How to Install a Computer Program Safely

Series Summary

Computers are complex machines built upon very simple principles. They perform arithmetical operations millions of times over to transform digital information moving at lightning speed into usable human data. A personal computer's job is to help a user create, manipulate, deliver, receive or delete media content. This is a simple, sterile definition that sounds uninteresting on the surface. Nevertheless, these fundamental functions mimic human ability in some surprising ways. Therefore, the computer is increasingly becoming an engine of the imagination, a platform for the digital life. In this free video series on computers, a software developer answers several laptop and computer questions. Find out how to make various graphs in both Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, and discover how to safely install a program onto a computer. Compare different laptop features, including screen size and processor speed, and choose the right laptop for the job. Use an external hard drive to back up work, and keep a laptop from overheating using compressed air. Use and care for a laptop using this helpful computer guide.

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Dave Andrews. Today I'm going to tell you how to install a computer program safely. Let's go to our computer. Well I've already downloaded and executable here that we're going to install. There's a couple of things that you're going to want to do before you actually run the installation, and that is to make sure that you downloaded it from a reputable source, make sure that you have investigated the program itself by searching the Internet, maybe for the name of it. If this program happens to be some kind of virus or spyware or something, somebody else has probably run into that problem and will let you know, just by quickly searching the Internet for the name of the program. Also another thing to make sure of is that you have good anti-virus running on your computer, and that's going to keep viruses from getting installed. So basically once you have your program downloaded, just double click on it, and it's going to run the installation. Now basically this is telling you that Windows does not recognize this program, and we're going to click to allow it, (you can't really read the front of it) we're just clicking allow right there. Now this is the setup program for the program, for the program that we just downloaded. Now most programs require you to accept a license agreement when you go to install them, all you have to do is select the, I accept. Now it's important to check here where your program is going to be installed and kind of keep that in mind. This one is going on the C-drive under, Program Files, Easy Server Monitor Complete, and it's going to appear right there, and that's where it's actually going to copy the files to when it installs. So if for some reason you had some problems with this program afterwards, you can just remember that they were under Program Files. Now, a couple of options here, it's going to ask you if you want to create a desktop icon or a quick launch icon, there's really typically no problem with those. Now here it's going to do a little recap of what we're going to do, I'm just going to say okay with that. Now, before just allowing it to actually launch the program after install, we want to check a couple of things, so I'm going to un-check that and just not allow it to automatically to launch the program. I want to check to make sure that I have the option of un-installing it if I have a problem. So I'm just going to go to control panel and then add/remove programs, and I'm kind of shortcutting that here by just going directly to programs and features. Now what this is doing is giving a list of all the software that's installed on my computer. I should be able to scroll down here and find that program that I just installed inside my list of un-installable programs. That kind of lends a little bit of credibility to them. My name is Dave Andrews, and I've just showed you how to install a program safely."