The biggest concern with home computers is how slow they get over time. You see and hear about this through ads, articles, web sites, your friends, ect. This is also one of the biggest reasons I have a client base for home repairs. I would say that 75% of the time someone calls me to come look at their computer, it is simply because it is going to slow for them.
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Here are some simple tools and tricks to keep your system running fast and fresh.
One of my favorite freeware companies is Piriform. They have 4 great programs available and they are all free. The two i will be talking about are, CCleaner, and Defraggler.
CCleaner:
This is an amazing little program that can easily clean out junk files that are clogging and slowing your system. It also has a nice registry clean up, uninstall programs, and start up programs sections.
The junk file cleaner can be customized to keep files you may want, like cookies for logins, or temp files for certain programs.
The registry cleaner is very easy to use and allows you to save a back up prior to cleaning it up. This has never failed me or caused any issues to my computer.
The start up programs section is great to tell windows what it should and should not start automatically on system start. These programs can stack up over time causing reboots to go very slowly.
The uninstall programs sections is similar to the built in Windows add/remove options. Just click a program and click uninstall. You should always remove programs that you no longer use or that are simply useless to you.
Defraggler:
This is a nice de-frag program that is similar to the built in Windows tool. It will analyze your drives for fragments, allow you to search the various sections, and even list the files in certain parts of your hard drive. There are full defrag and quick options, for thorough or fast simple defragging.
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I usually run CCleaner once every couple weeks for cleaning junk files. And about the same time span for the registry cleaner. Always make a back up of the registry when it asks you too, just to be safe.
Defraggler is run about once a month, this more depends on how much you use the computer. If a computer is very active then it is more likely to have more fragmenting and should be defragged more often.
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With some older computers the Windows Animations and visual effect can slow it down a bit. To fix this a bit and hopefully gain a bit more performance try this…
On Windows XP: Go to System Properties in the Control Panel. Click ‘Advanced’, then ‘Performance’ and click ‘Adjust for best performance’.
On Windows vista and 7: Click “Start”, then in the search box type, “Performance” then click “Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows” then click ‘Adjust for best performance’.
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Always make sure to run anti-virus and anti-malware/spyware programs at least once every 2 weeks or so.
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Most of the time a computer running slow is simply because of bad or no maintenance on it. Keeping up with this stuff is similar to changing the oil in your car, if you don’t it will get thick and your car will become sluggish or worse. The same goes for your computer, if it is constantly packed with junk files and useless programs it will become sluggish or worse.