It's not that hard to do a tune-up yourself. Go to MS database and look it up. Basic Tune-Up, Dump The Temp Files, Cache, History, Scan The Drive for Error's, Then Defrag. Then Run Your Virus Protection. The Defrag helps make your computer run faster for the Folders and Files are in Order. Just like your fileing cabinet with all them I.R.S. papers all out of order and hard to find. And get your Porn on a External Drive Anyway, unplug and go or hide. It's EASY!! I don't let ANYONE NEAR MINE!!!! :glugglug:
To translate that:
Skip the MS database.
Open your internet browser and go to it's options. Dump the history and temporary internet files, keep the cookies.
Run your virus app if you want. Chances are it does that automatically upon startup.. upon file download and application/game installation.. etc etc. So it's optional. And boring.
Run a registry cleanup program. Acquaint yourself with what's running in windows at the moment. Do a control + ALT + DELete and check how many processes are running. Should be about 12-20 on any *healthy* machine. Hopefully less than 200 megs. There should be some SVCHOST.exe's... various obvious things. HP for HP printers, HP computers.. LexCheck for Lexmark printers.. you can use common sense for many of those. Explorer.exe is what you use primarily in windows. Dont shut that down. Find things that are running for no frickin' reason and configure them to NOT start up at windows boot. Examples: Yahoo, AOL instant messengers. RealPlayer, Java, Adobe auto-updaters. Is absolutely ANYONE concerned with having the latest version of these things? Hell no. Open up each one of those, go to their options and youll find obvious options for Auto-Startup, Start-at-windows-boot and always untick Check-for-updates-automatically. Except for Antivirus apps.
If you have a CD or DVD burner.. arrange whatever you've downloaded
(and want to save) into appropriate portions.. 698 megs, 4.3 gigs, etc. and burn them off the HD. This saves you time later when you defrag
(example: Why move 20 gigs of information around? Burn 8.6 AKA 2 DVD's and youll defrag.. and operate.. faster than just with huge chunks of data lingering and sorting around), and plus.. why have porn on the HD at all times, anyway? A CD/DVD hides easier than a whole computer.
Remember that game you installed way back when? Chances are the folder and savegame files still linger. Browse in your C:\Games and C:\Program Files\ folders for lingering data. Dont know what some of those folders are? Open 'em and see if you're using 'em. Empty? Delete the folder. Just have an UNINSTALL.isu? Delete the folder.
Go into *My Computer*. Right click on your hard drive. Click properties. (WinXP assumed) Untick the *Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching* box if it's ticked/checked. Nobody needs to search so often that it's necessary to use the indexing service. (extra CPU usage, extra disk hits, etc)
On that same window, click the *Tools* tab above for scandisk/*Check Now*. Run that.
One option down should be *Defragment Now*. Run that. It'll take a while. Go watch a movie.
Extra Options: Have a lotta system RAM? 2 gigs, 4 gigs or more? Unless you run the latest, absolute latest memory-gobbling video games.. you might wanna..
Goto the control panel. If you see *Switch to classic view* you should click that. Open up the *System* icon. Go over to advanced tab. Top button should be *Settings* under the performance..
box. Click it. Click Advanced tab while in there. See the bottom button, *Change*? If you're confident in your amount of system RAM.. you can give yourself a nice performance boost by turning off your paging file/clicking the No Paging File button and then clicking okay.
On same tab..Click disable error reporting. Unless you LIKE clicking okay every time something crashes. Or you feel like checking the accused memory address next time you're in the program and want to debug it.
Click the remote tab. Uncheck both of those. Chances are an antivirus app probably already did. But honestly there's no reason to enable another security hole and/or use more memory for a useless feature. When was the last time you called microsoft to have them access your system for their *restorative* purposes?
System Restore tab. Ever used a system restore point? Do you browse unsafely and often have to backtrack to a stable point? Then you should leave that setting alone. Buuut.. if you actually know what you're doing.. and you realize that a good reformat/reinstall takes only a half hour and works more wonders than any PC Health Check.. then you should turn it off. Saves disk space among other things. Overclockers.. alpha and unsupported drivers.. many things can jack your system up. So just learn about your system.
Knowledge is the ultimate prevention and repair of any computer problems.