When you get a new compueter you are excited and love how fast and amazing it is. A few months later, after you fill it with videos and photos it’s not running as fast. What’s the deal!? Here are some tips you should setup when you get that new computer, or if you feel like speeding up your old one.
- The first principle is, don’t be a grandma!
- The second principle is clean and protect
- Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool
- Microsoft’s Defender (Do a full scan not a quick scan)
- A antivirus software of your choice (AVG is Gino’s (free) recommend)
- Third use and schedule system maintenance
Your computer does not need to collect anything. If you don’t use it at least once a month. DELETE IT.
Room on your hard drive is very important, don’t give it away like candy. (Why is HD room important? Space for stuff you need & virtual RAM!! & other stuff) Ok, with that said lets make sure to delete things properly! Use the uninstall whenever possible. Much of the time you will find the Add/Remove Program window will do the job. Otherwise use the uninstall contained with the program. On a new computer this is very important b/c they stuff all kinds of ad junk on there. Like AOL, “Free” Games, HP Crap Software, etc. So go to your control panel and double click “Add/Remove Programs”. This will pull up a list of installed programs on your computer. Go through one by one and say, “Self, do I use that?” If the answer is no or maybe someday, then uninstall it.
Computers are hard enough to manage as it is. You don’t need adware and spyware messing things up more. Download and use these simple (and free) tools. And it’s a great idea to set them up on a schedule (to run right before your disk clean and defrag)
Built in system optimizers can boost the speed of your computer by a lot. You should use the disk cleaner weekly, and defragment your HD once each month or two. To find these tools click on start, then hover over all programs, then hover over accessories, then hover over system tools. There you will see “Disk Cleaner” and “Disk Defragmenter” (the “Scheduled Tasks” is also in that folder, use that to setup cleaning times, then you don’t even have to work to have a fast computer!) The disk cleaner will find all temp files and delete them for you such as useless internet pics and so forth, and the disk defragmenter will move files on your hard drive closer so the laser reading them doesn’t have to bounce all over the place loking for files on your HD disk.
Another great trick is to keep your desktop clean. The more items (large files) on your desktop (apps not shortcuts; shortcuts are typically 1KB, that’s really small) the slower your boot up time will be.
Hope this helps anyone out there who just got a new computer, oh and all this is for Windows; sorry Mac users, a How to on Mac will have to come when I save enough money for one 🙂 Got any ideas on top of these? Post em in the comments, I’d like to know!