Computer Cleanup

Welcome to computer cleanup

2008-04-10T23:50:00.001+10:00

This site is intended for novice users to assist in performing a basic cleanup of your computer. Simply step through the six basic cleanup tasks you see in the top left menu. If you’re feeling adventurous, also perform the five intermediate cleanup tasks as well. Here, I assume you are using Windows XP, but tasks apply to other windows operating systems as well.

I often help people with their computers. One of the most common complaints is a slow performing computer. I find this is usually attributed to a badly maintained computer. Especially when it comes to spyware. These tasks performed on a regular basis will have your computer running faster and safer.

In most cases, the steps utilise existing software built into windows or other software that is free to use. In most cases, this does the job as good or better than expensive retail utilities.

Check your Internet Speed

2008-04-10T23:43:00.002+10:00

A very common problem with internet speed is the amount of malware programs that people have built up on their computers. I discussed cleaning these up in the basic cleanup section. After you have completed a lot of these tasks (or even beforehand to understand your improvements), you can run an internet speed test to see how fast you are downloading. See the link to the left to 'speedtest.net' for a free online test.

Cleanup System Restore

2006-11-16T10:44:00.001+11:00

System Restore is a part of Windows that you can use to restore your computer to a previous state if a problem occurs. System Restore monitors changes to the system and creates restore points automatically. Once your system has been running stable for a while, you can delete all restore points except the last one in order to recover disk space.
To do this, Start Disk cleanup which can be found by navigating the following; Start Menu > Programs > Accessories> System Tools > Disk Cleanup. Once the calculation has finished, go to the “more options” tab. In the system restore section, Press the “Clean-up” button, then ok to continue.
Note: Do not delete restore points if your system has been unstable recently.

Cleanup Startup Programs

2006-11-16T10:07:00.000+11:00

As you install various pieces of software on your computer, some will configure components to automatically start when you start windows. Minimising these by removing the ones you don’t really need to run can increase your computers startup performance and the general speed of your pc. Here I will discuss two methods of editing your startup applications;

Method 1: System configuration utility
Windows includes a handy little utility to edit your startup programs. Go to the start menu and select “run”. Type “msconfig”, then ok. Once started, goto the “startup” tab. Here you will find a list of programs that will automatically start. Remove the tick in the checkbox to disable a particular item. When finished, press ok. You will then be asked if you want to restart immediately, or at a later stage.

Method 2 : CCleaner
In previous posts, I recommended the installation on CCleaner. (advanced disk cleanup and registry clean). CCleaner also includes a startup application editing. To do this, start CCleaner. Select tools. Select startup. Delete an entry you no longer require.

Note: For both methods, I do not recommend removing any item you can’t identify. Some items are required such as virus monitors, spyware monitors or other items that run in the background of your pc. Do your homework, starting by doing a simple search of the item on the internet.

Registry Cleanup

2006-11-15T22:49:00.000+11:00

After time, the windows registry will accumulate invalid entries. It is worth cleaning these up in order for your registry to perform better. There are many utilities on the market which perform this task. I use CCleaner for a number of reasons; Firstly, I usually already have it installed to perform advanced disk cleanup as discussed in previous posts. Secondly, It’s free. Thirdly, it seems to do a pretty good job.
I’m sure other registry cleaner software available on the internet would also do a good job.
To use CCleaner, install the application as discussed in advanced disk cleanup. Select “issues” then click “scan for issues”. After the scan is complete, click “fix selected issues”. Make a backup of the registry entries to be deleted. This will be a small file. Then fix all selected issues. That’s it.
Note: If you suspect that a registry entry was deleted that shouldn’t have been, simply import the backup file into your registry to restore. (usually done by simply double clicking the backup .reg file)

Advanced Disk Cleanup

2006-11-15T22:28:00.001+11:00

In the basic cleanup tasks, I discussed windows disk cleanup. Though this does the basics, I would recommend a more thorough file cleanup. I like CCleaner to do this. It is available for download off the internet and is free to use. (See the link on the left)
Instructions:
Go to the CCleaner website, download, install then run the application. Make a selection of what you want included, then either analyse or run the cleaner. A report of what will be (or has been) deleted will be displayed.

There is also the option of right-clicking on your recycle bin to run ccleaner.

Note: When using CCleaner, I usually disable the deletion of cookies. This is so I don’t loose any personalised data for specific websites. Any nasty cookies would have been deleted when scanning for spyware.

Remove Unwanted Programs

2006-11-15T21:10:00.000+11:00

Over time, the number of installed applications on your computer seems to grow. Occasionally, it is worth doing a review of what is installed on your system to determine if some applications are no longer required. This can not only free up hard disk space, but reduce the overall clutter.
To do this, navigate to the following; Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs
Go through the list of installed applications and remove any unwanted ones.

Note: I would recommend NOT uninstalling any application where you are not entirely sure what it is. Do your homework on these.

