Got a new PC coming? Here are 5 helpful ways to prepare for it

Get these things in order and the setup of your new PC will be much faster.

- ALAINA YEE

If you’ve just bought a new laptop (fave. co/3Lx2PoL) or desktop PC (fave.co/ 3DFIbAR) for yourself, chances are good that you purchased it online. That gives you downtime before it arrives, which you can use to chip away at some necessary preparatory work before using your new PC (fave.co/32wRrqG).

Sure, you can wait until your new computer arrives to do these steps. But doing some of the work now makes getting to the fun part—enjoying your shiny new PC—much faster. It’s also less of a slog. When you go to a store and bring home a new laptop, you’ll usually end up undertaking all this work in a single, hours-long go.

Of course, you don’t have to do everything on this list. But if it’s applicable to your situation, we highly recommend it to make your life smoother.

1. BACK UP YOUR CURRENT COMPUTER

Most likely, you’re not starting completely fresh with this new PC, and you have a current PC with files you’ll want to transfer over.

If you’re already regularly backing up your computer (fave.co/3nlNb3Z), you’re mostly set on this front. Just remember to do one more backup before transferring your files over. Planning instead to pull files from a cloud backup service (fave.co/3FWaMk6)? Make sure everything’s synced properly.