Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Things You’ll Need:
- Computer
- Internet Connection
Step1
Empty the recycle bin regularly
Empty the recycle bin. Freeing up space on your hard drive is an easy first step to speed up your computer.
Step2
Clean out the crap
Clean out the crap. Your temporary files, internet cache, and registry often become filled with unneeded files. Some expensive programs will do this for you. I use a free program called CCleaner.
Step3
Defragment Your Disks
Defragment your hard drive. In Windows, the built in utility should be sufficient. It is located in the accessories -> system tools folder from the start menu.
Step4
Delete unused programs. Those unused programs take up a lot of space, deleting them can speed things up.
Step5
Clean up the registry
Clean your registry. Doing this manually can break your computer unless you are an expert. Many programs will do the automatically, including CCleaner mentioned in step 2.
Step6
Clean out spyware. Nasty programs that are installed from the internet can seriously slow down your system. Free programs like AdAware will do this for you. In Windows Vista, Windows Defender will do this for you if enabled.
Step7
Windows Task Manager
Close programs that you do not use. Using the task manager, you can see a list of running programs. Some needed, many are not. Closing and deleting unneeded programs will free memory, and allow the programs you are using to run faster.