Remove Spyware

2006-11-15T18:30:00.000+11:00

If you surf the internet regularly without adequate protection, you will eventually find your computer full for spyware. Spyware is software that uses the internet to send information about you and your computer without your knowledge. Now days, it is very common and can slow your computer down an incredible amount. (ie as it is so busy sending information about you and your computer to various destinations on the internet)
There are many anti-spyware software applications available on the market. I personally use “Ad-Aware SE Personal”. Firstly, because it’s free. Secondly, It is one of the most popular ones out there, so bugs and updates a-plenty. Thirdly, I find it has a consistent high standard in discovering the latest spyware.
Once downloaded and installed, ensure you obtain the latest definition updates (similar to virus definitions). This is done by simply clicking the update button. Then do a manual scan of your computer every so often and remove spyware.

Note : You may have seen that Microsoft have released their own spyware remover called “window defender”. This software is currently in beta. I have trialed it, but not seen it remove anything yet, so, still place my faith in Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware SE Personal.

Microsoft Update

2006-11-15T18:28:00.000+11:00

You should keep your computer up-to-date with the latest service packs, security fixes, and patches. This will protect your computer from malicious behaviour and also ensure you are running the latest software components. These are made available by Microsoft in the following two ways;
[a] Visit the windows update website and follow the instructions; Simply
navigate to Start > Microsoft (or Windows) update.
[b] Enable automatic updating within the windows operating system itself.
To check the settings for this, right click on “my computer” which is located on
your desktop, select properties, and then choose the “automatic updates”
tab.

Note: “Windows update”, which updates windows only, can be upgraded to “Microsoft update”, which updates all Microsoft software including Office.

Defragment Your Hard Drive

2006-11-14T22:25:00.000+11:00

Over time, hard drives become fragmented. Without getting too deep into the technical aspects of disk fragmentation, this basically means files on your hard drive (and there are many, many thousands of them), are stored in many pieces over different parts of your drive. If fragmentation levels are high, your computer has to work harder in retrieving a file, as it needs to read (and write) from many physical places on your hard drive. When a drive has low fragmentation levels, files can be read in a shorter time as the pieces of the file are all in one place (and preferably in order of need). There are also some caching advantages in having your file in one place as well. Again, a boost for performance.
Fortunately, Windows includes a basic de-fragmentation utility. To access this, navigate to the following; Start> Programs> Accessories> System Tools> Disk Defragmenter. Once the Disk Defragmenter window has opened, select defragment (or analyse if you want a recommendation first)
Note: A disk defragmentation can take hours to complete, so expect your computer to run slower while the defragmentation process is occurring.

As mentioned above, the defragmenter included with Windows is fairly basic without a lot of options. There are many defragmentation utilities from other companies that do a bit more than the standard windows one. If your interested in these, I would suggest you start by going to www.download.com and doing a search on "defragment". A couple of well known ones are "O&O Defrag" and "Diskeeper".

Check Hard drive for Errors

2006-11-14T20:50:00.000+11:00

Occasionally, it is worth checking your entire hard drive for errors. To do this, navigate to Start > Run, type in chkdsk /f , then press ok. You will be prompted with the following;

“Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)”

Type “y”, then enter. (The window will close automatically)
Next time you restart your computer, you will notice disk testing occurring before windows starts. This can take between 2-10 minutes) Once completed, a summary screen will be displayed, also indicating number of errors found.

Alternatively, you can double-click "my computer", Richt click, then select properties for C: drive, Select the tools tab. Under error checking, select check-now.

Windows Disk Cleanup

2006-11-13T22:08:00.001+11:00

As you use your computer, temporary working files are created in various locations on your hard drive without necessarily being deleted after use. After months or even years have passed, these files can accumulate to quite a substantial number and size. It is worth cleaning up these files every now and then to [a] make more space available on your hard-drive, [b] speed up your computer by having less files that various scanners and searches have to process.
Fortunately, Microsoft has included a very basic utility to clean-up these files. This utility is called “Disk Cleanup” and can usually be found in Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools. (Note: Most people will select c: drive when prompted)
After some calculation is done, you will be prompted to select what you want to clean-up. As you select each item, it provides an explanation of what task will be performed. If you are unsure about an individual item, don’t select it. When done, click ok to begin the cleanup. Note: the program will simply exit when done.
Note: Look for future posts regarding more advanced temporary file cleanup.

Here is a you-tube video not done by me;

Scan for Viruses

2006-11-13T20:41:00.001+11:00

One of the most important things you can do to protect your computer and increase performance is to ensure you have a virus scanner installed with current definitions. If you already have a virus scanner installed, ensure automatic updating from the internet is working.
If you don’t have a virus scanner installed, there are many software packages available for purchase or download. Pricing ranges from being quite expensive to free. I personally use AVG (Free edition) for two reasons; Firstly, its free, and I feel it does the job just as good as the more expensive competitors. (Note: If you want, you can also purchase AVG for additional functionality. But not necessary)
Secondly, AVG is a light-weight application. In other words, it does what it needs to do without trying to solve the problems of the world. That means, it’s not going to slow down your computer too much.
AVG can be obtained from the internet. Simply download the anti-virus software, run it, install it, allow it to update from the internet.
Why did I choose to discus virus scanning first? Though viruses are not as prevalent as they have been in the past, if infected, they can cause irrecoverable damage to your data, depending on the virus.

Glossary
Virus definition: File(s) downloaded to your computer which contains a database of all known viruses. Depending on the vendor of the virus scanner, this file will contain information on many thousands of viruses and is usually automatically updated daily.