Friendly Computers found more tips on how to keep your computer running smooth. Check them out below:
This is going to sound crazy - and it is, but it works. You can get a big performance increase by wiping out your Windows and reinstalling it from scratch.
That's the tip of the week. But for those of us who have tons of applications on our computer and tons of data that we don't want to lose, we can do one or all of the following.
If your computer is slow to start up, then you want to examine what is starting up and remove some of those programs from the startup. For example, many printers put in little applications that check ink levels and scanner settings. You may not even have that printer anymore, yet there is a startup program.
Another thing that happens is that your registry gets bloated. There are some good registry cleaners that will reduce the size of the registry by getting rid of entries in programs or drivers that are no longer part of the system. CCleaner (www.ccleane r. com) is one tool you can use.
You should also clean out your deleted items, both in your recycle bin and in your e-mail's deleted items. This will increase your disk space and decrease the number of files that have to be looked at by the operating system.
It's also a good idea to go through your music, pictures and documents to make sure you only keep what you really want. Are you really going to ever listen to that old album from the '20s? But I digress.
Another way to speed up your computer is by running a "defrag." There's a program under the maintenance or system tools that will defragment your hard drive.
This puts the files in order on the drive to speed the disk access. It makes a difference for program files to be contiguous on the hard drive when they start up.
Also, some smart defragmenters will put the most-often used programs in the middle of the drive, so it takes the read heads less time to go to the beginning of the program. One program you can download is Defraggler (www.defraggler.com).
Finally, as we talked about last week, adding more memory to your system will increase your computer's performance. In some instances, it can increase by 200 percent the speed of your applications. Of course, if you have enough memory now and add more, it won't get you any speed benefits.
For Windows XP and Windows XP Home, you don't need more than three gigabytes. For the new 64-bit Windows XP or 64-bit Windows Vista, the more memory, the better. We recommend 8 gigabytes.
The new Windows 7 is coming out later this year. There are developer editions that are being tested and it looks like an early winner. I will do some digging, but I'm hopeful that it isn't just the next version of Vista.
Source: http://www.southtownstar.com/business/harmening/1619864,061409harmeningcol.article
