Guide - Keeping your PC healthy.

[mm3]

This thread is for people to share tips and methods on keeping your computer (PC, Mac, Commodore, etc) healthy and in excellent working order.

Here are some things I do to keep my computers in nice health, and have performance optimized.

Windows:

• Defragment your hard drive Regularly. This helps things running smoothly and fast. It also clears up space, and organizes files on your hard drive. (Notice difference that the pathnames and directories are not affected.)
• Disk Cleanup regularly. This frees up a lot of space. Doing this once a week could help your PC run faster and easier, and clearing up your PC's sinuses as it does so.
• Have a good AV piece of software. I personally recommend avast! AntiVirus. Having a good AntiVirus program helps keep your PC protected and secured. Also remember, that common sense on the internet helps.
• Keep junk programs to a minimum. You know what this is, keeping those ugly ads, Toolbars-for-<browser>, offers, and programs you don't use off your computer. This helps your PC run fast and smooth, also freeing up unnecessarily used space, and keeps your registry clean as well.
• Keep start-up items to a low. Keep things that aren't absolutely needed out of the startup folder, or things that you can just run after bootup when the computer has had a chance to get a steady breath going. Having a lot of startup items has proven to slow down a computer tremendously, and even have the machine come to a screeching halt when it comes time to press the power button.
• Background programs. Having loads of things running in the background (ex, things in your taskbar) or having things run idle seriously robs your system of resources and your processor's speed. Keep these things low. Done using an app? Exit, don't let it run in the background. A common example is LimeWire. When done using it, exit. It helps.
• Stay up to date. Yes we know that one of Windows' many infamies are the Updates put out for it by Microsoft. But remember that they are there for a reason. Keep up to date to get the most secure and optimum performance out of your PC.

Let's hear what else you do to keep your PC working the way you want it to.

PS: Empty your trash once a week, at most.

You never know if you're gonna need that one specific file again.

I got into the dirty habit of emptying my trash whenever there was something in it. Then when I wanted to go back and get it, it was gone. Had to stop that

 

[recovery]

Some pretty Good tips.

Defragment your hard drive Regularly. This helps things running smoothly and fast. It also clears up space, and organizes files on your hard drive. (Notice difference that the pathnames and directories are not affected.)

A note on this is, It it seems to take really long to do. The more often you do it, the little work it has to do. As most of the files are already de-fragmentated.

Disk Cleanup regularly. This frees up a lot of space. Doing this once a week could help your PC run faster and easier, and clearing up your PC's sinuses as it does so.

%WINDIR%\Prefetch
Is a good folder to clean out every now and again.

[*]Keep junk programs to a minimum. You know what this is, keeping those ugly ads, Toolbars-for-<browser>, offers, and programs you don't use off your computer. This helps your PC run fast and smooth, also freeing up unnecessarily used space, and keeps your registry clean as well.

I got out of this habbit ages ago. Use trusted popular sources. If you need software, Don't just Google it. You are likely to pull rubbish stuff out. So ask people for recommendations or check out Windows build of Open source software.

[*]Keep start-up items to a low. Keep things that aren't absolutely needed out of the startup folder, or things that you can just run after bootup when the computer has had a chance to get a steady breath going. Having a lot of startup items has proven to slow down a computer tremendously, and even have the machine come to a screeching halt when it comes time to press the power button.

Start > Run or Windows Key + R

Type MSCONFIG, Hit Enter. click the Startup Tab and you can un-tick all those useless programs that you do not want to run at start-up.

PS: Empty your trash once a week, at most.

You never know if you're gonna need that one specific file again.

I got into the dirty habit of emptying my trash whenever there was something in it. Then when I wanted to go back and get it, it was gone. Had to stop that

For more than A year things that go in the recycle bin go in their by accident. Most likely I forget to Hold the Shift. Shift + Del Skips the recycle bin and empty ups the space right away.

I only delete Files If it is either a Duplicate or I need the space. I don't mindless Delete Things. I have a habit of archiving things. And its a good thing to practice to setup and use A good Directory structure.

And backup up every so-often. You most likely got a CD or DVD burner Lying around. And the discs are relatively inexpenise. So you have no real excuse.

Its fun after A few years and you go "Hmm... I wonder what's on that Cd" Only to find some files you thought I either Lost or Never knew I had! Simple Lazzyness really Why I don't label them XD.

 

[boogalah]

Nope, pretty much hit the nail(s) on the head. Following these steps as well as exercising common sense should keep your pc in good shape. As for your recycle bin drama, programs exist that can restore anything deleted from the computer even if they've been purged from the recycle bin. I know because I keep such a program on a floppy disk just in case

 

[Vladimir]

UnMarth, my computer is set to defragment the hard drive every Wednesday at 1 AM. You can set a schedule, too.

