Now Windows can clean up after itself
If computers are so smart, why can't they take care of themselves?
Keeping a PC in proper trim involves a host of niggling little tasks, many of them confusing and all of them easy to forget. It's not fair. Computers are good at remembering stuff. Surely they could remember to practice their own digital fitness regimen.
Plenty of programs offer some degree of automated maintenance. Most decent antivirus programs run themselves once a week and can download regular updates from the Internet.
But that's just one of several crucial tasks, so later this year, Microsoft Corp. plans to introduce Windows OneCare, an online service for broadband users that's designed to automate a computer's most important maintenance and security tasks.
This being a Microsoft product, the next question is ''how much?" OneCare group product manager Dennis Bonsall won't say, except that the price will be ''competitive with what these solutions typically sell for." Not very helpful, since there aren't any other solutions that quite do what Microsoft has in mind.
But we can compare OneCare with antivirus software. The stuff usually costs around $40 and includes a year's worth of updates. Every year the customer must buy a new subscription for about the same price as the original software.
The early beta version of OneCare includes Microsoft's own antivirus scanner and will soon be augmented with the company's very good antispyware program, which is already available as a separate free product. You might expect to pay $40 a year for it.
But wait; there's more, quite a bit more. OneCare includes an enhanced firewall to replace the popsicle-stick palisade used in Windows XP. The new firewall detects hostile computer traffic leaving your machine, as well as entering it, a good way to detect infection by Trojan horse programs.
Traditional computer security programs don't automatically upgrade themselves to guard against new types of attack. If you want to add antispyware protection, you may have to buy a new product. Bonsall said that as new threats to Windows are discovered, OneCare will automatically add new software to deal with them, at no extra cost over the life of the subscription.
OneCare is just one of several indications that Microsoft has finally grasped the critical importance of computer security. Remember the Zotob worm that swept across the Internet a few weeks ago? Probably not. Earlier plagues like Code Red and Slammer afflicted millions of PCs. Zotob nailed a fraction of that number and then only computers that ran older versions of Windows. Windows XP users had nothing to fear; a happy hint that Microsoft is starting to get it right.
Still, there's a lot more to OneCare than security against malicious software. It oversees a number of other important tasks that most people neglect, disk defragmentation, for instance. When data is stored on a hard drive, it tends to get chopped into little fragments and scattered all over the disk. It's as if you filed a 100-page report by putting each page in a different drawer. If files were consolidated, the computer could find them faster.
Besides, looking up fragmented data puts a lot of stress on the mechanical components of the hard drive. Running a defragmentation program could help your computer last longer. Nearly every version of Windows has the program Disk Defragmenter built in; hardly anyone runs it. OneCare remembers to do it automatically.
Better yet, OneCare automates the most neglected job of all, data backup. Everybody knows you're supposed to make copies of your most important files, in case the computer dies, but few do it. But OneCare waves an electronic flag in your face.
The beta version of OneCare offers to back up files to a CD or DVD burner. But lots of people buy cheap external hard drives for backup; OneCare should connect to these devices. It could also suggest an online backup system for broadband users. Microsoft could make a lot of money by providing a few gigabytes of online storage for a few dollars a month. Then when subscribers are snug in their beds, OneCare could transmit a daily dose of backed-up data, encrypted to protect the customer's privacy.
The early beta version of OneCare was rather crash-prone, but a few days' use of the software revealed its considerable promise. For years now, Microsoft has been content to let companies like Symantec Corp. rake in healthy profits on computer security and maintenance products like the popular Norton SystemWorks. When OneCare goes on sale, consumers will be able to purchase Windows security from the source.
Cynics may say that Microsoft is cashing in on the very insecurity it engineered into its own products. But I doubt the average computer user will care. If Windows OneCare is reasonably priced, plenty of consumers will be happy to forget all about viruses, firewalls, and file fragments and let the computer take care of itself.
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com. 
