Does your computer have problems?

The biggest problem with your computer might just be you!

When was the last time you ran a disk cleanup, defragmented the hard drive, or emptied the cache in Internet Explorer?

Sure there are a lot of third party tools that make a lot of promises and some do deliver, but today let’s just focus on the tools included in Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows 7. OK you say, but what about Microsoft Windows Vista? Well if you are running Vista, save your money  as well as your sanity and upgrade to Windows 7 and then come back and read this article.

So your computer performance has slowed to a crawl? This is the number one complaint from users everywhere. So what can we do to speed up or tune up our systems? Follow the steps below.

First run the disk cleanup wizard built into the Microsoft Windows operating System.

For Windows 7:

Start, All Programs, and then Accessories, System Tools to locate Disk Cleanup to begin the tune up process.

The wizard starts and just about everything here can be deleted, but remember that everything is really deleted, so if you are one of those who uses the recycle bin as temporary storage then remove the check mark from Recycle Bin. Click OK and wait for the tool to do its job.

For Windows XP:

Start, Programs, and then Accessories, System Tools to locate Disk Cleanup to begin the tune up process. The process is the same as 7, but review what you are about to delete and then choose OK.

Now run the disk defragment tool built into the Microsoft Windows operating systems.

For Windows 7:

Start, All Programs, and then Accessories, System Tools to locate Disk Defragment to begin the defragment process.

The task is automated in Windows 7 and is scheduled to run on Wednesday night at 1 AM. So you can either leave the computer on all night, or reschedule it to run during a more convenient time, but remember that large hard drives can take a while to defragment.  You can also schedule backups, virus scans, and other tasks to take advantage of the computer being left on all night.

Windows XP:

Start, Programs, and then Accessories, System Tools to locate Disk Defragment to begin the defragment process.

The defrag utility is not already scheduled to run in Windows XP, but it can easily be automated using the Task Scheduler, located in the Control Panel and a batch file.

Startup notepad, copy and paste the line below, or enter the following:

defrag c: >c:\defrag.log 2>&1

Now save that as “c:\defrag.cmd”.

From Start, Settings, Control Panel, Scheduled tasks, create a new scheduled task. It should point to and run c:\defrag.cmd. Set this up to run one night a week and set the time for like 3 AM. Check the log every once in a while to make sure that the process is happening as you expect.

You can run defrag.cmd at any time yourself, if you like. Just open up a command prompt and type c:\defrag.cmd.

This article is not a how to on writing batch files but I took a screen shot from the Task Wizard just in case.  Start -> Settings -> Control Panel and then Scheduled Task. Select Add New task and follow the prompts, when prompted choose the browse button and locate the batch file.

This should clean up unwanted files, and put everything back into order on your hard drive, and hopefully boost your performance.

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Matthew L. Davidson: MLD Services: Lexington KY