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Preventative Maintenance on PCs
This is the first in an ongoing series of tips to help optimize your computer and fix common problems. For the purposes of this article the focus will be Optimization – Or how to improve your computer's performance. We think that not only will you see improved speed but you will also experience fewer problems with viruses and the like. The tips discussed below will work with all versions of Windows, including Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition (Me), Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista.
CLEAN UP DISK ERRORS:
Why do this: When a program crashes or you experience a power outage, your computer can be subject to errors on the hard disk which can slow your computer down. The Windows Operating system includes a Disk Check Program which can help you clean up these errors. Regardless of crashes or power outages, it may be a good idea to run this program once a month anyway.
Procedure: Go to the Start menu and click My Computer. This will bring up a dialog box and you should right click on the drive you wish to check. Typically, that will be the C Drive and then click on Properties. In the dialog box, click the Tools tab. In the Error-Checking section click on Check Now. A Check Disk dialog box will now display. In the Check Disk dialog box, check all the check boxes and click Start. A message box will appear indicating that you can schedule the disk check to start when you next start your computer. Click yes to OK. The next time you restart your computer, it will automatically run through a disk check before displaying your login screen. Once the disk check finishes, Windows will automatically bring up your login screen. NOTE: Pick your times to do this wisely as the Check Disk Program can take over an hour.
REMOVE TEMPORARY FILES:
Why do this: When you're looking at Web pages or even working on files in programs such as Microsoft Word, your computer can pick up and store temporary files that you don't know about or probably even need. At some point, these temporary files are going to slow your computer's performance. To take care of this, you can use the Windows Disk Cleanup screen to rid your computer of these unwanted files. We suggest you take this action on a weekly bases.
Procedure: In the Start Menu, click on My Computer. A dialog box will appear and you should right-click on the drive you wish to check for errors and then click Properties and click Disk Cleanup. This cleanup will calculate how much space you can free up on your hard drive. After its scan, the Disk Cleanup dialog box will provide a list of files you can remove from your computer. NOTE: This scan take a while depending on how many files are just lying around on your computer. When the scan is complete, in the Disk Cleanup dialog box, click on View Files to see what the Disk Cleanup will dispose of once you say it's okay to. Un-check any boxes to identify stuff that you wish to keep and then click OK. You can also select the More Options tab within the Disk Cleanup screen to search for software programs you don't use much anymore which gives you the option to remove those unused programs.
REARRANGE YOUR DATA:
Why do this: Computers often break files up side by side to help increase speed of access and retrieval. The problem is, as files are updated, the computer saves the updates on the largest space available within the hard drive - and that is often far away from the other adjacent sectors of the file. Thus, you wind up with fragmented files and that causes slower performance. The reason is your computer must now search for all the file's parts and though it knows where they are, putting them back together in the correct order when you need them slows your computer down. The good news is, Windows includes a Disk Deframenter Program to put all the pieces back together again so they open quicker. You should do this monthly.
The Procedure: In the Start Menu click on My Computer. A dialog box will appear and you want to right click on the drive to check for errors (typically the C Drive) and then click Properties. In the Properties Box click the Tools Tab and then in the defrregmentation section, click Defragment Now. In the Disk Defragmenter dialog box select the Volume (most likely the C Drive) at the top of the screen and then click Analyze. When the analysis is done, the Disk Deframenter displays a message stating whether or not you should defragment your computer. Press Defragment to clan up your computer if necessary. The disk defragmenter will reorganize files by placing them together and organizing them by program and size.
MAKING INTERNET EXPORER RUN FASTER:
Why do this: There is little more frustrating than to watch your computer's access to the Internet crawl. You see, Internet Explorer stores visited Web pages to your computer and organizes them within a page history by day. A few days Web history is fine but there's no reason to store much more than that. Otherwise, you're just collecting Web pages that slow the computer down. Here are some useful options for faster Web surfing. We suggest you take these actions once a week.
Procedure: In Internet Explorer go to the Tools Menu and click on Internet Options. In the dialog box that appears in the History section find the Days to keep pages in history and type 1 in this box. Do not save Encrypted Web pages as use passwords and they scramble information to prevent the reading of sensitive information. To remove Encrypted pages, in Internet Explorer, go to the Tools Menu and click Internet Options. In the Internet Options dialog box click the Advanced Tab. In the Settings Section, scroll down to Security and check the Do not save encrypted pages to disk option and click OK.
Hopefully you will find this information useful and that helps you increase or maximize your computer's performance. If these actions do not accomplish that mission, contact us for help. There could be other problems that require our techs to either remotely access your computer or have you send it in. You can find us at www.bobjohnson.com or by calling 1-888-202-7788.
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