1. Disk Cleanup
Your computer stores all of the text and images of every web page you visit.
This utility will remove these unneeded files that are taking up space on
your Hard Drive and that will speed up your computer. Use the instructions
below to run the program.
Go to Start button then All Programs, next to Accessories, then System
Tools, finally click on Disk Cleanup. It will then ask you what drive you
want to clean. Choose the default choice as this is most likely the one that
needs cleaning. It will then tell you that it is calculating the space that
you will save and this could take a few minutes. When they say it could take
a few minutes they are not kidding so let it do its thing. When it finishes
it will give you a choice of check boxes, each cleans a different aspect of
your computer make sure the following boxes have a check in them,
Temporary files and recycle bin, if the computer checks additional
boxes you can leave those checked if you wish. You can check all the
boxes if you wish, it will just clean out everything. Then sit back
and let the program do its thing.
2. Run Disk Defragmenter
Your computer reads information much
faster than it writes it. In order to get information loaded into the hard
disk it sometimes shotguns the information in little pieces onto various
places on your hard drive. Then when it needs to open that file or edit
it, it has to find all the little bits or fragments in order to open it.
This puts a great deal of extra wear and tear on your computer and slows
things down. In order to fix this at least once a month run the Microsoft
Disk Defragmenter. You can find it by going to the start button –> then
–> accessories –>system tools and then Disk Defragmenter
3. Background Programs
Something else that can slow your computer down is extra programs
running in the background. All the programs in the startup folder
in All Programs start and run when your computer boots. Any programs
that you don’t need running all the time you can remove from that
folder and it will speed up your computer system.
4. Spyware
A large problem of in computer systems today, is the spyware that
is picked up from Internet use. You can remove spyware with a program
such as Spybot Search & Destroy, Ad-Aware, or AVG anti spyware.
Us one of these programs once a week to clean out the spyware that
accumulates with normal Internet use.
5. Uninstall unused programs
Let’s face it we all have programs on
our computer that we don’t use. You can use Add/ Remove programs in
the control panel to uninstall programs that you don’t use and that
will free up a lot of your systems Free Helpful Information.
