Computer Maintenance
I spent a couple days this past week performing routine maintenance on a few computers in my office. Some have been out of commission for a while so it was time to update and clean them to be used again.
Today I was talking to a friend about their computer situation and they were complaining that it was slow, so I offered to check it out. What I realized is that most people are likely working on un-updated, inefficient computers that could be optimized with a few words of encouragement.
So, here is my attempt to give you all a few examples of the things that I do when I am trying to fix or update a computer. I offer these words simply from my own experience, and I hope they help speed things up for you.
(note: PC users only, MAC folks - i envy you and your AppleCare)
1. Windows Update
- Open Internet Explorer, select Tools > Windows Update
- Follow the instructions and install all of the latest security updates (especially the critical ones)
- If you haven't updated in a while, you'll get the latest IE 7.0. It's better. You'll also get a ton of Windows Security fixes. These are small pieces of code which patch some security hole found in Windows.
- Also be sure to turn on Auto Updates. This will download and install updates to your computer every night at 3am when available.
- Restart when prompted
2. Disk Clean-up
Generally speaking, it's a good idea to delete any old files you haven't used in a while. If you can't bear to part with that term paper you wrote in college, get an external hard drive and back it up.
Your computer also comes with a lot of useless installed software (AOL, seriously?)
- Go to Start > Control Panels > Add / Remove Programs
- Look through this list and remove anything that you know you never use. If you don't know what it is, you're better off leaving it be since it may be a system important file. Be sure to leave anything Windows Security related.
You can also clean things up by running a disk cleanup utility that comes with windows. Open My Computer > Right click on the C: drive and select properties. At the bottom of this page is a "Disk Cleanup" button. Click it. Once it calculates how much space you'll save by performing certain actions, look through the list and check the boxes which make the most sense for you. Note: compressing old files may take a while
All of these actions will save you a lot of space as well as time for when you perform the next item on the list...
3. Defragment Hard Drive
- Open My Computer, right click on your Local Disk C: drive and select Properties
- Select the second tab: Tools
- Click "Defragment Now..."
- Click Analyze
- If it tells you that you should defragment your computer, then guess what? Do it!
- Note: You typically need around 15% disk space to perform this operation. Remove any extraneous files before you defrag (see #2 above)
- Repeat the defragment process for your additional hard drives
It's good to Degfragment every month or so - think of it like an oil change.
4. Error Checking
- In the same menu as Defrag (C: Properties > Tools), select "Check Now..." under Error Checking
- Select both boxes for "automatically fix file system errors" and "scan and attempt to recover bad sectors"
- Start
- Note: if this is the C: drive, then likely you'll get an alert here that it can't check the drive because it is the boot up drive and it needs certain utilities. Click Yes
- Reboot your computer, upon reboot, a blue screen will appear and check your computer for errors. Go get something to drink or walk outside to the park for 15-20 minutes while this runs.
...that's about it. I could go into more details about Paging Files and Optimization Performance but we'll save that for another post. I hope this helps and feel free to leave a comment if you've got other sagely computer advice for our readers. Honestly, I think all of this should be a lot easier for the casual computer user to do without having to call the Geek Squad.
Today I was talking to a friend about their computer situation and they were complaining that it was slow, so I offered to check it out. What I realized is that most people are likely working on un-updated, inefficient computers that could be optimized with a few words of encouragement.
So, here is my attempt to give you all a few examples of the things that I do when I am trying to fix or update a computer. I offer these words simply from my own experience, and I hope they help speed things up for you.
(note: PC users only, MAC folks - i envy you and your AppleCare)
1. Windows Update
- Open Internet Explorer, select Tools > Windows Update
- Follow the instructions and install all of the latest security updates (especially the critical ones)
- If you haven't updated in a while, you'll get the latest IE 7.0. It's better. You'll also get a ton of Windows Security fixes. These are small pieces of code which patch some security hole found in Windows.
- Also be sure to turn on Auto Updates. This will download and install updates to your computer every night at 3am when available.
- Restart when prompted
2. Disk Clean-up
Generally speaking, it's a good idea to delete any old files you haven't used in a while. If you can't bear to part with that term paper you wrote in college, get an external hard drive and back it up.
Your computer also comes with a lot of useless installed software (AOL, seriously?)
- Go to Start > Control Panels > Add / Remove Programs
- Look through this list and remove anything that you know you never use. If you don't know what it is, you're better off leaving it be since it may be a system important file. Be sure to leave anything Windows Security related.
You can also clean things up by running a disk cleanup utility that comes with windows. Open My Computer > Right click on the C: drive and select properties. At the bottom of this page is a "Disk Cleanup" button. Click it. Once it calculates how much space you'll save by performing certain actions, look through the list and check the boxes which make the most sense for you. Note: compressing old files may take a while
All of these actions will save you a lot of space as well as time for when you perform the next item on the list...
3. Defragment Hard Drive
- Open My Computer, right click on your Local Disk C: drive and select Properties
- Select the second tab: Tools
- Click "Defragment Now..."
- Click Analyze
- If it tells you that you should defragment your computer, then guess what? Do it!
- Note: You typically need around 15% disk space to perform this operation. Remove any extraneous files before you defrag (see #2 above)
- Repeat the defragment process for your additional hard drives
It's good to Degfragment every month or so - think of it like an oil change.
4. Error Checking
- In the same menu as Defrag (C: Properties > Tools), select "Check Now..." under Error Checking
- Select both boxes for "automatically fix file system errors" and "scan and attempt to recover bad sectors"
- Start
- Note: if this is the C: drive, then likely you'll get an alert here that it can't check the drive because it is the boot up drive and it needs certain utilities. Click Yes
- Reboot your computer, upon reboot, a blue screen will appear and check your computer for errors. Go get something to drink or walk outside to the park for 15-20 minutes while this runs.
...that's about it. I could go into more details about Paging Files and Optimization Performance but we'll save that for another post. I hope this helps and feel free to leave a comment if you've got other sagely computer advice for our readers. Honestly, I think all of this should be a lot easier for the casual computer user to do without having to call the Geek Squad.
Labels: tech
posted by Andy at
10:30 PM
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