Question:
I need a good computer scrubbing!! What can you recommend to help my computer?
2007-08-27 16:33:20 UTC
I already use Ad-aware, Spybot, and PC clean.

Anything other ideas???
Three answers:
Zinshin
2007-08-27 16:49:31 UTC
You can clean up some space (very small, or large on how often you do this) by clicking (on your desktop) the start menu, programs, Accessories, System Tools, and run the program Disk Cleanup. I recommend not clicking "Compress Old Files" for maybe unexpected actions might occur, such as quality to random files. Maybe or not, "Recycle Bin" if you don't want to empty it yet.



In the same place ("System Tools"), there is a program called Disk Defragmenter. Your disk often writes files in parts. When you delete a small file, a space comes up in a odd location on the disk. So when you write or download a new file, it will write in the old space and fill it up and move the file's data somewhere else on the disk. It makes files longer to access. Defragmenter fixes that and your speed will improve on your desktop.
2007-08-27 23:55:24 UTC
Try CCleaner. It removes TONS of stuff you don't really need, while making your computer loads faster.
2007-08-28 00:01:48 UTC
Speed Up Vista:



While Windows Vista makes many improvements to security and other features, it also includes its fair share of programs that use a PC’s resources that you may not want to run. In this lesson, we’ll show you what programs in Vista you can turn off to free up system resources.

Trialware



Let’s start with your hard drive to remove some unnecessary files. The more programs on your hard drive, the longer it takes a PC to find anything.



Vista comes with many software packages pre-installed; you can decide which you want to run or disable.

Click your Start button on the bottom left hand of your screen, then choose Control Panel.

Double click “Programs and Features” (which used to be called “Add or Remove Programs” in Windows XP).



You’ll see a list of all the programs that came pre-installed with your new PC. Some of these software packages are “trialware,” in which you may have 30 days to try the software. Often, this software is bundled with Vista from your PC manufacturer or Microsoft. It’s up to you whether you want to try the software or delete it from your PC.



Note:

Trialware, is often referred to as crapware or junkware. Critics complain that crapware is unwanted, useless, and sometimes hard to remove by design — all while taking up valuable disk space. Most crapware is operational for a trial period in hopes of persuading the user into buying the full version.



When you’re done, it’s time to disable some unnecessary software that comes with Windows itself.



From the Programs and Features window:

Click “Turn Windows features on or off” on the left side panel.User Account Control will ask you to confirm; do so.You’ll get a list of Windows built-in software, much of which you’ll never use. Uncheck whatever you don’t need.



Telnet

Telnet is the way you can access someone elses computer, assuming they have given you permission. (Such a computer is frequently called a host computer.) More technically, Telnet is a user command and an underlying TCP/IP protocol for accessing remote computers. The Web or HTTP protocol and the FTP protocol allow you to request specific files from remote computers, but not to actually be logged on as a user of that computer

SAFE TO DELETE



Disk Clean Up



Next, if you’ve been using your PC for awhile, let Windows Vista free up file space on your hard drive.

Click your Start orb, then Computer.

Right-click on your hard drive.

On the General tab, choose Properties.

Click “Disk Cleanup.”

In a few moments, you’ll get a list of what Windows doesn’t need anymore. Make sure all the boxes are checked, then click OK. You’ll be asked to confirm your choices; click Delete Files.



Most modern computers have a second processor dedicated solely to graphics. Manufacturers of high-end video cards, for example, will tout their speed and amount of RAM on their products the same way computer makers do.



Having that kind of graphics horsepower is especially important with Windows Vista, which is specifically designed to take advantage of it.



There are two components to Windows Vista’s graphics that you can make changes to. First is the big one: The visual styles, which set the overall look of your system. There are four choices: Windows Aero, Windows Vista Basic, Windows Standard, Windows Classic. (Not every choice is available on every version of Vista. See CNET’s Which Windows Vista version is right for you? tutorial)

Right-click anywhere on the desktop and choose Personalize.

Click Window Color and Appearance.

If your computer supports Aero and it’s turned on, you’ll see a row of boxes showing the different colors you can choose for your windows.



Running Aero is actually a good thing in terms of system resources. In older versions of windows, the more graphics shown, the slower the computer. So you might think that Windows Classic, which has the fewest bells and whistles, would give you the fastest performance. But that’s not exactly true for Vista.



Both the Windows Aero and Windows Vista Basic (aka Aero Lite) use your computer’s graphics card, not the computer’s processor, to do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to the display. Using one of those — as opposed to Standard or Classic — actually lets your computer do less work.



You can switch to Windows Vista Basic for most of Aero’s graphics; that also saves resources. Here’s how:

From that Window Color and Appearance box, click “Open classic appearance properties for more color options.”

