Security Center: This allows you to control your security programs to see whether your firewall. automatic updating and malware protection are all up and running. You can set up other firewall software from other vendors if you do wish to use the one that came with Windows and this can be monitored through the Security Center as well. If there are any problems such as an anti virus not being installed, you will receive a pop up that will direct you to the Security Center to resolve the issue. Under the Other Secrity Settings, it is possible to switch off UAC, however it is reccomended that you keep this switched on.
Windows Firewall: The firewall is mentioned in the Control Panel section on Networking and Internet .
Windows Update: The section on Windows Update has more details on this.
Windows Defender: Windows Defender is new to Vista and provides malware, spyware and adware protection for your computer, it is mentioned in more detail in the Windows Defender section.
Internet Options: This is mentioned in detail under the Control Panel section on Networking and Internet.
Parental Controls: This is mentioned in detail in the Parental Controls section.
Bitlocker Driver Encryption: This is a new feature to Windows Vista. It is used to encrypt the entire contents of a drive so that it cannot be read by another PC. The way Bitlocker Drive Encryption works is by giving the user an encryption key which can be stored on a USB flash disk and requiring the key to start the computer up, otherwise the computer will not start up. You can also use Bitlocker Drive Encryption on a computer that has a TPM chip - a chip on the motherboard that allows you to encrypt and decrypt a hard drive without having to enter a USB key everytime you want to start up the PC.
The requirements for Bitlocker Driver Encryption is that you have 2 hartd drives or 2 partitions to begin with. the 2 drives need to be formatted under NTFS and the system drive (the drive that does not contain the Vista operating system files) needs to have at least 1.5GB free. This system drive will have the Bitlocker encryption program and should not have any files that you wish to encrypt. This partition must be set as a primary partition and must also be an active partition.
