section 2: how to service your computers

4. Clearing out unwanted files

In the day to day use of your computer, temporary files are stored all over the place. Every time you visit a website or download an application, it is then stored on your computer. It can get quite tedious and time consuming to find all these files individually. Get yourself ATF-Cleaner from atribune. It’s a freebie.

This program lets you tick the box of what you want to remove such as “Temporary internet files” and looks after the rest for you. Makes this task a whole lot simpler.

I have seen many computers in my time as a computer tech where the recycling bin had thousands of files in and they had been there for multiple years. It’s a bad habit. I even came across someone who stored their documents in the recycling bin, but that is a different story.

5. Limit the programs that load at startup.

Over time, you get more and more programs thinking they are important enough for you to want to use them each time you restart your computer. Some of them are such as anti-virus or mouse/keyboard applications, others chew away at your resources and slow your computer down.

There are multiple places that the computer can tell programs to load up from. The most popular way for honest programs to launch themselves is by placing themselves in the startup folder in your start menu. It is important as you remove these applications form the various places listed below, that you know what they are. Some will not be descriptive but will be crucial to your computer running correctly. If you don’t know what it is, google it!

You can explore the startup folder and delete the entries in there that you don’t want.

The applications when loaded will often show an icon in the bottom right of your taskbar. You can normally go into the options of these applications by right clicking on them and find an option tick-box to “Start with windows” or a phrase similar. Untick the box and you won’t see it again. If you change your mind later, you can generally load the program from the start menu and go back into the options to allow it to launch at startup again.

The other main place that programs can be launched from is the registry. If you don’t know what the registry is or are uncomfortable fiddling with it, skip to the next section. Get this wrong and you can break your computer proper.

IF you don’t know how to load regedit, you probably shouldn’t try this. The two keys below both have a list of programs that load during startup. Delete the keys for the programs you don’t want to load, ensuring you know what they are before removing them.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

HKEY_CURRENT_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Once you quit regedit, restart your computer and see the improvement.

6. Tidying up your Desktop and Start Menu

Now is a good time to tidy up all your desktop icons. Remove any documents from the desktop and put them into your “My Documents” folder. Put icons for launching applications you rarely use in the Recycle Bin. I prefer to have a completely blank desktop. I have seen some computers where the icons don’t fit the screen. This is really bad form. Please don’t be a victim of desktop untidiness.

for more tips use the google search box on right-top

Thanks to Treasure Magnet Internet Business School.

www.treasuremagnetinc.com/blog