Choose Windows Vista Basic. (You can click “Advanced…” if you want to tweak the settings.)



If you want to keep all of Aero’s bells and whistles, you can still get a performance boost if you’re willing to give up transparency. Here’s how:

Right-click anywhere on the desktop and choose Personalize.

Click Window Color and Appearance.

Uncheck “Enable transparency.”



To review, if your computer and your version of Vista support Aero, the following settings will speed up Vista:



Fastest: Use Windows Vista Basic

Faster: Use Windows Aero with transparency turned off

Fast: Use Windows Aero

Slow: Use Windows Standard or Windows Classic



Finally, while Vista’s sidebar can be a cool thing — let’s face it, that clock is kind of nice — it’s also a resource hog. It slows your computer. Disable it.

Right-click on the Sidebar (or, if it’s not visible, choose “Windows Sidebar Properties” from the Control Panel).

Uncheck “Start Sidebar when Windows starts.”

Click OK.

If the Sidebar is currently open, right-click on it and choose Close Sidebar.

Search Indexing



You might notice that your computer’s hard drive is busy a lot, even when you’re not doing anything. That could be because Vista is busy indexing all the contents of your drive in case you need to search for something.



The good thing about Vista’s indexing system is that it lets you find things on your computer very quickly when you need to. The downside is that if you don’t search a lot, your computer’s time and resources are wasted doing that.



If you only search your drive occasionally, here’s a good way to speed things up:



From your Control Panel choose “Indexing Options.”

Hit the Modify button. A dialog box with two boxes inside it will appear.

In the bottom of those two boxes will be a list of locations on your hard drive that Vista is indexing. One at a time, click each one of those “Included Locations” except Start Menu.

As you click each one, it will appear in the top box with a check mark next to it. Uncheck it. You should end up with only Start Menu listed as an indexed location.

Click OK, then close the Indexing Options box.

You may be working in a program and wondering why it runs so slowly — especially if you don’t have any other programs open. The problem is that when Windows boots up, a lot of programs are automatically loaded to run “in the background” where you can’t see. Of course, some of these are quite valuable (virus protection, for instance), but many are useless and simply eating up your system resources for no reason.



Here’s how to get rid of these unnecessary start-up programs:



The first and easiest way to seek and destroy unnecessary start-up programs is to look in your Startup folder.

Click the Start button, then choose All Programs. (If you’re using the classic Start menu, you’ll click “Programs” instead.)

Click the Startup folder.

The list of programs that automatically start will appear. Check this list, and if you see something you don’t want or need to start automatically — such as some Microsoft Office task — right-click it and choose Delete.

Repeat as necessary.



Now let’s go a little deeper and remove some programs that start automatically without appearing in your Startup folder. Here’s how:

Click your Start orb.

Click “Run.”

In the box that appears, enter msconfig.

Click the Startup tab.



You’ll see a list of all the programs that start automatically with Windows. Most of these should start: your anti-virus program, several Windows programs, maybe a driver or two. But some things just waste resources.



Most notorious for loading themselves are media players such as Quicktime and RealPlayer. There’s no need for them to be loaded until you need them. If you see things like that, select them and click the Delete button. When you’re done, click Close.

That done, let’s go even deeper. Besides programs that run automatically when you start up, Windows also launches services — internal software that does important things, such as making your network run, managing users, and a host of other things.



But there are some services you just don’t need; running them is a waste of resources. Here’s how to find and reduce them:

Click the Start button, then Run.

Enter services.msc in the box.



The screen that pops up is a bit intimidating at first, but it’s actually pretty straightforward. Services are programs that run in the background, helping your computer work. They do things like make sure you’re connected to the network, allow your mouse to work, and so on





The Services list shows every one that’s on your machine and tells you whether it starts automatically or manually, among other things. Some of the services that start automatically are unnecessary, so we’ll stop them. Here’s how:

Click the Extended tab on the bottom, which will create a space that will give you a description of each service.

Click on the words “Startup Type” at the top of that column, which will sort the services. The ones that say “Automatic” are, obviously, the ones that start when Windows does. They’re the only ones you care about.





Alert:

Some services are critical for your computer to run. So don’t disable anything that’s not on the list below unless you’re absolutely sure that it’s an expendable item.



You can choose to disable the following non-critical items without encountering problems. The find out what each does before disabling, click on them. Some of these items are specific to Vista, while others are also found in Windows XP.



COM+ Event System

Cryptographic Services

DFS Replication

Computer Browser

Distributed Link Tracking Client

IKE and AuthIP IPsec Keying Modules

IP Helper

IPsec Policy Agent

KtmRm for Distributed Transaction Coordinator

Offline Files

Remote Registry

Secondary Logon

SSDP Discovery

Tablet PC Input Service (Unless you have a Tablet PC

Terminal Services

UPnP Device Host

Windows Error Reporting Service (no more asking you to notify Microsoft when there’s a crash!)

