Computer Cleanup ?

[grizzald]

Whats the best way for me to personally "clean out" my computer? What steps should be taken to speed it up and so on? Not sure if this topic really falls into entertainment but any help would be great!!

[Sandmannd]

What version of windows are you using? There are differant ways to clean it up depending on windows. Couple things you can do no matter what version is do run a disk defrag on the PC out of your system tools. Also, do a search for *.tmp files. You can get rid of these temp files. I also do run spybot and spywareblaster to keep a lot of [PoorWordUsage] off.

Are you just trying to free up space or do you have a virus?

You could also post this in the Equipment forum.

[tisosy11]

You could start from scratch and just revert the whole thing to as new...

There are numerous things you can do though. Difficult to explain on here.

Remove programs you are not using

performance and maintenance on your control panel?

[grizzald]

Im using the XP Home Edition. No virus just trying to speed it up.

[Sandmannd]

What speed PC do you have and how much RAM do you have it? Also how much Hard Drive space do you have open?

[JP Z]

Best thing is to get a couple of Spyware removers. They will tell you what is bogging you down. spybot search and destroy and Adaware personal edition free and a couple of the ones I use.

[DTro]

Couple of my favorite "maintenance" programs are.

PCdecrapifier and CC Cleaner.

Google for more info. Don't pay for them, they are free.

[Nick Kuhn]

dtro hit it on the nose CC cleaner will help a bit. In general though windows tends to accumulate a slowness as more and more registries are created on it. CC cleaner deletes some unused registries but it won't be the same as a fresh install.

If you built it yourself you could overclock, but that's an entirely different animal. Otherwise you can upgrade what you determine to be a system bottleneck if it really bothers you.