Optimize the Performance of Your Computer

By: James Madison

It's truly frustrating and a risky affair sometime when your computer stops working suddenly. You may have to prepare an important presentation for client-meet, or need to send a report to your superior. A sudden fault in your machine may take you to an awkward situation and in worst of the cases, can land you in trouble as well. Here lies the importance of proper maintenance of your PC.  Just a few small steps towards good PC maintenance can extend the life of the computer as well as cut down your expenses a bit. Get some computer support to learn more about those.

Taking regular care of your computer will greatly enhance your PC's performance. Now the question is, "How is this done"? There are a few ways mentioned below by which you can keep you computer in a good shape . The suggestions here apply to Windows users only with an emphasis on Windows XP and Vista operating systems.

Scan your hard drive and remove unnecessary files

This should be done at least once a week. In Windows XP and Vista this process is called "Disk Cleanup". This Disk Cleanup process helps you free up space on your hard drive by searching your disk for files that can be safely deleted by you. You can easily choose to delete some or all of the files. The Disk Cleanup can be used to perform any of the following tasks to free up space on your hard disk:

?   Remove temporary internet files.
?   Remove downloaded programme files.
?   Empty the Recycle Bin.
?   Remove Windows temporary files.
?   Remove optional Windows components that you are not using.
?   Remove installed programmes that you no longer use.

Optimize your web browser/Use automatic updates as and when required

The internet has become a speedy way of gathering information as well as communication. And this is the reason why computer browser plays an important role. So updating and optimizing your browser is very important. When you visit websites, your web browser stores temporary files in a cache memory that grows depending upon the computer usage and the amount of space that you have allocated for storage. To optimize the browser fully, you need to bring down the number of days to keep pages in history to a minimum and also reduce the disk space to be used to 8MB. Besides, you can also click on the Advanced Tab of the same menu and clicking on "Do not save encrypted pages to disk". This will not allow highly confidential data to store on your hard drive and the browser will also become much faster.

The automatic updates also play an important role in optimizing the performance of a computer. Through this, you get automatically connected to the Microsoft website while you are online and the patches start downloading. These updates will enhance your system's stability as well as the performance.

Defragment your Hard Disk

The defragmentation of your hard disk should be done once in a month. As you continue to use your computer, you save several files in your hard disk, whereas you also delete several others. The files divided into chunks, gets stored into numerous places.  As a result, the computer slows down and takes longer time to open files. The defragmentation process allows the computer to reformat its system of file blocks, bringing together commonly used files and sometimes freeing up spaces. After defragmentation your computer is going to work much faster than what it was doing before.

Use anti-virus, Anti-spyware and Firewall Programmes

Computer viruses, spywares, malwares and hackers are global threats that can attack any computer with an internet connection. And it is also one of the reasons that make the computer super slow. And to prevent these hazards one should always keep an updated antivirus installed in the computer.  Get antivirus support to keep your PC healthy. The antivirus will scan your computer as per schedule and eliminate all the viruses if it finds any during the scan. To prevent the viruses from entering the computer, one also needs to keep the" Windows Firewall" on with the antivirus just to be on the safe side.

With the right knowledge and following the right steps you can keep your computer safe from wear and tears – whether it is from bad files, fragmented drives or deadly viruses. Just make it a point to keep up with product updates and regular scheduled maintenance. Following this will definitely keep your computer safe, sharp and optimized.

About the Author

Some simple computer support can be pretty effective in maintaining good health of your computer. Follow some simple steps and optimize the performance of your PC. Antivirus support will also keep your computer free from any malicious threats.

(ArticlesBase SC #2585073)

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ - Optimize the Performance of Your Computer