Program Setup:

When I first found out about all these program's, I made a special folder in My Documents to keep them all in. I called it "Puter Maintenance". The only program I didn't put in there was AVG, and that was because it didn't want to work properly unless it went where it was designed to go.
I also have a Misc. folder in there to keep my run-one-time-only programs. Click here to see how I have these folders set up.

The second thing I ended up doing, because it was getting to be a little pain, was create a special folder on my desktop called SECURITY that I put shortcuts to all programs in so I don't have to go from folder to folder to folder to find and run them.

a. Creating a folder on your Desktop.
Right click on a blank spot on your Desktop and select New > Folder. Name it SECURITY. For a little bit of fun, right click on that folder, hit Properties > Customize Tab and at the bottom click on Change Icon. Click the elevator [scroll bar] 3 times to the right and on the top row near the end is a set of keys. Click on it to select it, hit OK, OK and now you don't have a folder picture for your SECURITY folder, it's now a set of keys. I did that to keep it separate from the other folders.

b. Creating the shortcuts.
You need to find the application that starts each program in order to create a shortcut.

Once you've found each one, right click on it and click on Create Shortcut. Then either click on the shortcut and drag it into your SECURITY folder, or Cut and Paste it.

Once I had all my shortcuts in my SECURITY folder, I numbered them in order that I use them so all I need to do is work my way down the list. Click here to see how I have it set up.

If you did click on the above link, you'll notice that some programs have numbers and a U beside them. The numbers are just the version number and the U stands for Updatable. You'll also have noticed that I have a text document in there too. It's just a list of where files/folders are located so all I have to do is Copy and Paste the address into Windows Explorer. I also keep track of when I last updated all the program's and when I last ran them. If you would like to have one in your folder, click here. Just Copy and Paste all the text into WordPad and save it into your SECURITY folder.

I run the programs on my puter in a certain order and I'll explain why [need I mention I'm a Virgo??? lol].

1. The very first thing I do is clear my internet caches, temp files, temp internet files and history. You can do this easily in IE: Tools > Internet Options > Delete Cookies - OK, Delete Files - put a check in the Delete all offline content - OK, Clear History - OK [make sure the setting is set to 0 (zero) so you don't store too much crap on your puter]. I have Netscape and Firefox as well and that's best to do manually [see my Caches and Such page for details]. Netscape and Firefox uses Sun Java, which if you play in game sites, such as Pogo, it'll save tons of files to your puter [see my Caches and Such page for details].

2. Diskkeeper Lite: I run this program first so there's no unfragmented files and the other programs run faster. I also run this program a couple times if I have a lot of fragmented files.

3. Windows Washer: I run this program second so there's less files to check when I run the other programs. Run this program until the numbers don't change.

4. Disk Cleanup: [came with Windows, Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > cleanmgr.exe] only takes a couple of minutes to run. I do this program third so there's less files to check when I run the other programs.

5. Ad-Aware: I run this program fourth because it finds nasties and also recently opened documents and files and you can delete them through here.

6. SpyBot S&D: I run this program fifth because it finds nasties and also recently opened documents and files and you can delete them through here. I do both Ad-Aware and SpyBot because one may find something that the other doesn't, and vise versa.

7. CWShredder: I run this program sixth because it's specifically designed to find anything related to CoolWeb Search.

8. HijackThis!: I run this program seventh to see if there's anything strange on my computer.

9. Windows Washer: I run this one again to make sure there's nothing left behind on my puter. Run till the numbers don't change.

10. RegSeeker: I run this program eighth to get rid of any orphans left behind from un-installed programs, and to clean out my Registry.

11. Diskkeeper Lite: I run this one again to re-defrag my system. Since the other programs are at best only deleting recently opened documents and files, and at worst deleting nasties, my computer is no longer completely defragged.

12. AVG: I run this program ninth to check for virus', trojan's, worms, etc.

13. Disk Cleanup: I run this one again for the same reason as above. It usually doesn't find anything the second time around, but I do it anyway.

14. Spyware Blaster: This runs on it's own in the background, I only open it up to check for updates.

15. Windows Inspector: This only gives you a list of everything that's running in the background on your computer, I just check it to see if there's anything I don't recognize.