Keep Your Computer Running Like Fresh in 5 Simple Steps
Step 1: Uninstall unused programs
In order to keep your Windows Vista or Windows 7 computer as it freshest, you should always uninstall unused programs:
Start -> Control Panel -> Programs and Features
Check out which programs you are using and with ones you aren’t, uninstalling those unused programs can free-up some disk space. Although you won’t see any significant boost in computing speed, free disk space in your computer is very important for later maintenance tips.
When you encountered some unknown programs installed in your computer, and you didn’t think you installed it. You should always check for those software program’s legitimacy by going on Google and search for their purposes, company and make. Some programs might be bundled with a known program as a plug-in and users often are unaware of their existence.
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Step 2: Delete unused files using a shredder/Back Up Important unused files to a remote back-up drive
Another step toward hard drive cleanliness. Next step into composing your free hard drive space is to find and delete unused files using a shredder and/or backup important but unused files to a remote hard drive (A physical hard drive independent of the Windows system files, generally the partition is denoted as C:\ on most computers). What my tip calls for is not to back-up your files to other “Partitions” on the same hard drive, the optimal “refreshing” operation is to move those important but unused files to a separate internal hard drive, external hard drive or removable drive.
Part 1: Delete unused files using a shredder
Simply stated, search of file shredder online using the keyword “Open source file shredder” on Google or any major search engine and you will find tons of reliable, Open source and free file shredder. Personally I use the file shredder bundled with my McAfee Internet Security suite 2010 and I find it quite useful. We all know what a paper/credit card shredder does in offices and its name retains the same purpose on the computer but the shredding process is a little different. If you want to know more how a shredder works please read more here.
The most fundamental difference between deleting files using “Recycle Bin” and “Shredder” is the standard deletion using the recycle bin will leave a shadow copy string of data (a bit of used space), while using the shredder doesn’t (complete whip-out of zeros). I encourage people to delete large chunk of files using a shredder simply because the process involved, in one sense, would actually help our “refreshing” progress faster in my later tip. Another practical benefit of using a shredder is , while not necessarily concerned of refreshing your computer, the shredded documents with 7 passes or more are impossible to recover using any means of data recovery program, which in turn might help to keep your identity safe if your computer or laptop were ever stolen and/or hacked, that brings me to the next part of this step.
Part 2: Back Up Important unused files to a remote back-up drive
Essential personal data should be backup to store in somewhere safe, somewhere without internet or network access. Nero 10 and other software vendors offers backup compression technologies for PC users to save space on their backup drive. Instead of moving bits and bits of data, those software encodes your files as a block of compressed file. Using those kind of software is highly recommended. I previously have used Nero 9 and now I use Nero 10 to backup my precious photos and accounting documents onto my external hard drive.
Don’t have an external hard drive? Well that’s also a highly recommended buy from the author. As of Fall quarter of 2009 the price of a 500GB external hard drive (bulky ones) is just around $100 or less. I have been backing up my files for two and a half year every two weeks onto my 500GB (Formatted to be less) external hard drive and its capacity now is only half-full (~230GB/468GB). An external hard drive is definitely a great buy for the coming Open season for consumers like us.
*If you are now considering or have been putting your essential personal data onto a external hard drive or removable drive, have you encrypted your files on that drive? I would recommend to use at least 256-bit AES encryption on your external hard drive just to be safe. To read more on how to keep your data secure & introduction of file encryption methods please visit here.
Step 3: Scan and Clean Registry
*Clearing up something about Free Registry Cleaners
You might have seen thousands if not millions of so called ” Free Registry Scan Now! ” types of ads popping up all over the web. I would strongly discourage people from clicking those ads because some of them are reported as a pseudo-registry cleaners — Registry cleaners that give users an impression that there are thousands of errors but in fact only few true registry errors. What I would recommend is to purchase a real registry cleaner software through trusted vendors, (Most vendors are endorsed by major PC companies and have their software listed on the respective PC companies’ in the “Accessories” section).Most of the free-registry cleaners don’t come cheap, and often they do inflate the error numbers in order to trick users into believing that their program is better than other ones.
Typical catch-phrase of a free registry cleaner ad:
“Your system has over 534 registry errors…Free Scan Now!”
