Get Your PC Running Like New

Over time computers tend to become buggy and sluggish and begin to crash more often. This is due to problems such as lost file fragments, built-up temporary files, cookies, redundant registry entries, spyware and much more. It's always good idea to give your PC a full-over service every once in a while to kick it back into shape and to optimize performance. There are a series of steps that can be used regularly to service a PC though it can be a lengthy process.

If you haven't run a virus scan for a considerable amount of time then now would be the ideal time to do it, you never know what you might find lurking in your computer behind the scenes. It's recommended that you use a top brand name scanner like Norton or Mcafee, though there are also some good free options such as AVG or Avast. Once you've ensured your PC is free of viruses you should also check for spyware/adware, some of which can slow your computer down to a crawl. There are plenty of free spyware scanners available though I recommend either Ad-Aware or Spybot Search & Destroy..

Now that you have removed any malicious software that you may have had, the next step is to perform a clean-up of all the nuisance temporary files that Windows automatically stores on your hard drive. For this I recommend CCleaner which is a free download from Piriform. Start by using CCleaner to analyze your system then run the cleaner to remove all the junk that has been detected. CCleaner could find a gigabyte or more of unused files on your system. Next, use the registry scanner to scan for issues. Don't worry about removing them all, you can make a back up of your registry before you do so. If you have any problems afterwards you can always then rewrite the data to the registry.

Once you have performed these procedures you should have removed all the malicious software from your computer and deleted all unnecessary files hogging up space on your hard drive. Next you should do a general clean-up of Windows which is fairly straight forward and shouldn't take too long. Clicking on 'My Computer' then right-clicking the C: drive brings up the properties and gives you the option to perform two tasks -disk clean-up and defragmentation. You should perform the disk clean-up first then defragment your hard drive once it's finished. Even if, upon analysis, your computer says that it doesn't need to be defragmented doing so anyway could still significantly speed up your PC.