, or general info. Since I investigate each program that I download pretty thoroughly beforehand, I already have most of the info on my HD anyway, so it's just a matter of putting the folder on the disc.

When I bought this computer, that CD was enormously helpful, because the old one was fried, and I couldn't just transfer from it to this one.

I see you use firefox, me too, and I have this foxmarks plug in where I dump all the reference sites to the programs I had installed (for docs, troubleshooting and forums). One good thing I see about that is I can access it even without my personal PC. So if my PC bug down, I'll just visit my bookmarks from foxmarks website and voila

For keys and activation and the like, I keep one on a separate storage (I have NAS) aside from what I have on my documents folder.. Also for free SW. I dont keep a copy, since It is free I can always visit the website to get it. I only keep a copy of the OS and the NIC driver and I can recover from that.

I dont load all the programs that i have, I only install what I need and frequently use and install if theres aneed for it. I have another pc to try all other programs, malwares and viruses (just kidding)

I used to do the same Dialer....wow I have a lot of cds Now I only have a few programs I keep on my SBS as I seem to swap and change a lot.

Good tips folks.

I download everything to a C:/Download folder. Inside that, I make an INSTALLED DOWNLOADS folder so that when I install a program, I transfer the setup file to this folder. When I have a reasonable amount of data I burn that off to CD - can save an awful lot of time and bandwidth.

These days, flash drives are so cheap it is not a silly idea to keep one just for this purpose as it is so easy to add new stuff and delete the old at no extra cost.

Cheers