There are many ways to increase the performance of a computer which has been heavily used. These include deleting temporary files, de-fragmenting the hard drive, cleaning log files, disk space management and ensuring there are no extraneous programs running in memory. Especially ad-ware and spy ware which are commonly packaged with other shareware (including screen savers) downloaded by users on your network.

 

Temp Files

The first thing to get rid of are files in temp folders. Unless you specifically save things in a temp folder, which you should not do, everything that is more than one day old in a folder called temp is safe to delete. If you are uncomfortable deleting files simply move them to another folder called "junk" so that if a problem arises from deleing the files you can simply move them back. If there are no problems after a few days it's safe to permanently delete the files. You should always close all running programs before you delete any temp files in case they are in use.

Temp folders can be located in many places on your hard drive. Typical locations are C:\ C:\Windows C:\Winnt C:\Documents and Settings\your_username\Local Settings\Temp

To clean up internet temp files click on Start -> Settings -> Control Panel and open "Internet Options." From there click on "Delete Files" which is in the "General" tab. Then check "Delete all offline content" and click OK. Click on Settings and set the amount of disk space to use to 50 megabytes and click OK. This will keep internet temp files from cluttering up your hard drive with thousands of small internet temp files.

This "General" screen is also where you go to clear your internet history. If you want to clear the forms and passwords that automatically get entered when you visit a webpage you've been to before you need to open the "Content" tab and click on the AutoComplete button. Clicking on Clear Forms and Clear Passwords will erase the "saved" passwords and searches on the various web pages you've been to. This is not a performance tip, but a privacy one. Note that if you are in a office web browsing can easily be tracked elsewhere without you or your employees knowing.

 

Spy ware

We suggest you download, install and run a program called Ad-Aware. This program will seek out and delete spy ware and ad-ware which may be running on your client computers. Any time someone downloads a screen saver or weather utility they risk installing other commercial advertising software on accident or unknowingly. Even though spy ware may be installed secretly without you knowing it, spy ware is not considered a virus and antivirus software does not detect it. Ad-Aware is for spy ware what antivirus software is for viruses.

 

Disk Usage

Open "My Computer" and right-click your hard drives one at a time. Usually C is your main hard drive. After you right-click your C drive select "Properties" from the drop-down menu. You should see a pie chart representing you disk usage and free space. If your free space is less than 1/8th of your total disk you should attempt to delete unneeded software or files. Pictures, movies, music and programs take up much more space than documents, such as Word or Excel Spreadsheets which are fairly small. Another option would be to back up some of your files to CD or tape backup.

 

De-fragmenting

De-fragmenting the hard drive is done differently depending on what operating system you have. Windows 2000, XP, Me, 98 and 95 have the software built in. Windows NT 4 requires a 3rd party program called Diskeeper and there is a free version available form their website called Diskeeper Light. To de-fragment your drive double-click "My Computer" then right-click the drive you want to de-fragment, such as 'C', then select "Properties" from the drop-down menu. Click on the "Tools" tab at the top and push the "de-fragment" button. This will rearrange the files on your hard drive so that they can be accessed faster and more efficiently but will take some time to finish. If you have Windows XP or Windows 2000 you can continue to work on your computer while this happens in the background. If you have Windows 98 or 95 you will need to wait until the program is finished before you can continue working.

 

Recycle Bin

When you delete a file on your computer (not over the network) your file is placed in the recycle bin for a while in case you need to restore the file. You should empty your recycle bin from time to time to permanently delete your old files which you no longer use. You do this simply by right-clicking the recycle bin and choosing to empty it.

 

Outlook Mail

The easiest way to clean up space in your inbox or other personal folders is to sort the messages by their size which reveals the messages with large attachments. By deleting just a few of the largest messages you can reduce your mailbox size drastically.

First, in order to sort by message size you must click on the column field bar. This is the bar above your message list that contains the column headings "To" "Subject" and "Received." Right-click anywhere on this bar and you'll get a drop-down menu. Click on "Field Chooser" from the drop down menu. Scroll down the list of available fields until you see "Size." Click and drag "Size" button up to the bar and two red arrows will show you where the new column will be placed. Once the size column is there you can sort it by simply clicking on the word "Size." Later, if you want to sort by the date received, simply click on the word "Received" to sort by date. Click on the header a second time to reverse the order.

Another field I like to add is the "To" field so I can see if mail was sent directly to me, a group distribution list, or a series of people.  This helps in spotting spam too.