Make your computer to perform run better and faster

As someone who's taught computers and business, I'll give you some great advice to making your computer run even better and faster.

Step1

Clean out temporary files

Whenever you surf the Internet, there are tons of files that are downloaded behind the scenes onto your computer. These can really mount up and slow things down! So I suggest you clean these files out and remove them. Fortunately, Windows has a neat little utility program that will do this for you.

a) Click on the Start menu
b) Click on Programs
c) Click on Accessories
d) Click on System Tools
e) Click on Disk Cleanup

A dialog box will open with several boxes that will be checked. Make sure the one that says Temporary Internet Files is checked! If not, click your mouse in that box until you see a checkmark. Then click OK.

FYI: The dialog screen will show you how much space you'll regain after those files are removed. And depending upon what you've been doing, it can be quite a lot!

I suggest you run this every time you surf the Internet and are done. That's when most of those "hidden" files will download and take up space on your machine.

Step2

** Organize desktop icons **

One thing I used to tell my computer students is this. When you have tons and tons of icons all over your desktop, Windows will eventually begin to lose track. And this can slow down your machine! Most are shocked and amazed when they hear this because they didn't know. Now you do!

So try to minimize how many icons you have on your desktop. For example, with my dad's computer, I moved some into folders on the desktop. This way, he stll had access to what he wanted. And the number of icons on the actual desktop was reduced.

A good suggestion is this. Any icons you don't or rarely use can be put into a folder called Misc or Miscellaneous. This way, you're not deleting them. You're merely moving them into a folder that you can access whenever you need to.

TIP: A good way to know when you really need to do this is when you see icons changing their appearance when Windows loads or shuts down. That's because Windows is beginning to lose track of them and eventually will.

Step3

Watch hard drive space

One of the most common ways people get their computers to slow down is when you begin to run low on hard drive space. So what's the problem? The problem is Windows really needs more available space in order to run more efficiently. And when that extra space isn't there, performance suffers!

FYI: This also applies to removable drives like flashdrives!

For example, if you have a 2 gig flashdrive and there's only 3 megs left, you may see it taking longer to load and access files. That's because Windows says there's not a lot of room left.

I suggest you remove files and programs you really don't need or rarely use. You can also compress various files and folders in order to conserve space.

FYI: In general, games can very easily fill up space! Many people have lots of games on their machines. And these games today can be very large in terms of how much space they require. So if you have a lot of games on there, make sure you have enough room left to keep your machine running faster and better.

TIP: A general rule I like to suggest is this. Whenever your free space gets to 10% or less of your total hard drive size, that's when performance will often really begin to suffer.