 

[mm3]

I used to do Shift + Delete, because it was easier than going to the recycle bin. I still do that, on occasion, but I keep telling myself not to because I never know if I want to use those files again. It's happened more times that I would have liked :-\

 

[Martin]

I tend to do that too as I used to work on a laptop with a HDD of only 6 gig so I tried to delete as much as possible. I still do it a lot (too much).

 

[kite]

hehe, noobs
i just have a nlite'd xp os. immediate delete and all that fun stuff just built right in. all crap programs never installed. no home movie maker, no 1,000+ drivers for stuff i will never install. it's fun

 

[recovery]

I used to do Shift + Delete, because it was easier than going to the recycle bin. I still do that, on occasion, but I keep telling myself not to because I never know if I want to use those files again. It's happened more times that I would have liked :-\

I think It has only been one occasion where I accidentally deleted a documented that I wanted to keep. But it was no biggie. As I said, I have an archieving habbit. I started this over 2 years ago when I released that some of my school work could be used in future. But that has not yet happened. But hey, 50MB is nothing and Full of memories!

The only files I delete are usually Installer files, ISOs and Films that I know I can easily get again if needed. As I really needed the space. But every since I got my new 500GB HDD. I have not yet got that problem. So far 30% utilised.

 

[mm3]

I refrained from saying this in the original post, because not everybody has the ability nor the want to do it, but here it is anyway.

Whenever you get a new computer, get restore disks. This way, once you get it, you can reformat. Then you won't have to bother with all the crappy bloatware and useless trial software that came with hit, and you can start with a clean slate.

 

[recovery]

Whenever you get a new computer, get restore disks. This way, once you get it, you can reformat. Then you won't have to bother with all the crappy bloatware and useless trial software that came with hit, and you can start with a clean slate.

I couldn't agree more, But it gets rid of most of the bloat ware most of the time. But you can rid of it though by using Nlite and Deleting the $OEM$ folder. However, I am not to sure if this could have bad effects. But it worked for me!

If you have a habit like me of re-installing XP every other Month or so. Install it once, With all your programs, update it ect. Have it they way it want it but keep the crap out. Then Make a Disk Image of it. I personally use Acronis' tools. first things I used and they do they job!

So in future instead of putting hours setting up your PC. It takes about 5 minutes to recover the image. Not bad if you ask me.

 

[ion.blue]

Get an anti-spyware. My choice is Spybot. Spybot also has a neat Immunization feature that blocks thousands of unsafe sites in your browser and hosts file. So even if you use another anti-spyware product, its worth installing Spybot just for the Immunization.

 

[Vladimir]

Close all necessary applications. My computer just crashed with Windows Live Messenger, Mozilla Firefox and Windows Media Player with an applet running at the same time, though it was also caused by leaving my computer on for too long. So I advise that you turn off your computer when you don't need it for an extended period of more than an hour (every night).

Unfortunately, since the servers went down, I lost my original, longer and deeper post.

 

[mm3]

My PCs are on, 24/7 for most of the time. I take a lot of pride in my uptimes.

I usually give each computer an annual restart at the beginning of every month. Except for servers, I reboot them only as needed.

 

[cpndl]

PS: Empty your trash once a week, at most.

You never know if you're gonna need that one specific file again.

I got into the dirty habit of emptying my trash whenever there was something in it. Then when I wanted to go back and get it, it was gone. Had to stop that

My laptop turns it self on every Sunday night and does a FULL backup to an external HD. Nothing like a good ASR backup to put you back exactly how you were.

cpndl

 

[chevre]

I'll save my Linux advice since it seems most of you are Windows users. Btw, mm3, are you the same mm3 as from the old forum? I seem to remember you started a few ubuntu or otherwise linux related forums, but lately you seem very much a windows user.

Anyway, since most of you are probably using NTFS, it's good practice to maintain a decent amount of free space. As you run out of space, fragmentation will get really bad. And to make it worse, having little free space makes your filesystem much harder to defragment.

 

[mm3]

Yes, I am the same mm3 as the old forum, it just took me a while to rejoin

I am a Linux user (Ubuntu lover) and I'm still the linux guy you knew before.

This thread seems to be based around Windows, yeah. But that's only because...well face it, a hell of a lot more people use Windows than linux, and I figured that more people could bring use to this thread if it were mostly about Windows.

I am also a Windows and Mac OS X user.

 

[chevre]

Ah ok, just checking .

 

[Mr Alex]

I figured it was the same MM.

SO MM essentially a file server and a game server are the same thing, just doing different tasks?