Have you noticed your PC is running more and more slowly over the last few months? That may well be the result of months and months of cookies, temporary files and even spyware clogging up your machines guts. Here’s a few quick tips to help get it back up to speed.
Step 1. Get yourself a good spyware analyser.
This type of program will take a rifle through your system and flag any suspicious items that may be slowing down your PC. My recommendation is Spybot Search and Destroy (http://www.spybot.info/) which is free.
Step 2. Delete temporary files and bloatware from your Registry.
Your Registry is the central brain of your Windows PC - over time however, it can become a graveyard of broken links, out of date resources and nefarious entries. Check out a great program called CCleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com/) which is also free.
This program will also check your PC for temporary files that are no longer needed. Be fairly careful to read all the pages within the program before agreeing to deletions - its a good program and generally won’t remove anything you don’t want it to, but throw your eye over it all the same!
Complete those two steps, reboot your PC.
Step 3. Defrag your hard drive
In your start menu, go to: Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Defragmenter. Just click Defragment when the program opens, and go and have a coffee (or several, this may take a few hours to complete). If the program seems to be having trouble completeing, temporaily disable any antivirus program you may have running.
Step 4. This step is optional, and should only be done if you are fairly experienced in using a PC.
Go to the Start Menu, and select Run. In there, type in ‘msconfig’ and hit enter. In here, select the Startup tab, and have a look through the items. If you see any items in there ticked that you think you don’t need, disable it.
All done!
Recent Comments