A Clean Computer Is A Happy Computer!
A Clean Computer Is A Happy Computer!
Hello Everyone!
With today’s fast download speeds and large capacity hard drives it’s pretty easy to accumulate a large collection of letters, videos, movies, photos, computer programs and games.
As time goes by, your computer will start too slow down because of the amount of information it is storing, and all the unused programs on your computer, so a periodic clean up is useful to get your computer back into tip top shape.
Today I am going to talk about how to clean up the unnecessary programs and games.
Computers usually come bundled with a lot of computer software, some of which we rarely use, or never use at all.
This also applies to a lot of the programs and games that we have installed. If you have a back up of the install program, or the program CD, you can remove these programs and simply reinstall them when you need them.
To get started just click on the start button and click on the “All Programs” tab and start looking through the programs listed there.
Make three lists: one for the programs that do not work any more. One for the programs you do not use regularly, and one for the programs you never use.
Once you have made these three lists, highlight the ones you may want to use in the future and see if you have the install files or CD.
Record where the disks and files are for future reference and file the list away after you are done with it today.
Once you have confirmed that, you can safely uninstall them.
Just click on “Start”, and then click on “Control Panel”.
This will open up a screen with a lot of icons.
The icon we are interested in here the is Add or Remove Programs icon.
After you have clicked on this icon it will start to work and provide you with a list with most of the programs installed on your computer.
Just a word of caution, you may see programs listed in this area that you may not recognize, DO NOT remove these until you know what they are, and what they do.
They may provide important services for your computer operating system, so for now, just look at the items on your lists.
Simply start to go through your list and start to uninstall the programs.
Some programs will require you to reboot your computer to complete the uninstall, so just come back to this area after the reboot.
Earlier I suggested that you record where your install programs and disks are stored.
There was another reason for this, sometimes to uninstall a program you will need the original cd to complete the process, especially with large, complex programs.
So it’s nice to know where these disks are to save time and to keep your clean up moving along.
I have two Fellows cd storage cases where I keep most of my disks for easy access.
But there is more you can do in this area – to the left you will see a button called “Add/Remove Windows Components”.
Click on that and you will see a list of the different parts of Windows that are optional.
You will need your Window Installation DVD to make any changes in this area.
Again be careful here, but some things are obvious.
I don’t use the Windows games or the Fax software so I usually remove them.
In fact there is not too much that I use at all in that area, so when I do a fresh install of Windows, this is one of the areas I usually clean up before installing any other programs.
Once this is done you probably will have freed up quite a bit of space.
Good for you!
The next thing to do is to run a registry checker and cleaner.
This will get rid of the leftover pieces of the programs you have removed.
You may or may not have this type of program on your computer.
Let me recommend the program that I use.
The registry checker/cleaner that I use is part of the Advanced System Care package. You will find the registry checker/cleaner in the utilities area.
It’s free to use and costs nothing to download, I liked it so much that I bought the PRO version of the package.
Get Your Free Copy of Advanced System Care Here!
The last step to this clean up is to “defrag” your hard drive.
Basically that is a process that uses a piece of software to organize your hard drive storage space and is almost identical to the process used to re-organize a filing cabinet.
Which when you think about it, this is just what your hard drive really is, a big filing cabinet which needs sorting out once in a while. (I do this daily.)
While the defrag program that comes with Windows works pretty good.
I have a free replacement that works much better, its called “Smart Defrag”.
You can find it on the same download page as the Advanced System Care Package. (See Above Link)
Once you clean up your storage area (or hard drive) and your registry, I am sure you will see an improvement in your computer’s performance.
I hope his helps you.
All The Best!
Terry Russell
The Computer Doctor
A+ Service Technician
Reliant Services 1998-2009
http://www.work-at-home-jobs-canada.com
http://www.totallyfreestuffblog.com
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About the author
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Terry Russell has been online since 2005 and has numerous |
MaryJoe
Kudo to the post and interesting comment, i also bookmarked your RSS feeds for more updates.