If your system needs cleaning, you’ve come to the right place. By cleaning Windows you can put your system back to near-new condition. Read the benefits of cleaning the system. Also, Don’t clean, before reading my post on the dis-advantages of cleaning the system.
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When you think about cleaning your Windows system, do you feel the walls closing in? Do you find it hard to breathe? Does everything start spinning and go dark?
If so, you’ve been sitting at the computer too long. Or maybe someone has spiked your drink. Or you sat in one position so long that you’ve cut off oxygen to your brain.
You see, cleaning your computer is neither rocket science nor something even harder, but it involves multiple steps: creating lists, taking precautionary measures, finding helpful tools, making a cleaning schedule, and asking yourself (and then answering) tough questions, such as “Should I just wipe out the system and start anew?” or “Do I need new hardware?” Read on and discover how you can approach these steps to get your computer back to its pre-messed-up glory.
How to Eat an Elephant?
I’m sure you’ve heard the old joke “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer, of course, is one bite at a time. Cleaning your computer system is the same thing. (I could try to stretch the analogy by talking about elephants/computers and memory, but will gladly spare you the pain.)
Face it — you can do quite a bit to clean the average Windows system. Files proliferate, programs fall out of favor, viruses reproduce, e-mail clusters, and pop-ups populate. Throw in a little systemic neglect and before you know it, you have a messed-up system that badly needs cleaning.
So which part of the elephant should you chew on first? In general, you should work on the most accessible parts of the elephant first and then move on to the rest. Following is a list of items that I recommend you do even if you’re really pressed for time. (I give you ideas about setting up cleaning routines in a couple of days, “Creating Cleaning Schedules.”)
If you have only limited time available, get rid of unused and unneeded files. Archive your old-but-still-valuable files to get them off your system. When you have more time, you can go back and deal with your programs and your system as a whole. (Generally you should get your programs under control before worrying about your data, but the key here is time restriction. Working on programs simply takes longer than does taming your data.) Read more on How To Remove Unwanted Features From Windows Vista | Boost Vista
If you have more time available, do a program inventory and remove the programs you no longer need. You’d be amazed at how much clutter this can remove from your system. Then go back and clean up your data and archive your older information. Also Read How To Remove Installed Software Using Brute-Force Method
Get rid of spyware and spam and get your Internet environment under control. If you do this, you find that using the Internet can again become productive, rather than frustrating. Also read -- Remove Spyware and Malware From PC.
Closely examine what your computer loads without your knowledge. This is one of the key places many people overlook (even when suggesting ways to clean your computer), but Windows encounters instructions to automatically load different programs from a myriad of places (most on the Web). These programs can hog resources and slow down your system’s overall performance. Also Read -- Remove Spyware and Malware From PC.
Of course, tracking down such unseen scoundrels can take a bit of time. When you have that time (and after you’ve done the other things in this list), jump in and try to figure out what’s going on. Windows provides some utilities that can help, such as the System Configuration Utility (msconfig), which I discussed already under Disable Extra Startup Programs In Windows.
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