Truly Secure Your Files

Password-protecting your laptop is good overall security, but for added protection, start encrypting. Vista Enterprise and Ultimate editions come with BitLocker Drive Encryption, a tool that relies on a Trusted Platform Module to secure access—check your manual to see if your notebook has one and update your BIOS if needed. To make the magic happen, you'll need an extra partition on your hard drive that you can create with the Vista partitioning tool on your installation disc or with the BitLocker Drive Preparation Tool, a Vista Ultimate Extra. You'll create one small partition for essential OS files, and the rest of the drive will hold encrypted files. Format the partition as NTFS, not FAT32.