Is your computer taking longer to open and run programs, save files, or browse the Internet? If so, then it is time for a computer tune up. You might be asking yourself , “A computer needs a tune up?” and the answer is…you bet it does. Tuning up a computer involves cleaning its hard drive from unwanted programs, organizing it by running the scan, defragmenting program and removing all malign programs such as viruses, spy-ware and malware. My goal in this article is to instruct the average Joe on how to do these tasks which in return will have your computer running faster than before or even as fast as the first day you bought it. Let’s get to it!

First thing to do is to remove all unnecessary programs. If you’re not the only one using your computer, chances are it is full of “junk” programs that are hardly used. All these programs are taking a piece of your processor’s action during start-up and hogging some of the useful RAM (RAM is available memory for creating, loading, running programs and used by your processor to read and write data).

1. Go to add/remove programs by clicking start-->control panel -->add/remove programs. It will probably take a few seconds to load all programs in your computer. Go through all these programs one by one and remove the ones you don’t need. When you remove some of these programs, you might be asked to restart your computer, but click ‘no’ until you are done removing all unwanted programs. Restart your computer.
2. Now that you’ve removed all unnecessary programs, next task to do is to empty your recycling bin. The recycling bin is the place where all deleted files end up but will stay until it is emptied out. Go to your trash can icon (located on your desktop) right click on it and select ‘Empty recycling bin’. You should always empty your recycling bin since you don’t want to have all these junk in there taking up memory.

The second thing to do is to disable the extra start-up programs in your computer. What are start-up programs? I’m glad you asked. Your computer came pre-loaded with different programs from manufacturers (e.g. AOL, real player, instant messenger) which start every time you boot up your computer (I’m hoping you got rid of some of these unwanted software in the first step). These extra or unwanted items will slow down your computer start-up time by several minutes. Here is what you need to do:

1. Click on Start-->Run, a window will open, type “msconfig” without the quotation marks and click ‘ok’.
2. A system configuration window will appear, click on startup tab. You will see several boxes checked under ‘startup item’ column. You need to uncheck the programs that are of no use. If you have an anti-virus, do not uncheck the box. After you made your selections, click on the ‘ok’ button and you will be asked to restart your computer to apply changes.
3. After you restart your computer, a dialogue window will appear. Make sure you check the box for “ Do not show this dialogue every time your computer..” and click ‘ok’.

The third step is to scan your hard drive for errors and defragment all files. Both windows and applications programs tend to leave temporary files in your hard drive which affects your computer’s performance. Also every time you visit a website, it leaves files on the Internet temporary folder which will slow your browsing speeds.

1. Click on start-->My computer -->Right click on your hard drive (Most have letter C: assigned) and then select ‘properties’. Click on ‘Disk cleanup’ button (It will take a moment to analyze hard drive). Make sure you have selected/checked ‘Temporary Internet files’ and ‘Recycling bin’ boxes and then click ‘ok’.
2. Next, click on tools tab-->click ‘check now’ button, when the window opens make sure you have ‘automatically fix for errors’ checked and then click ‘start’. Once is finished checking and fixing errors, you need to click on tools tab-->click on ‘defragment now’ button-->click on ‘analyze’ button first and then ‘defragment’ button. (Note: I recommend doing this overnight or when you plan not to use your computer for hours because it normally takes between 2-5 hours depending on the size of your hard drive and processor speed) You should do this at least once a month.

The last thing to do is to remove spy-ware, malware, and adware. In order to do this, you need to…no let me re-phrase that, you MUST have an anti-virus software installed in your PC so that it can constantly monitor and scan your computer against these malicious programs. If you don’t have an anti-spyware software installed, you are running the risk of having your computer infected with viruses which will dramatically slow down your computer by taking up its resources to generate pop-up ads, send spam, and interfere with the operation of good programs. Assuming that you have one installed, make sure is active and updates itself constantly. You should get yourself familiarized with its features and scan your computer frequently so that it’s free of unwanted pesty programs. Here is a short list of good commercial and free antivirus, anti-spyware software that I’ve collected for you.

Commercial: 1. Norton Antivirus, 2. Grisoft AVG, 3. BitDefender Antivirus.

Free: 1. Microsoft Windows Defender, 2. Malwarebytes Anti-malware, 3. Lavasoft Ad-Aware.

You should always do your homework by researching before deciding on an anti-spyware software that is the best fit for you.

I hope this article helped you by making you more aware on PC tune ups and increased your computer efficiency by making it faster than before. Happy computing!