Cleaning Up My PC

[yairhol]

Hello Gang,

I would like to clean up the hard disc in my PC both
from dust, dirt etc. and get rid of spyware, adware, etc. and generally get the maximum I can from my computer speed wise.
Can you please recommend some good softwares for getting rid of all the junk sitting in my hard disc and repairing bad sectors and other softwares for optimizing the computer speed.
If you have more suggestions how to get the computer running faster I will gladly listen.

Regards,
Yair

 

[Zep]

1) Take a backup.

2) Take ANOTHER backup.

3) Defrag.

4) Defrag again.

5) Learn how to move your pagefile to another HDD.

6) Defrag again.


OR...

1) Take backups and test them until you are sure you can restore properly.

2) Zap your HDD, and reinstall Windows.

3) Move your pagefile to another HDD.

4) Reinstall all your software, including antivirus, etc.

5) When all working, defrag. Twice.


AND...

Virtual memory is like New Coke. The real thing is better...

 

[yairhol]

Defrag twice? I never heard that before but will try it.

Thanks

Regards,
Yair

 

[Segnosaur]

Defrag twice? I never heard that before but will try it.

Thanks

Regards,
Yair

Ummm... I could be wrong here, but I think the previous poster was being sarcastic when he suggested defragging twice. (Unless of course you're being sarcastic when you said you would actually try it.)

Defragging will help... not sure which version of windows you're running (or even if you're running Windows at all.) If you're running an earlier version of Windows you may have to boot into safe mode. (I tried defragmenting a Win98 PC disk once... it would get part way though and restart, because there were background jobs which updated the disk and caused enough disk changes that it had to restart the defrag again. Not sure of later versions of Windows have fixed this.)

A few other tips:
- Use Add/remove programs and remove anything you never use. Although usually this may be of limited benefit, sometimes they may be programs that load things into memory at boot time (slowing things down). Careful to only remove applications that you know are not of use
- Run MSConfig... look in the list of 'startup' tasks. You may find junk in there that is starting up that you don't need
- Some (free) programs to try:
* AVG anti-virus software (Note: in theory, having anti-virus software running all the time does take up resources; however, most people consider that worth the risk)
* Hijack This. Normally I use this when I'm trying to fix known problems. But, if you run it, you may see spy/ad ware that you didn't know existed
* I've never used Ad-aware, but I've heard some good things about it

 

[AgeGap]

Anyone else who just uses Ccleaner?

Other free programmes:
Spybot search and destroy,
Eraser,
Photofiltre and photoscape (GIMP tends to cause a crash),
Open office,
McAfee SiteAdvisor.

I get downloads from snapfiles.com but some prefer tucows.

 

[Yalius]

Back up your documents, reformat and reinstall (with a retail or OEM windows CD, not a "System Recovery Disk"). Nothing improves performance like a good clean install without foistware and trial software.

 

[voidx]

I'll put in a vote for CCleaner as well, good for removing temp files and unneeded install files etc.

Get Spybot Search & Destroy. Its good for spyware, but it you put it in advanced mode, it will let you see all the registry items and programs running on startup, with descriptions of what they are, and whether their needed or not.

HijackThis is good, but be careful with it, you really have to know how to use it. To get a good tutorial on using it Google:

hijackthis tutorial

And look at the castlecops.com site.

As mentioned, go through your Add / Remove programs and get rid of any old applications not needed.

 

[yairhol]

Very good suggestions everyone.
Thank you very much.
I am now in the process of scanning my HD with Spybot Search & Destroy.
There's also a software called SuperAntiSpyware which is recommended at www.spyware.org

Have you heard of it?

Regards,
Yair

 

[Zep]

No seriously, I did mean you should Defrag twice! No sarcasm. The reason is that after either a long period of usage, or a new install (or worse still, a system that has been used for ages and has never been defragged since install), most Windows system disks will be in a dreadfully fragmented state. So it will indeed take at least two passes of standard Windows Defrag to get an optimal result. Otherwise, for regular maintenance defrags (once a month or so), one pass is fine.

Win98 does indeed have that bad habit of restarting the defrag if something writes to the disk meanwhile. That is usually caused by the screensaver (turn it off), or antivirus (ditto, and disconnect from any network), or the job scheduler (stopping it will do). YMMV, of course. And Win98 will take FOREVER! (well, some hours) if the disk is badly fragmented initially - I usually leave them to run overnight in those cases. However the improvements for Win98 can be quite dramatic...

Plus all the other good stuff the other posters have mentioned!

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

I use AVG, ZoneAlarm Pro, CCleanear and Lavasofts' Ad-Aware. I also have Glary's Utilities for the times I want to check for registry issues and shortcuts.

Another thing you can do is get somethign to look through your fonts - I recommend LinoType's Font Explorer X.
Whatever's not in use by the system can be gone through and told to not load. Might free up some more time.

 

[yairhol]

People,
I've cleaned up my PC using the following (all are freeware):

DiskState (tells you exactly what's in your HDDs, which file is taking up most of the space and other stuff for information regarding this), SuperAnitSpyware (for spyware, adware), CCleaner (cleaning up the registry, cookies, startup programs, getting rid of unused files from previous softwares that I don't use anymore etc.), Defragmentation of HDDs, and getting rid of programs I did not need anymore.
Then I opened up the inside of the computer and cleaned it with pressured air and a spray for cleaning up the contacts of the solderings.

My computer is working twice as fast now and I recommend doing the above for everyone who wants a faster computer without spending any money.

Of course, thank you all for your great adivce. It helped me a lot.

Regards,
Yair

 

[Gaia]

People,
I've cleaned up my PC using the following (all are freeware):

DiskState (tells you exactly what's in your HDDs, which file is taking up most of the space and other stuff for information regarding this), SuperAnitSpyware (for spyware, adware), CCleaner (cleaning up the registry, cookies, startup programs, getting rid of unused files from previous softwares that I don't use anymore etc.), Defragmentation of HDDs, and getting rid of programs I did not need anymore.
Then I opened up the inside of the computer and cleaned it with pressured air and a spray for cleaning up the contacts of the solderings.

In addition to the freeware you and others have mentioned, WinPatrol is another good free program to use to see what applications are starting by themselves when you turn on your computer.

 

[Oroborus]

I like to use RegScrub now and again. It clears out registry entries that no longer have a function.