Restoring Computer speed for the computer illiterate?

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My year old computer is threatening its already short life with the anger it induces in me as it takes it's sweet effing time to do just about anything anymore. The guy who sold it to me (local custom computer building place in business for 15 years), claims that he moves all his data to an external, and reinstalls his OS about twice a year to keep his machines running at their peak.

This seems a little drastic for the casual user such as myself. Any software, or other techniques out there that could help restore the lightning quick operation of the machine I bought?

I do the basics like error checking, defragmentation, virus control, etc.

Thanks.
 
after running scans for viruses/spyware/adware and going through your list of installed programs to remove anything you dont need.
right on my computer select properties, advanced tab, under performance click settings, under the visual effects tab select adjust for best performance, you may want leave a few visual effects turned on, I usually leave: "show translucent selection rectangle, show window contents while dragging, and use common tasks in folders" this should speed things up a little.
you may want to remove some programs from your startup and system tray, there are many tutorials online for doing this.
reinstalling windows once a year or so does help and while its not completely necessary its usually easier than trying to remove every trace of the **** that's slowing your computer down/ messing it up.

EDIT: I assume your using windows XP but you didnt say specifically.
 
Add more RAM

If your running XP, turn off the themes, it gives your computer an older look, but seems to help alot.

Uninstall software that you don't use.
 
first go to control panal , add remove programs, find all the programs you dont want anymore right these down on paper. then go ahead and remove them . when your done exit control panal @click on start -run type in regedit in the top left find FIND and type in those programs that you deleted i guarantee it will come up, right click and delete it do this on everything you don't want this will help ..be careful doing this be sure it is not a windows system file.. windows stores all these files in here even though you thought you deleted them this is the only way to to totally rid them from your machine .. when your done restart pc run defragmenter restart pc and your pc should run better.........as far as pc s running slower that's a inherent disadvantage of windows OS and yes i also reformat me harddrive about every 6 months ....
 
Use a utility like ccleaner to clean up temp files and old useless reg entries.

Use msconfig to clean up your startup.

Remove unwanted apps.


Ram is almost free, doesn't really "solve" the problem but it does help.

Re-installing an OS that often is silly, doing that just indicates a lack of knowledge :/ .

Hard drive defrags are not going to help much, it's a good practice but people throw it around as a solution far too often. At best you'll get a slightly tangible speed increase, but I wouldn't even expect that. They teach you to tell people this in tech support because it takes a long time and gets you off the phone, not because it really works well.


switch to linux mint

If you don't NEED windows, this isn't actually too bad of an idea. Although it will be a bit of a learning experience, probably more than you want.

The biggest thing is cleaning up old/unused applications. I'm assuming that your PC (like most) has a ton of random utilities chugging along doing nothing 24/7 (scanner software and the like).
 
I reformat and reinstall Windows about once a year. There are a lot of other things you can do but that is the only way to restore your 'puter to pristine condition. And it is guaranteed to eliminate all spyware and viruses, etc.
 
I hate to agree, but yes, reinstalling is often the only/best option.

When just installing windoze it works fast as it should, but a few months down the road it starts to crawl.

What I do is make two partitions on the hard drive; the first one about 20 GB and the rest for the second one. Install windows on the first one and use the second for all your files; this way, when reinstalling you can just format the first partition and still keep your files intact on the second one
 
For a physical change, try cleaning out your computers heat exhaust system. I just opened my 2-3yr old Dell 1100 laptop. It was running warmer than usual and hence slower. Blew out a bunch of dust and reapplied heat sink compound. Now it is running cooler and faster.

Same principle applies to desktops. A good cleaning and tuning helps a bunch.

Googlez your make and model with phrases like "heatsink cleaning" "dust cleaning". You should find some good info.

Check to see if you have Software Explorer in your Control panel. I downloaded this tool from Windows for XP and it gives you the ability to disable specific programs from start up, such as Adobe, Quicktime, Itunes, ... Things you don't normal use on a daily basis, but sap processing power and memory while running in the back ground.

Good luck.
 
For a physical change, try cleaning out your computers heat exhaust system. I just opened my 2-3yr old Dell 1100 laptop. It was running warmer than usual and hence slower. Blew out a bunch of dust and reapplied heat sink compound. Now it is running cooler and faster.

Heat has nothing to do with speed. Generally speaking hardware will work until it gets to hot and then just give out. It's a good idea to clean, but don't expect anything except a longer life out of your hardware.

Check to see if you have Software Explorer in your Control panel. I downloaded this tool from Windows for XP and it gives you the ability to disable specific programs from start up, such as Adobe, Quicktime, Itunes, ... Things you don't normal use on a daily basis, but sap processing power and memory while running in the back ground.

Definitely kill these, although you don't really need to use a tool. msconfig works great and is simple. Windows defender seems to cause more problems than it is worth.
 
could always buy a mac...
a more constructive suggestion... when you re-install your machine, make sure to set your documents folder etc. etc. all the "personal stuff" that doesn't come on the installer disk (pictures of ihazcheezburger cat) to an external drive or a separate partition so when you have to do this again 6 months down the line... you will have a minimal impact on your work flow. I used to be in the habit of rebuilding my os every 6 or so months just for house keeping... then i got a mac...
 
Generally I start by running Disk Cleanup, then Spybot & Adaware and finally Regclean. Defragging your HDD is another good one up to XP but Vista does it automatically when the PC is idle.
 
One more note -- now is a good opportunity to make a good backup of your files, as nagging slowness sometimes is not an OS issue, but instead an early sign of a hard drive that is beginning to fail.

But, yeah, I use Win XP on my main home workstation, and I reinstall every 6 months for the exact same reason you mention. I just store all of my documents on an external HD to speed up the reinstall process.
 
I just upgraded my Fedora 9 to Fedora 10 yesterday.
That was from a Fedora 7-8-9 upgrade. Never had a virus, performance always rocks. I think I have booted up into my Vista install twice.
Do I really need to say that M$ Windows sucks.
 
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