How To Set Up A Standalone Computer System: Configure a computer system to meet user needs

Configure a computer system to meet user needs

Bios Configuration

In this section i will demonstrate how to configure bios settings, this includes changing the boot order and adding a BIOS password.

To boot into the BIOS, first boot up your computer and press F2 (may be a different F button, depending on your motherboard) when prompted, this will take you to the BIOS settings.

When this screen opens, use the arrow keys to navigate to the "Boot" menu and then go down to the boot device option, press enter on this option and move the preferred boot device ("Sandisk cruzer") to the top of the list, this gives the device the highest boot priority.

Once this is done, save your changes and restart the PC, one the computer restarts, it should boot to the chosen device, which in this case was a USB.

As you can see, the PC has booted straight to the USB instead of the OS installed on the hard drive.

Now i will demonstrate how to set a BIOS password.

First, boot up to the BIOS again and use the arrow keys to navigate to the "Security" tab and then down to "Add a supervisor password", here you will be prompted to enter the existing password if there is one, and then the new password.

Now i will demonstrate how to configure the power settings for your computer, this is only recommended for advanced users who know exactly what they are doing.

First, boot to the BIOS and go along to the "Power" tab, here you will find the basic power configuration options, for some configurations you may need to go in to the advanced menu.

Editing antivirus configuration

In this section i will demonstrate how to edit the antivirus configuration for the antivirus software "AVG Antivirus Free", this will show where the options menu is and where you can change some settings.

First, you must have AVG running so you can access the options. To access the options, first click "Show hidden icons" on the task bar (the small up arrow next to the clock) and then right click the small AVG logo, this will bring up a small menu with a few options available.

This is the menu that comes up when the AVG icon is right clicked.

From here, you can initiate a virus scan, update AVG, run the PC analyzer, temporarily disable the antivirus protection, or open the AVG user interface shown below. From the AVG user interface, you can click options in the top right corner and open up an advanced options menu by clicking "advanced settings", this allows you to do things such as changing the language used, disabling notifications, setting automatic scans, changing the appearance, and a few other things.

Setting up the desktop for people with visual impairment

Here i will demonstrate how the desktop can be set up for someone with visual impairment, this includes changing the size of icons on the desktop and turning high contrast mode on.

Changing the size of desktop icons is simple, all you need to do is go to your desktop, hold CTRL, and scroll up (to enlarge the icons) or down (do make the icons smaller).

To turn on high contrast mode, first right click on the desktop and click "Personalisation", in this menu you can scroll down to the bottom and select the high contrast theme.

Personalisation menu open with normal theme selected

Personalisation menu open with high contrast selected

Create start up options

here i will demonstrate how to create start up options.

First, open the start menu and then all programs, look for a folder called "Startup". Once you have located this folder, right click it and then click "Open".

Right clicking the Startup folder

Once you have opened the Startup folder, copy a shortcut for the program you want to start automatically into the Startup folder, this will make the copied program start up when the computer starts up.

Program shortcut copied into the Startup folder

Once you have copied the shortcut in, log on and off just to verify it works properly.

Setting up file sharing / permissions

Here i will demonstrate how to share files with other people on your network and change their permissions.

First, find the file you want to share and right click it, on the menu that pops up, hover other "Share With" and then on the box that pops out, click "specific people...".

The box that comes up when you click specific people

From here, you can either type in the name of who you want to share with, or you can click the drop down box and select someone from there. For this example, i will choose "Everyone", which shares the file with everyone on the network.
Once you have selected someone you want to share the file with, click add. Their name will now appear in the box below.

Now, to change their permissions for the shared file, click the user whos permissions you want to change and then click the small down arrow next to where it says "Read". This will bring up a small menu from where you can decide if they can only have permission to view the file, or permission to view, edit, or remove the file.

Once you have selected the desired permissions, simply click share and then finish. The file is now shared with the user(s) you selected.

Creating and configuring application toolbars

Here i will demonstrate how to create an application toolbar on your task bar, to do this you need to right click on your task bar and unlock it if it is locked, then hover over toolbars. From here you can either use a preset toolbar or create your own from somewhere on your own PC.