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STOP!! Don’t Buy a New Computer Yet…7 Easy Steps to Increasing Your Computers Performance
How Would you like your computer to run as fast as it did the very first day you brought it home? We’ve created these easy to follow step by step recommendations that will get your computer running efficient again. Through out this tutorial you will learn basic system maintenance tasks, how to clean and edit your windows registry, boost internet explorer’s performance, and optimize your system. If at any time you feel these tasks are overwhelming or time consuming then skip ahead to Chapter 5. We have provided links to the most reputable yet affordable all in one software options that are capable of completing
these tasks for you.
We accept no responsibility for what our steps will do to your computer or operating system. Before trying these options you possibly considering having these done by a computer professional.
Here’s 7 Steps to make it easy:
STEP 1: Removing unnecessary files and programs.
STEP 2: Taking Out the Trash.
STEP 3: Increasing Your Performance with System optimization and tweaks that Boost Your Computer Performance
STEP 4: The Windows Registry Housekeeping – How to keep your Windows Registry Error Free
STEP 5: Basic system hardware maintenance tasks.
STEP 6: Internet Explorer – Tips and tricks to boost Internet Explorer’s performance
STEP 7: All in one utilities/software for System maintenance, Registry Cleaning and Optimization to Make Your Computer Work Again
STEP 1: System Maintenance
Don’t be scammed you don’t need a super fast processor and tons of memory/RAM to surf the internet and do word processing. A properly maintainenced, but out dated system, will most always out perform a newer more modern system that is not properly maintained. Not knowing how to take care of your computer eventual leads to buying a 
new expensvie computer when it is likely not necessary. We hight suggest that you invest either your time in learning how to maintain your system or your money in purchasing software to do the job for you. (See STEP7)
So start with cleaning out the start up folder. Far to often there are to many programs loading at start up and is one of the most common causes of poor computer performance. Learn how to control what software is running on your computer behind the scenes.
Here is one of the places that control what programs load at start up. In your Start Menu select Programs then Start up. Now Right Click and Delete each short cut.
Keep unnecessary services from loading at Start up in the services control panel dictates what services load at start up. Some services are required for Windows to run while others are 3rd party applications that are not. Hop on over to your computer Control Panel, Select Administrative Tools now click on Services This is a complete list of all your services. Some are set to manual while others are automatic. You can change the start up type from automatic to manual by right clicking on an entry and choosing Properties. Look for a text box label StartUp Type. You can stop, start, disable or change the service from automatically loading to manually loading. In most cases you won’t need to do much of anything here, but it doesn’t hurt to pay services a visit once in a while. You might find some unneeded items running and shut them down. Every little bit helps. Read the description carefully before doing any modifications though. If you are not sure what the service is leave it alone.
There is one more place I like to check for start up items and that is the Windows Registry. We will cover this topic in the STEP 4.
STEP 2 – Removing unnecessary files and programs.
Now remove old programs, the simple fact is the more programs you have installed on your computer the worse your computer will run. Programs take up space on your hard drive and make changes to your operating system for better or for worse. It makes no sense to have applications installed on your computer that aren’t serving a purpose. So if you are not using them get rid of them. Here’s how: Open your Control Panel and click on Add/Remove Programs or Programs and Features if you are a Vista/Windows7 user. Uninstall all the programs you are not using.
Life is busy enough and this book is all about doing things the easy way. With that in mind let me introduce you to Disk Clean up. In MyComputer right click on your C drive and select Properties. Now select Disk Clean up then the drive you would like to clean. Disk Clean up removes temp files, Downloaded program files as well as optional components you are not using, and even empties your recycle bin. To start Disk Clean up just click OK. Running Disk Clean up this is very easy. Don’t skip this one.
Over time data stored on your hard drive gets scattered around. Windows needs a continuous block of free space to store data for fast access or in other words to cache from. You most likely noticed Disk Defrag in the same window as Scan Disk. Scan disk-Scan disk will find and repair data errors on your hard drive. Make sure to close all programs before starting. Right click on your C drive icon in My Computer and select tools. Click on check now. You can also go to Start then All Programs
from the programs menu. Look for Accessories then System Tools. You’ll find the Scan Disk option there also. Again make sure to close all programs before starting I recommend running Scan Disk and Disk Defrag at least every other month.
STEP 3 -Increasing Your Performance with System optimization and tweaks for Windows Vista/XP/Windows7
Ask yourself this question…Do I want my computer to look great or run great. Turn off Visual Effects (Vista)/Windows7 Visual effects can really bog down your system and it’s not like you can’t change it back if you don’t notice a difference. Open Performance Information and Tools in your Control Panel and then click on Adjust visual effects. Now select adjust for best performance. Adjusting for best performance in Windows XP-Click Start then Right click on My Computer select Properties then Advanced. Under performance click on the Setting buttons. Select the option to Adjust for best performance.
