Speeding up your Windows PC
Many users have asked this question in the past couple weeks. Here are a few tips to help you boost or keep your PC running as quickly as possible.
Run a good anti-virus/spyware removal tool. Spybot Search and Destroy is a very good utility. For a heavily infected machine Malware Bytes is a great utility.
This has been the number 1 problem found on computers experiencing extreme slow downs.
These do not replace good anti-virus software that are proactive, these are run on demand. I highly recommend a good paid program. Free AV is nice, but to get all the bells and whistles, and the best security, buy it. AND also check for updates to these programs, new garbage comes out every week so your protection is only as good as your last update.
Clean your Desktop! Seriously. It's a good practice on your desk and your computer desktop. Here's why: The desktop is not just another folder in your hard drive. It's the main interface you connect with. The operating system stores the desktop in memory for quick access. If you commonly store files on your desktop, move them. Put them in folders in My Documents or another location on the disk. Make a shortcut on the desktop to get quick access to them. Shortcuts take much less memory than the folders do, and less memory means less time wasted swapping memory back and forth to the disk. Another plus - you get more organized!
Remove unused programs. We all have them - trial versions we never got rid of, poor freeware we tried and didn't find useful, old stuff we just never use. Well, clean them out! All the extra software installed no only uses disk space, but making all the links to DLL files slows down the system start up, but also the processing of running programs as the system runs. If you have many programs you aren't using and can easily reinstall then think about cleaning them out. Most personal coaches agree that anything you haven't used in the past year you should get rid of, same with your software. If you don't use it, lose it.
Clean the Registry, clean out the stale data. USE WITH CAUTION!!! Whenever you touch the registry, and you don't fully understand what you are doing, you run the risk of losing it all. The registry is the heart and soul of your operating system . It is the database that almost all programs read from and write to when they install, change or leave your system. Mess it up and you mess up your system. OK, enough of the soapbox, you've been warned - probably many times. Now, to clean it up - first, why bother? Well it is the central database and the operating system accesses it constantly. Errors means time, time means waiting ... you get the idea. A good utility for this is CCleaner. You've cleaned the desktop and the disk by removing old programs, now it's time to clean up the left over gunk.
Defragment your disk . Finally it's time to put all the file fragments back together. After getting all this disk space freed up now we need to get it together. You can get a little more performance by putting files that reside all over the disk in order. To do this you can run the built-in defragmentation utility in the System Tools or by right-clicking the disk, pick Properties and choosing the Tools tab. Another handy tool you'll find there is the Error Checking. This will scan your disk for errors and attempt to repair them. It runs when you restart the system and well worth the few minutes it takes.
Upgrade your memory. All these clean and tune options with matter little if your memory is not sufficient to run the programs you need to have open concurrently. If your system has little memory this can be the most effective boost you can give the system. Please note that there is such a thing as too much. Windows 32 bit operating systems have a max of 4 GB, but can't use it all, 3 GB is really the high end with 2 GB being a good choice. 64 bit OS's can handle much more - 128 GB, if the system supports it. Use the proper type and speed memory to get the best performance.
If all else fails - reload. If after doing all the above steps and still experiencing a system slower than it was when new, make it new again by reloading the OS. Obviously this is a last resort option. It means a destructive reload of the operating system - and the software. Be sure your data is backed up, you have the media to reinstall the OS and all the software, your license keys and any and all passwords you might have stored. Like all of these procedures if you don't understand what you are doing - DON'T!