Even though you have deleted a lot of files that you don't need, many of them are still stored on your hard drive in the Recycle Bin. In order to fully remove them from your hard drive, you must empty the Recycle Bin. The Recycle Bin icon is usually located on your desktop. Simply, find the icon and right click on it. Select Empty Recycle Bin and confirm by clicking Yes. Now you have finished deleting the unwanted files from your hard drive.

The final step needed to speed up your computer is to defragment your hard drive. Over the years, as more programs are installed and more files saved on your computer, less and less space is available for storage. Then, when a new, large file is saved on your hard drive it may be fragmented and saved in two or more spots on your hard drive. When the file is called on by the computer, it has to pull the file form two or more places and join them together in the memory before it can be used. Defragmenting your computer allows files to be moved and placed together in one spot, thus speeding up the retrieval process. To defragment your computer, click on the Start button, go to All Programs > Accessories > System Tools and click on Disk Defragmenter. Select the C Drive and click Defragment.

I have left out some important information. Most of these steps listed above can be controlled by one utility, Disk Cleanup. Click on the Start button, go to All Programs > Accessories > System Tools and click on Disk Cleanup. Select the C Drive and click OK. From this one place, you can delete Temporary Internet Files, empty the Recycle Bin, defrag your hard drive if needed, and more. Just check each item you want performed and click OK. Then confirm by clicking Yes.

How often do you perform the required maintenance? Some experts say that you should perform this type of maintenance every 6 months. I suggest that you do it more often, about once a month. In fact, if you spend a lot of time on the Internet like I do, it is a good idea to run the Disk Cleanup utility every week as a bare minimum. Then you can perform more in depth maintenance every month or two.

There are many other, more advanced steps that you can take to speed up your computer, like cleaning out your Temp folders, paring down the Startup folder, removing programs and Windows components you don't use, running anti-spyware and anti-virus programs, repairing or maintaining the registry, deleting old Windows Update files, and much more. However, the basic steps I've outlined above are at least the bare minimum for keeping your computer clean and running quickly and properly for hopefully many years to come.

Page 2 of 2 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 | Next