While I cannot completely disprove their claims, I know my own system does not have 534 registry errors. In some cases fixing those so called “errors” with the free registry cleaners can harm your computer if they are not up to date with your current operating system. One thing I can be certain of is the free-registry cleaners identify every kind of registry string as Registry errors. In fact there are two kinds of registry strings we should worry about; one is the registry errors, which you would only get while Installing or executing improper & incompatible programs/driver/update with improper & conflicting registry strings, the obvious result should be a bluescreen; second is what this topic concerns the most about which is registry junks, strings of registry codes left-over by uninstalled programs/drivers/updates.
Some Anti-virus programs also have implemented registry scan as part of its system maintenance functionality, notably in McAfee and Norton 360 ( Both are home oriented based Anti-virus software ). I personally uses McAfee Internet Security Suite 2010 and within that suite I got McAfee QuickScan – the function that allows user to scan for registry junks
With that said, registry cleaning is essential for keeping your computer the freshest. When you uninstalled the unused software/programs in step 1 of this guide, chances are those program left some registry strings in your computer. One or two of those left-over junk doesn’t really impact your system’s performance, but in time those registry strings mounts up and program conflict/ incompatibility issues may arise in the future. If you did not uninstall any major programs the amount of junks should be minimal.
Step 4: Run Disk Defragmentation and/or Disk Error Check
Simple as the guide title suggests, the processes are automated and if you followed all of the previous steps the Disk Defragmentation, Disk Error Check should both perform the fastest.
Why does the author recommend Disk Defragmentation first?
The following text assess the benefit what what each function does, hopefully the text would explain itself
Benefit(s) of Performing a Disk Error Check.
Performing a Disk Error Check is (Over generalized of course) to let your operating system to learn what’s already there in your drive(s). The benefit of that is your operating system would read files faster because the location of the blocks with the requested data is known to be in this xxxxx block, and your operating system would write files faster because of the similar sense. I would recommend to run a disk check every week.
Benefit(s) of Performing a Disk Defragmentation
The disk defragmentation actually includes a Disk Error Check but it runs longer. Beside assessing the functions of a Disk Error Check, Disk Defragmentation also finds fragments of scattered blocks of data and tries to put them in a cluster of blocks. This function enable the system to read files faster with more efficiency. A faster read enable user to multi-task faster because you can pull up files thumbnails, excerpts, information…etc faster. The Disk Defragmentation also enable user to write file faster in the similar sense. I would recommend to manually commence Disk Defragmentation only once every two months.
Step 5: Use Security Suites frequently
Image by Robbert van der Steeg via Flickr
Image by Robbert van der Steeg via Flickr
If you have an Anti-virus program I recommend you use it every week. Schedule a weekly Quick-scan and a monthly Deep-scan to ensure your computer is healthy. With that said, prevention is always better than treatments. No one can say a single Internet security program can detect every single traces of virus, spyware or trojans on this planet earth, so you still has to be cautious of “Free-lunch” type ads online and stay away from bit-torrent software or sites like limewire and TPB (The Pirate Bay).
The best outcome of using security suites is most hackers are unable to directly hack into your computers anymore thanks to the “overuse” (in a good way) of firewall protection both on the ISP’s (Internet Service Provider)side and user’s side; However, hackers can still manage to install nasty spyware onto your Internet Browsers with false yet attractive ads. So be careful!
This is the essential step of keeping your computer the freshest – A strong immune system. And that concludes this computer refreshing guide.
Extra: Consider Upgrading your operating system to Windows 7
If you are running Windows XP or Windows Vista you should consider upgrading your operating system to Windows 7. Windows 7 offers tons of new features notably the quicker & easier user interface. In this guide I will not further address anymore about Windows 7 functionality because it’s out of the realm of this guide’s topic.
You should update your operating system as often as you can by installing service packs from Windows. But the development of Windows Vista or XP Service Packs are likely to end in the future so I would recommend to just installing individual updates in order to prevent future vulnerabilities.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Intel’s SSD firmware brings speed boost, mass death (again) (arstechnica.com)
- Six free antivirus programs made for your Windows 7 system (downloadsquad.com)
- Ready for Windows 7? Try the Upgrade Advisor (helpdeskgeek.com)
- Microsoft highlights Windows 7 support options, response speed (infoworld.com)
- Find Lost Space On Your Hard Disk With Space Sniffer (makeuseof.com)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=3d9572ec-2e0a-488a-a57b-7d9f6f8272e2)
