Remove Adware, Malware & Spyware
Adware and Spyware are a curse of modern day computers. They are used to collect information on your surfing habits, and sometimes even credit card and personal details. This type of software can originate from many sources, sometimes installed programs, but most times just from going onto the wrong website.
Remove Viruses - Free Virus Checker and removal Software
Viruses (Virii) are a well know cause of problems, yet surprisingly many people use dated, out dated or no anti-virus software. What I am also starting to find is that many full price anti-virus software are very hungry for resources, causing computers that are not high spec to run quite slow.
Clear Startup group
If you have too many programs running in the background then this can drastically slow down your computer. A quick look at the icons beside your clock will give you a basic idea, although all running programs will not necessarily be listed there.
Please not that it is important to keep your virus checker and firewall enabled.
So to disable programs do the following
1. Click on "START" then "RUN" (Or Windows key + R)
2. Type "MSCONFIG" and click on "OK"
3. Click on "STARTUP" at the top right hand side, now delect programs you don't need. Basically what you do need is anti-virus software, firewall software, and any files which you use all the time, ie software for the extra buttons of your keyboard etc.
4. Finally click OK and reboot, and test computer, anything you find disabled, just follow procedure and renable it again
Run Defrag
To help keep your computer running well, it is important to run maintenance on parts of it, especially the hard drive. Last week we looked at Scandisk, this week we will continue with the same theme and show you how to run Defrag ( Defrag is a process used to rearrange file storage on a disk so that files are not scattered across the surface of the disk. Defragmented files load more efficiently). Defrag should be run at least once per month, to keep things running smoothly.
Run Scandisk
To help keep your computer running well, it is important to run maintenance on parts of it, especially the hard drive. So this week we will take a quick look at running scandisk (hard drive and software basic maintenance program). Scandisk should be run at least once per month, to keep things running smoothly.
Drivers
Drivers are a very important update. For example keeping your graphics driver updated can improve performance of the graphics card by quite a significant amount. I recall one such driver that gave a performance boast of 40% from the original.
Updated drivers also provide enhanced performance, and compatibility with programs and games, so don’t wait, update today.
Disk Cleanup for cleaning up files
Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and then Disk Cleanup (If more than one drive)
Select drive to clean
Now Windows will check system, this may take a while so be patient.
From the next screen select what you wish to delete, from our example you will notice its quite a lot of stuff. In "More Options" along the top you can also cleanup system restorefiles and remove software. This can free quite alot of space up also. Select what you want to delete and press "OK".
Once done you can check the amount of space the computer now has in "MY Computer"
