Optimizing Your Computer
What does optimizing my computer do?
Optimizing your computer is changing settings, deleting files, and uninstalling programs that you don't need to speed up your computer. This is a rather long and complex guide, so this is best done by an advanced user or with an advanced user nearby. Using the techniques in here will optimize some of the things on your computer and decrease boot time, speed up programs, clean out old files, increase disk space and overall increase performance.
Optimizing your Computer
First, back up all your data. In case something goes wrong, you can restore your data back to the computer. (See the Backing Up Your Data guide for help).
The next step is to fully update Windows, ensuring all drivers, patches and updates are installed and current. (See the Updating Windows guide for help).
The next step to optimization is clearing out all unneeded temporary files. To begin, right click on Internet Explorer and select Properties (or go to Start->Settings->Control Panel->Internet Options. When the Internet Options window appears, click on "Delete all temporary files", check the box that says "Delete all offline content." Click OK. This may take a few minutes. The next step is to delete all cookies, if the button exists (Windows XP). Click the "Delete Cookies" button and then "Yes" to delete all of the cookies. Finally, clear out your history by clicking "Clear History."
While you're on the Internet Options page, click Temporary Internet Files Settings button and ensure that the size of the folder is something reasonable, like 50 or 100 MB, not 2 GB or something ridiculously high. Set it to something you can live with and then set the history to a maximum of 7 days, preferably zero. This will keep too much garbage from collecting in the Temporary Internet folders.
To delete other temporary files, go to My Computer and delete C:\Windows\Temp, the whole folder. This will get rid of most of the temporary files. In Windows XP, these files are also stuck deep in the \Documents and Settings\Owner\Local Settings\Temp directory, where Owner may be any number of names, depending on the user. If you can find these files, delete them too. If you have problems deleting files because of "processes using them" or "unable to delete" errors, you may have to go into safe mode to delete the files.
This will rid the computer of most unnecessary temporary files. The next step is to uninstall any programs you no longer use. Navigate to Start->Settings->Control Panel-> Add and Remove Programs. A list of programs will be compiled for you. From here, select programs you no longer use. If you don't recognize a program and are sure it's not necessary for your computer to work (don't uninstall a driver or Windows component) then you can select it as well. Click on the Remove, Add/Remove or Change/Remove button, and then run the uninstall. You may have to restart your computer and then repeat the process for the other programs. If a program won't uninstall, find its folder in either C: or \Program Files, and delete it from there.
The next step in optimizing your PC is to run a spyware detection program and clean your computer of spyware, if any is present. (See the Dealing With Spyware guide for help).
Next, it's time to modify your boot-up. The first part is fairly straightforward, the second is tricky. The first part is to delete unnecessary programs from Start->Programs->Start-up, using the same principles as removing programs from Add/Remove Programs. If it looks necessary, or you're in doubt, leave it.
The next part is trickier. This involves registry modification. To modify your system this way, go to Start->Run and type "msconfig" without the quotes. Go to the Startup tab. There will be a large list of entries with checkboxes beside each one. Unchecking the entry will stop it from running when the computer boots. If you can't figure out what it is, leave it checked, unless you feel like experimenting. You can uncheck things like QuickTime, NVidia, MS Office, Schedulers, RealPlayer, and the instant messaging services. This will decrease your boot-up time considerably if done well. Click OK, then restart your computer. A dialog box will pop up telling you that you've modified your start-up. Check the box that stops the message from appearing, and click OK. If all booted well, the computer is fine. If something went wrong, boot into safe mode and recheck the items that might be causing the problem.
Now you're done with the boot-up, deleted unnecessary files and cleaned out programs you don't need, it's time to defragment your hard drive to close the holes made by deleting all of this stuff. (See Defragging guide for help).