Nov 14, 2008 - 10:51:40 AM -
There is no running away from deteriorating PC performance, no matter what the brand of your PC or the programs installed. A practical approach would be to follow a routine that helps withstand all the ills of PC usage. However, this is not possible in real life.
There are many ways in which you can enhance the performance of your PC. They all boil down to the 5 steps that we have listed below:
- Regular Registry Clean Up
- Clean Up And Defragment Hard Drive
- Regular Malware Scan
- Modify Visual Affects of PC
- Manage Programs that Load at System Start-up
Regular Registry Clean-Up
The most important activity that you need to perform to speed up your PC is to clean your windows registry. All Windows operating systems (OS), including Windows XP and Windows Vista, use the registry as a centralized hierarchal database to store all hardware and software configuration information, system settings, and user preferences data. This is the reason why the registry keeps growing as data is accessed, added or removed from it and eventually gets damaged and fragmented. This increases the data access time of the PC, slows it down, and may even leave the PC unbootable.
These problems can be prevented with regular scanning and removal of unwanted, outdated, and invalid information from the registry. These tasks can be easily performed using a reliable, efficient and easy-to-use registry cleaner utility. Today, there are many such tools available in the market. However, it is important that you go through their features and user reviews to be sure that you buy/download the tool that best suits your needs.
Clean Up And Defrag Hard Drive
The Hard Disk of your PC gets clogged with unwanted files, cookies or programs with time. To fix slow computer problems, it is important that you use the Disk Cleanup utility already provided in your Windows XP and Vista ‘System Tools.’ This gets rid of all junk and frees up space on your disk. It does not end here! In addition to this, you must regularly defragment your hard disk using the Disk Defragmenter tool to make your data files contiguous. The Disk Defragmenter tool also makes your Windows programs easily accessible. It may seem tedious and unimportant, but this enhances your PC performance by a large percentage.
Regular Malware Scan
Malware programs, such as spyware, adware, viruses, Trojans, and worms can really slow the speed of your PC to the point of frustration. To add to the degradation in PC performance, these programs add malicious files and registry entries that generate innumerable system errors and cause severe damage to your system and data files. Therefore, detecting and getting rid of these files is really important. You can easily do this with the help of reliable anti-virus and anti-spyware tools.
This activity will have double benefit if you perform registry clean-up soon after anti-spyware/virus scans to ensure that all malicious registry keys are completely eliminated.
Modify the Visual Affects of PC
Although visual effects such as animated Windows or fading menus are visually stimulating they consume a lot of space. Additionally, they devour a lot of system resources and slow down your PC. Therefore, much as you may like them, it is advisable to avoid such resource-consuming visual effects to enhance PC performance.
Managing Programs that Load at System Start-up
When you install various applications and tools on your system, many processes are added to the load when your system starts up. The worst thing about these start-up programs is that they continue running in the background, even if you don’t need them and continue feeding on the PC’s resources. Therefore, to avoid a possible slow-down, you must disable unnecessary programs from loading at the system start-up. Using the System Configuration utility that opens by running the “msconfig” command can do this. There are several advanced Registry cleaners with features that make it easier for you to manage start-up programs.
A look at all these steps tells us ‘we-know-it-but-don’t-use-it!’ By following these simple procedures regularly will ensure enhanced PC performance, and a reduction in your frustration levels induced largely by stubbornly slow/disobedient computers!
