How to Clean your Computer

Over time, most computer systems can get a bit bogged down. All that's usually required to get a machine back in shape it to do a bit of cleaning. Here are some basic steps to clean up your system:

Clean the Temp. Somewhere on your system is a folder that contains the temporary holding area for files that Windows occasionally needs to create while running a program. Most programs clean these files off when it's done with them but some don't. Over time your system can get really bogged down trying to keep track of all the files that is stored in the folder. On most computer systems this folder is called "Temp" and it lives in the Windows folder on your hard drive. For most people this is the C:\windows\temp folder. In there, you're probably going to find a whole bunch of files that need to be cleaned out. Reboots your system and make sure that there's no other programs running. Most Windows users will find a program called "Disk Cleanup" in the Programs/Accessories/System Tools section of the Start menu. Use this handy little tool to delete your "temporary files". Your system will thank you for it.
Delete unused software. There's probably been quite a few things installed on your system that you thought was either a good idea at the time or something that was installed with your system that you've never used. It's in there cluttering things up and taking up hard drive space. It may even be starting up with your computer and slowing it down. It's best to take those bits of software out of the system. Go to the Control Panel [Start / Settings / Control Panel] and double click on the Add/Remove programs icon. This will open a list of installed software on your system. Go through the list carefully. Look for anything that you know that you don't need. Something you've seen in the start menu that you've never used, or used once and didn't like it. Something that you don't need anymore - you get what I mean. When you uninstall these things the system may require you to reboot the computer to clean out files that were in use do it. After you're rebooted, start the process again until everything you don't want/need is out of there.
Reduce your cache. Both Netscape and Internet Explorer use a chunk of the hard drive as a place to store (cache) parts of recently visited web sites. IE has recently become a real hog for hard drive space for it's Internet cache. Reducing the size of the cache can speed up other operations that the system does. In IE, go to Tools | Internet Options and Look for the "Temporary Internet Files" Settings button. Clicking on that button will open a dialog box that will allow you to set the size of the cache. I generally set this to somewhere between 10Mb - 20Mb. Netscape allows you to do the same kind of thing. In Netscape go to Edit | Preferences then click the "plus" beside "Advanced". In there you'll find "Cache". Clicking on that will bring up the cache settings. Setting the disk cache to somewhere between 10000 - 20000 gives the best results.

Here's a few more tips:

Thin out the startups. One of the things that really slows a system down is programs starting up with your system. Last week I talked about removing programs that you don't need from the system. That can go a long way to cleaning the system up but that doesn't always get rid of startup stuff. Most home users will only be able to clean out some of the startup stuff. It generally takes a good computer technician to get out all the unnecessary stuff, but there's a few things that you can do. First off, look in the Startup folder in your Start menu. Click Start | Programs | Startup. In there you'll probably find quite a few icons. Everything in that list is something that starts with when Windows starts. Look at the program names. You'll probably find something in there that you recognize. If it's not something you don't want starting with the computer, do a right mouse click on it and choose "delete". If you are running Windows95 that may not be possible. Later versions of Windows allow you to do this. If you're running Win95 you'll need to Right mouse click on the start menu and choose "open." That will bring up a box with the whole start menu in it. This will allow you to go to the startup folder and remove anything you don't want from in there. There's quite a few other ways for programs to start up with windows. Programs lurking in the system registry or in one of the initialization files can start up with Windows as well. Most users will require a computer technician to clean this stuff out but it can be one of the things that really speeds up a computer system.
Disk Maintenance. Ever heard of Scandisk or Defrag? Both a very powerful tools that are built into Windows and using both regularly can keep your computer running the top form. Scandisk is a program that checks all the files on your system to make sure that everything is where it's expected to be. A mangled file on your hard drive can sometimes cause the system to slow down or even work improperly. Scandisk will go through and clean all this up. Disk Defragmenter is a wonderful tool for cleaning up the mess that the hard drive gets into over time. As files and programs get written, moved and resized, it tends to leave little chunks of files all over the hard drive. Those files are said to have become "fragmented". Reading fragmented files really slows a system down because for each fragment, the hard drive has skip to a new section of the hard drive. DEfragmenting takes the files and makes them contiguous, reducing the amount of time the hard drive has to work. This can really speed things up. Defragmenting is one of the more important ways to keep your system running smoothly.

Generally speaking, a normal home user can't do much more system maintenance that what I've mentioned this week and the last. Experienced computer technicians will have quite a few more ways to make sure that everything is in fine working order. Taking time to learn about these techniques is all part of the "changing the oil" type of maintenance that all computer systems need.