Ah, another year gone by. How’s that computer of yours? Running really well? Running as fast as when you bought it? Lot’s of disk space? If any of these answers are ‘no’, you’ve come to the right place. Just follow some of these tips and follow some of the links at the bottom and all your answers will be ‘YES”!
First, let’s do some basic housekeeping:
1. Run SCANDISK and CHKDSK on each of your hard drives
2. Update your anti-virus software; ensure it is set to be running whenever your computer is on; and run it now
3. Remove other threats that may be lurking in your computer like ‘adware’ and ‘spyware’
4. Get rid of junk files and other files you don’t need that are just taking up space
5. Find and delete duplicate files
6. Defrag all your hard drives. This will make your computer actually run faster.
7. Make sure your Windows (Operating System) is up-to-date. (Start/Help and Support/Keep your computer up-to-date with Windows Update/)
8. Get your important files copied and removed from the computer!
Print this page out FIRST. Then close all running programs.
Then, here’s how you do it:
1. Run SCANDISK/CHKDSK. Scandisk is used to check the file system for any problems. This utility is found on Window 95, 98 and ME systems. On Windows NT, 2000, and XP you can use Chkdsk. The ScanDisk utility is located here...Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > ScanDisk. Chkdsk can be run by running a command prompt, then typing in ‘chkdsk’ and the drive letter... for example ‘ chkdsk c: ‘. This will check the drive in read only mode, to fix any errors add a ‘ /f ‘ to the end, and then reboot. (chkdsk c:/f)
2. Most Anti-virus software like Norton has an ‘Auto Update’ function. Use that to ensure your antivirus files are up to date.
3. ‘Spyware’ is software that has been installed on your computer without your knowledge. It may have come along with some free software (like a cute Screen saver) you installed. It literally ‘spies’ on your computer and periodically SENDS information to another computer. This information may be passwords, or VISA numbers, or other information. Anyway, I use the free SpyBot at
(http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=spybotsd) to look for and remove these horrible little programs. So download it or another one and run it now!
4. To get rid of files you have that you don’t need you need to do 2 things. First: Start > All Programs >
Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup, for each of your disk drives. After it reads each drive it will give you options as to what files you want to get rid of. At least choose – ‘Recycle Bin’ and ‘Temporary files’. Second, run the find command: Start > Find, you want to find all these files: ‘*.tmp’ and ‘*.bak’. Delete them since you don’t need them. I use a better tool called CCleaner: http://www.ccleaner.com/
5. Find duplicate files on your computer by using: WinMerge (http://winmerge.org/index.php)
6. To Defrag your hard disks: Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter. If your hard drives are very fragmented, you will really notice a huge difference after you defrag – your computer will run faster!
7. Get any updates to your Operating System. Go to http://www.windowsupdate.com/. It will search your system and let you know of all the updates that are available. Download and install them! Do this monthly
8. BACK UP your data
So, now you can sit back and enjoy knowing that your computer is safe and will work for you into the new year!
