Improving PC Performance part 5 - System Maintenence

[Aladinsaneuk]

OK - if you are still with me, then your systems should be a lot better running, but a few tips to close this off

Defrag your hard drives.... double click on my computer, right click on each hard drive, properties, tools, defragmentation

There is some debate that this may not be necessary due to the way that winxp, especially post SP2 handles the NTFS stack - but, not every pc runs NTFS and it will make a difference on a FAT 32 system.... so, just do it - and see if it helps

Next up - helper applications are a pain in the arse and should be shot at dawn - not only spyware like Gator etc, but even the quicktime icon next to the clock at the bottom right of your screen. It may not make a difference to a high spec system, but if some one is running out of memory, then it will most likely make a difference - so right click on them and shut them down/stop them loading

look in your start up folder - and see what is loading with windows - aol is a bugger for putting all sorts of resource hungry shite in there that is not needed - if you are unsure of what something does, move it to a different fold then reboot the machine to see
Not everything that is a helper is that easy to remove - look back at my earlier post with regard to msconfig - one of the tabs there details what loads and you can just click to stop it loading.... so use it to see what happens
(Shop bought PC's delight in putting all sorts of shit in there - mainly all crap so get rid of it!)

With the exception of googles tool bar for IE or firefox, try not to have any other helpful tool bars - most of them exist just to try and serve adverts... (As does googles but....)

Use spybot and Adaware every week - you know it will make sense....

Back up your data reguarly - just in case - that way if it goes tits up, you have not lost anything
(Easiest way to back up documents is to get a gmail account and email them to yourself there - currently you can have a couple of gb of emails so... use it - PM me if you need a gmail account as i have a few hundred spare!)

Finally - if you bought an off the shelf pc, then actively plan to reinstall all the software properly - as in, from a winxp cd, and add the drivers you need to - you already have the licences so you can do it - just start collecting teh drivers you will need in a folder, ready to be burned on to a cd