Speeding up your Computer

Republished. Previous date March 2010.

Much as we like to purchase new computers because the one purchased last week is already running slow, things can be done to (honestly) speed things up quite a bit.

Besides having a good, updated, and of course free antivirus program installed on your computer, a few basic things can be done to keep your computer running almost like new. Today, I am going to talk about three main ways I keep my Windows computer up-to-speed and introduce a free program that I tend to use to assist with this.

1. The step many people have begun to overlook: Actually run your antivirus scanner. You should start a manual scan of your antiviurs scanner at least once a month — a full scan (not just a “quick” scan). Once a week, a quick scan should be run on your computer — most newer antivirus scanners have a scheduled scan option available.
So what’s the difference between a full and quick scan?
Quick scans look in typical locations where most viruses will reside. This might include the Programs Files folder or the Temporary folder (where downloads go), but other

locations (specifically ones that are custom to your specific computer setup) may be skipped. Quick scans may also limit themselves to specific extensions (such as EXE’s, or .DAT files)
A full scan will scan everything — up, down, left and right, including all extensions.

Image via Wikipedia

2. Disk Defragmenter (the easiest step)
Disk Defragmenter should be run every 1-2 weeks. In Windows XP, it must be started manually unless you use a program such as Defraggler. To start Defragmenter, click Start> All Programs> Accessories> System Tools> Disk Defragmenter.

In Windows 7, press the start button and type “Disk Defragmenter”, and click Disk Defragmenter.
Press “Defragment Now”, and then consider configuring a schedule for automatic defragmentation.

Explanation: Data on a hard drive is stored in tracks. (It’s more complicated than that, but explaining it further would require another article). For data access to be faster, it is best that all files are in order. Here is what happens with fragmentation over time: a file is deleted, moved, or expanded and now the data is no longer in a straight line. To save a file, it may be impossible to put the one file in one single location on the drive, and it must be stored in multiple parts in different places. Windows 98’s defragmenter demonstrated this particularly well by drawing a graphical representation of this:

(Click image to expand) In the graphical representation of the drive, you see a gap (represented by white space). The idea is to fill that empty space with contiguous data instead of data that is broken apart.
The process can take several hours depending on the last time you ran defragmenter, and the amount of data you have.

3. CCleaner. CCleaner stands for “Crap Cleaner” and that’s exactly what it does.

Image via Wikipedia

CCleaner is one of the most amazing computer utilities that I have come across. First off, it’s

free. Second, it’s not a virus! Third, It does more than just one thing. Fourth, it’s free!
Here is what CCleaner does:

CCleaner is divided into multiple utilities contained within the program.
The Cleaner, which mainly gets rid of all sorts of temporary and non-useful information created from browsing the Internet and caching random data.
The Registry Cleaner, which goes through your computers’ registry (which has millions of entries) and removes anything that is no longer linked or used.
And then, “Tools” which allows you to easily search for and uninstall programs, disable start-up entries, and delete old restore points.
Running the Cleaner and Registry utilities in CCleaner should be done once every two weeks. This seems to be a good number. If you use your computer less, perhaps every month will be sufficient.

Steps to follow:

The “Cleaner” stage
Download and open CCleaner.

1. The main screen of the program is the cleaner. On the left hand side, the default options are fine for the average user, but if you really want to get in and scrub, check all of the “System” section of the cleaner, and everything in “Advanced” except for “Hotfix Uninstallers” and “Wipe Free Space”
2. Press “Run Cleaner” and wait.

The “Registry Cleaner” stage

1. Click the Registry button on the left-hand side.
2. Press “Scan for Issues” and wait.
3. After the scan is complete (should only take a few minutes, if that), press “Fix Selected Issues”.
   I highly recommend that you save the backup on the root of your drive (the C: drive, usually) as a short-named file such as regbck1, regbck2, etc. Should something go wrong, it will be easy to restore a mistake when you know exactly where the file is.
4. Press “Fix All Selected Issues”, and you will be done.

After you have done all of this, restart your computer.

You can choose to go through your startup items, but I only recommend you do so with good knowledge of the workings of a computer.
Going through and uninstalling programs will also help to speed things up.

One more tip: If you leave your computer on all the time, you should restart at least once every one or two weeks. Stuff “clutters” in the RAM after time, and results in slowness.