Make your Computer Run Faster
Performance Mode
Windows by default has you in "best appearance mode" rather than best performance mode. It's much better to have more memory and processing power go to the applications you run rather than wasting energy upgrading a crappy looking interface to the ranks of mediocre.
- Steps To Fix
- Right click on My Computer on the desktop and click properties.
- Click on the advanced tab
- Click on settings, next to where it says performance
- Adjust to best performance
Clean your Startup Programs and Services
The more programs you have on startup the slower your computer will get. Many programs set themselves to open on startup without even asking you first. It's pretty easy to remove the ones you don't want.
- Steps To Fix
- Click the start button
- Click Run
- Type msconfig
- Click on the startup tab
- Uncheck any programs you don't want.
- If you're unsure, google the program name.
- Services
- Click on the services tab
- Click Manufacturer twice
- Unselect unneeded non windows services.
Video Tutorial
Uninstall Unwanted Software
Many manufacturers stuff your computer full of disgusting shareware programs. Most notable is Norton Antivirus. It takes loads of system resources and tries to scare users into buying their product by saying they're in serious DANGER because their trial time has expired.
RevoUninstaller is a freeware that can help do a total uninstall of programs. Many programs like yahoo messenger tend to leave behind a mess in the registry they don't remove.
Cleanup Disk Space
It can be a big hassle to try to find the files eating up the most hard drive space especially when they aren't program installations. There's several freeware software that can help.
windirstat lets you visualize which files are taking up the most room. The
folder size service is a little known tool that makes windows display the total size of what's contained in any folder (go to view - details in any folder).
There are several free programs that clean out your temporary internet files and files in temporary folders. Overtime it can really eat away the gigabytes left unchecked. The most popular are
ccleaner and
windows cleanup.
Free Antivirus and AntiSpyware Software
Viruses tend to be classified as either malicious programs that destroy data or trojans that capture keystrokes. There's also a group that is used to attack sites by flooding packets when called on. Spyware, malware, or 'badware' is software that spams you, collects search history or other personal information for marketing, or otherwise does really annoying things without the users permission. People usually get viruses and spyware from downloading infected software or emails. Getting hacked is very rare.
Free Firewalls
Trojans are usually the ones causing the most financial damage by capturing keystrokes and getting people's creditcard and banking information. Firewalls easily prevent such programs by prompting whenever programs try to access the internet.
Defragment Your Hard Drive
When you save a file, it saves it saves it in pieces, or fragments across the drive. The more you save things and delete things off the disk, the more fragmented the files become. If a file is scattered across the disk in too many fragments, it takes way longer for the contents of the file to be returned, in what's called the "seek time". Defragmenting helps place the files to avoid fragmenting and often has optimizations to place the most used files on the outer part of the disk, resulting in faster seeks. Contrary to popular believe,
disk usage does not effect the hard drive's lifespan according to a google study analyzing 100,000 disks.
- Defrag using Windows Defragmenter
- Click my computer
- Right click any drive
- Click properties
- Click the tools tab
- Click Defragment
FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT THE FOLLOWING WEBSITE :
http://blog.jimmyr.com/Make_Windows_Run_Faster_25_2008.php