EHTRAY.EXE RECOMMENDATION

Description:

ehtray.exe is a process is the tray bar process for the Microsoft Media Center. It gives you easy access to the digital media manager. This is a non-essential process. Disabling or enabling it is down to user preference.

Ehtray.exe provides a system tray icon that can be used to access the various features of Media Center. If this process is terminated the system tray icon will no longer be shown, so if you use it, you should leave ehtray.exe running. Otherwise, terminate ehtray.exe in order to free up space on your taskbar



One at a time, find each one on the list and double-click it. A dialog box will appear. In it will be a drop-down menu next to “Startup type” that is probably set to Automatic.



Change it to Manual and click OK. This way the service will start only if it’s needed, not all the time.



Then under Service status, click Stop.



Click OK and go to the next service on the list.



Defrag



Just like your car should have occasional tune-ups, your computer needs them as well. If you’ve followed the instructions in these lessons, your computer should be running better and faster. But you’ll still need to tune it up once in a while.



The biggest and simplest thing, akin to changing your car’s oil, is defragmenting — or defragging — your hard drive. It’s a good idea to do this about once a month.



When your computer stores files on your drive, it puts them in whatever empty space is available. The result is that over time individual files are actually split up and stored in several places on the drive. (Imagine a library where the different chapters of a book are on different shelves.)



Defragging puts those pieces together so your computer spends less time accessing the files.

The procedure is simple:

Shut down any running programs.

Disable your screen saver by right-clicking anywhere on your desktop, choosing Personalize, then clicking Screen Saver. Set it to “None.”

Click the Start orb and then Computer; right-click on your hard drive.

Choose Properties, then click the Tools tab.

Click “Defragment Now…”

In the box that appears, it’s a good idea to check “Run on a schedule” to have Windows defrag your drive automatically every month.



FASTER WINDOWS:





RECLAIM DISK DRIVE SPACE:

XP:

uninstall update uninstall files:

run--type explorer--tools--options--view--click show hidden files/folders

uninstall files that start and end in

$ and contain uninstall in url/address



Compress Individual Folders To Save Space

Highlight folder, right click, click "Properties". Click "Advanced..." button. Select "Compress contents to save space.



Faster Icons:

my computer--local disk drive [ c ]--tools--folder options--view

uncheck

auto search for network folders/printers



stop storing history files:

control panel--internet options--general--history

delete history and set for 0 days to keep



cut system restore and recycle bin's memory usage:

right click recycle bin--choose properties

click--hold--drag slider to 0%

while there,uncheck show delete confirmation dialog box

****** asking "do you REALLY want to delete this ?'

get back 13% memory on disk drive

same for system restore:

all programs--accessories--system tools--system restore--settings--drive [ c ]

click--hold--drag to 3% and get back 10% of your hard drive



we're up to 20% just these 2 items.



do a disk clean and disk defrag monthly:

all programs--accessories--system tools--disk clean up

disk drive { c }

ok,clean up



disk defrag is same place as disk clean



stop cookies from piling up:

control panel--internet options--privacy--advanced--override

allow:

1st party cookies

session cookies

Block:

3rd [ spyware ] party cookies



download Ccleaner and allow to delete unneeded/unused files

and regseeker as well

http://browseraddons.friendpages.com



REMOVE PROGRAMS:

1st check all programs for an uninstall file and uninstall



next check your downloads folder for the original download--delete



remove all desktop shortcuts

remove all taskbar shortcuts

right click start--select properties--select taskbar--select customize

for each icon,select always show or hide



check your add/remove programs and delete from there



my computer--local disk drive [ c ]--windows--programs

delete



delete temp files

my computer--local disk drive [ c ]--windows--temp

delete all YESTERDAY'S files



clear prefetch:

my computer--local disk drive [ c ]--windows--prefetch

click view--select all--press delete key on keyboard



Help Speed Up XP (XP)

Turn off Windows indexing function to open and close programs and files quicker. Go to the start menu button, select "Control Panel," then "Performance and Maintenance," then "Administrative Tools," then the "Services" shortcut and finally, highlight "Indexing Services" and select "stop". Doing this will slow searches for files on your computer, but it's easy to undo, just follow the same steps and select "start".



Vista:

disk clean:

control panel--performance information & tools--disk clean up

drive [ c ]

let it run/delete files

disk defrag is same place disk clean up but is on the advanced tools link

anylize and defrag if needed

set defrag for regular schedule run



remove programs

start--default programs--programs & features

delete programs



remove windows features

start--default programs--programs & features--turn windows features on/off

turn off features


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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