Many times there are very simple things you can do to make your computing experience a little bit better. People often don’t realize all of the easy things they can do to optimize their computer. These tips are mostly aimed at Windows XP, but some will work on other OS’s. Here are my tips:

1. Don’t use Internet Explorer. Simply stated, it isn’t the best browser out there. My personal favorite is FireFox. You can customize basically everything about FireFox, and get tons of really useful plugins.
   
2. Try not to run a lot of programs at once. If you don’t have the best computer out there and loads of RAM, it isn’t always smart to be using a slew of programs simultaneously. Try to only keep up programs that you are actively using. Also make sure you have very few background programs running. You can close these by exiting from them in the task bar and by going to the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Delete) and going to processes and ending programs that you are not using.
3. Make sure you defragment your main drive(s) regularly. Too often people go months and months without ever defragmenting. It doesn’t take much time at all if you do it regularly. I think once a month is plenty for most people. To get to it, go to Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Defragmenter. You can even have your computer do this, and other tasks automatically every so often. Under system tools, just go to “Scheduled Tasks” and you will be able to set this up.
4. Use msconfig to stop all of those annoying startup programs from ever starting. To use this, go to Start>Run and type in “msconfig” Click the “startup” tab and uncheck everything that you don’t need running on startup.
5. Get rid of the looks! If how everything looks on your computer isn’t that important to you, this will drastically speed up your PC. Hold the windows key and hit Pause/Break* (usually in the upper right of a keyboard). Click on the advanced tab and under “Performance”, click “Settings”. Click on “Adjust for best performance” and then click Ok. Also consider setting your desktop background (wallpaper) to none as this will also speed things up.
6. Run Spyware and Virus scans on a regular basis. Spyware and viruses can slow down your computer substantially. If you do not have anti-virus/spyware software installed, you can either buy some, or consider many free programs. For Antispyware: AdAware or SpyBot S&D. For Antivirus: AVG Anti-Virus. Also, make note that you should not leave these programs running if you are not using them.
7. Use Windows XP and reboot. Windows XP kind of keeps track of what programs you use, and how you use your computer in a file called “Layout.ini”. About every three days or so, Windows moves around files accordingly in order to optimize things for you. Also, you need to reboot every once in a while. If you are like a lot of people, you just leave your computer on all the time. While this isn’t really “bad” for your computer, you do need to restart at least once a week. Restarting basically gives your computer a chance to tidy up a little bit.
8. Fix disk errors. Every time you unplug your computer while it is on or hard restart it, the power goes out, or a program just crashes, disk errors are potentially created. After a while these errors build up and may slow your computer down. Luckily fixing them is rather simple. Go to My Computer. Now right click on your main drive (probably the C drive). Select “Properties”. Now go to the “tools” tab and under “Error Checking” click “Check Now…”. Click the boxes next to “Automatically fix file system errors” and “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors” and click “Start”. You may be told that you need to restart. If so, simply opt for it to run when you reboot your computer and it will go at the next startup.
9. Disable error reporting. If you are like most people, you probably have seen your fair share of what I like to call “Don’t send messages”. This is error reporting which is basically just a way of you letting Microsoft know when a program crashes on your computer. If you are like me, and think these messages are somewhat annoying, there is good news - They are easy to disable! Hold down the Windows key and press the Pause/Break key* (once again, this is located in the upper right hand of most keyboards). Go over to the “Advanced” tab and at the bottom there will be a button that says “Error Reporting”, click on it. Click “Disable error reporting”, but make sure to leave “But notify me when critical errors occur” checked.
10. Keep your OS up to date. It is important to keep your Operating System up to date and install all updates when they come out. In most versions of Windows you can simply enable automatic updates and everything is pain free. To make sure you have automatic updates enabled in XP, simply hold down the Windows (start) key and press the Pause/Break key* (Probably located in the upper right hand of your keyboard if you haven’t realized by now). Click on the “Automatic Updates” tab and make sure “Automatic” is selected. Also make sure it is set to run at some time you will most likely not be on your computer (3 or 4 AM is probably good for most people).

I hope that some of my readers find these tips useful. They really can make a difference in computer speed. If you are running an older system, these will really help, and they will even if you are running a newer one. I myself am not running a computer that is on the bleeding edge, but it works and is a fairly decent machine. I’ve implemented each and every one of these tips on my own machine and I am happy with the results. I’ve also added RAM to my computer which I recommend you do as well if you are running on less than 1GB or 512MB, it makes an incredible difference.

*Any time that I instruct to hold the Windows key and hit the Pause/Break key, you can get to the same menu by right clicking on “My Computer” and selecting “Properties”. This should help anyone who cannot find the key, or is using a keyboard without it.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 21st, 2008 at 9:56 pm and is filed under Gadgets and Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.