Basic Tips for computer maintenance to optimise windows Performance.

Basic computer maintenance
Some simple maintenance every
2-4 weeks (depending on
computer use and programs
installed) will only take 10-30
minutes, can be performed at
any knowledge level and will
keep your computer running
smoothly. With this guide, and
two downloads, you will see a
noticeable improvement. This is
fairly basic and something all
computer users should do....
Remove programs you no longer
use or knew about:
Over time, you may have
installed games or utilities that
you forgot about or no longer
use. Why waste the space? Go to
your control panel, Add\Remove
programs and uninstall anything
you no longer use.
step 1: click start then settings
then click control panel
step 2: then look for add and
remove programs then open
step 3: then remove apps/
programs that u dont use
Cleaning your hard drive of
unneeded files:
One of the biggest problems is
hard drive useage. Your hard
drive has more moving parts
then any other in your computer
and is constantly adding,
deleting and reorganizing files.
Because of this, you want to
clean your computers hard drive.
A great tool for this is CCleaner
link:::http://www.ccleaner.com/
Remove invalid registry entries:
Next up is the registry. Frankly,
the registry is overrated as a
speed tweak, in general, but it
does get large and can contain
many invalid references. The
registry is not an area for even
the average computer user to be
playing around in. The good
news is CCleaner has a safe
registry cleaner built in, so why
not clean out old, invalid entries?
Startup items:
See all those icons in the lower
right corner of your screen?
Those are all being loaded on
startup, and those are not all of
them either! If your wondering
why you have to wait a minute
to use your computer after
startup, it is because all of those
items are loading after Windows
has started. They also use up
memory just sitting there.
Removal takes a bit more
knowledge, or research, then
the previous two, but you can
do it!
First off, if you know what these
items in the tray are and do not
need them running, you can
either right click an icon and
look for options or a "run with
Windows" option. Otherwise,
you can double click any icon to
open the program and look for
options from there. Some are
easy and common. Quicktime,
AOL and RealPlayer are good
examples of items that do not
need to be there.
CCleaner also has a startup
manager. Click tools, then
startup. You can delete any
unneeded items from there. Be
careful, there is no backup, so
either look up the program on
Google or ask on our forums if
you want to know what an item
is for. Because the startup loads
drivers and some programs you
may need, be careful removing
items you are unsure of.
Defragment your hard drive
Now that you have removed all
of this garbage, you have
defragmented files all over your
hard drive. Reading and writing
data on a heavily fragmented
hard drive is slowed down
because the time for the heads
to move between fragments on
the disk surface can be
substantial. The files on your
hard drive now probably look
like a box of tacks after I open
them and toss them on the
ground. Defragmenting your
hard drive would be like the box
of tacks still sealed. All neat and
tidy and easy to get at.