I know many of us are visiting friends and relatives for the Thanksgiving holiday and many more will be doing the same for Christmas. As the unofficial IT support person for my family there are several things that I try to do when I am with my family to make sure that they are protected.

1. Remove the useless programs on the computer. I spent some time yesterday removing all the trial and crippled versions of software from my parent's machine that they do not use. Some of the programs they didn't like, others they didn't understand, and some were installed by my nieces and nephews and they didn't want them any more. After freeing up some disk space I always defragment the hard drive.
2. Update the firewall and virus protection. I make sure the firewall is turned on and that they have good virus protection. On my parent's machine the free trial of the anti-virus software had expired so I removed it and installed AVG free from http://free.avg.com.
3. Run Microsoft Update. My parents rarely leave their computer on all night so the default time of 2 A.M. to install Windows Updates means that they don't all get installed in a timely manner. I make sure that I run through the update until there are no more high priority updates to any of their software.
4. Update other software. If Acrobat, Java, or other programs are reporting an update I will update them as well.
5. Prepare old machines for a better life. Well, I don't know that recycling is a better life but occasionally someone will have an old computer that they want to donate to charity or recycle. With the data on the hard drive being worth more than the machine itself I make sure that I clean off the hard drive. The tool I use for that is Darik's Boot and Nuke available at http://www.dban.org. It will erase the disk so bank accounts, tax returns, and other data that shouldn't be read by others is gone.

I am sure you have other tasks that you perform regularly. If you think I have missed something leave me a comment to let me know. I might just add it to my list of things to do next time I am visiting relatives.