Make sure you have up to date drivers for your hardware. A driver is a software program that interfaces between your hardware and Windows. A bad or outdated driver can really slow you down. It’s kind of like running your car with a clogged or dirty air filter. It might run, but not a peak performance. Find out what model of driver you have by Right Clicking on My Computer and selecting Device manager. Next find and open the device you are interested in. This should tell you the Brand and model name of your hardware. Visit your manufactures web site and download their latest drivers. If you need help try using Driver Robot. Driver Robot software is designed to quickly locate the most current drivers specific to your computer system. Download Driver Robot.
STEP 4- Cleanup the Registry
The Windows Registry
is the place where all your computers configuration settings is stored. The Registry is huge because every setting from the background of your desktop all and all the way to what programs load when your computer starts are stored there. The registry accounts for it all. Every time you install a new program it makes changes to your Windows Registry. The longer you have your computer the size of your registry grows and the bigger your registry is the slower your system will run. It pays to thin it out a now and then by deleting unnecessary garbage and defragmenting it (See Chapter 3 for defragging). It is also important to keep your Windows registry error free. Errors in your registry can cause your system to crash. Because of its size finding and eliminate all these items by hand can be a daunting task. This is why I strongly recommend you invest in a Registry Repair Tool (See Step7). With that said I still think it is very important to have some basic knowledge on how to navigate and edit your Windows Registry.
Always create a system restore point before making any attempts to edit your Windows Registry. Creating a System Restore Point-Windows Vista Users Right Click on My Computer and select Properties. NowClick on System Protection in the tasks menu. Click the Create button Creating System Restore Point-Windows XP Users Find help and support in your start menu and type: system restore wizard. Find and run the system restore wizard under run tasks. From here it’s the same process as Vista. Exporting your Windows Registry ( all versions).
Follow these steps for every version of Windows:
- Click start then run (search in Vista)
- Type in regedit
- Now select file then export
- Name your file appropriately and save
Now you have a system restore point as well as a copy of your registry.
If for some reason you delete or edit the wrong key you can simply repeat the exporting process But select import instead. In case importing the registry file doesn’t work you can always revert to the system restore point.
Removing start-up items from your Windows Registry
Open the registry editor. Click Start then Run (search in Vista) type in Regedit Open hkey_local_machine by clicking the plus sign or triangle.
You should see several folders drop down. We are looking for the Software Key. Locate the software key and open it. Now you will see a huge list of folders drop down. Open the Microsoft folder .In the 
Microsoft folder find Win-dows. In the Windows Folder find Current Version. After opening Current Version find and highlight Run. It’s very important to make sure you are in the right key because at this point we are going to start making some changes. Look at the contents in the right pane. It shows a column for Name, Type, and Data. If you need to expand the name column click on the divider and hold while pulling it to the right. From here just highlight the entry and simple press delete. You may want to keep programs such as Virus protections, firewall, and other vital software running so choose carefully. Most of the time there is quite a bit of junk you don’t need in here so cleaning this key out most always significantly boosts performance. Check the Run Once key as well. Once you are done just close the registry editor. These changes will take affect after a reboot. Removing Start up Items from Hkey_Current_User
Using the same process as before; Run Regdit, Open Hkey_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Run Don’t forget the Run Once Key if applicable.
Removing Items from Context Menu:
- Run Regedit
- Open hkey_Classes_Root\Folder\Shellex\ContextMenuHandlers
- Too many programs will bog down your system
- Delete the folders of the programs your rarely use
Depending on how many you delete you may experience a performance boost.
Using the Search Function to Delete Keys
Not all programs are responsible and clean up after themselves when you uninstall them. You can use the search function to find and delete these unnecessary registry entries. This process is tedious and can be done a lot quicker and safer with a Registry Cleaner (I will cover Registry Cleanersin Chapter 5.) but I do still think it is good to know how to use the search function. So let’s do a test run. Run Regedit. Make sure you are highlighting Computer otherwise your search will be confined to the key you have selected. Now click on Edit then Find and type in Microsoft as your search term. You will be directed to the first Microsoft entry in the registry. Press F3 to continue searching. This is a good exercise in learning how to find all entries related to a specific program and deleting them in the most efficient way.
STEP 5 – Basic system hardware maintenance tasks
You can Upgrade your memory RAM pretty expensively. Now days if you have less that 2 GB of memory we suggest you make the small investment and buy more memory Memory is cheap and easy to install and can make a monumental difference. To find out how much memory you have Right Click on My Computer and choose Proper-ties. Here’s our favorite. If you don’t want to open your computer to add memory, if you run Windows7 you can use a feature called Speed Boost if you have an SD card slot on your computer/laptop. Grab a 4GB or 8GB SD card ($15 to $30 or so), pop it in the SD card slot. Windows will bring up a Window asking how you want to use the new memory. I believe the last choice on the list is Speed Boost. Choose Speed Boost, and you computer might run like new. I know I bought at least an extra year out of my current laptop this way.
Upgrade your hard drive-Open My Computer and right click on your C drive icon. If you don’t have at least a couple of Gigs of free space you might want to invest in a new hard drive, or clean some stuff the current one then run the disc cleanup utilities above.
STEP 6-Internet Explorer – Tips and tricks to boost Internet Explorer’s performance.
Start with the simple. Run Disk Clean up-Disk Clean up will remove internet temporary files, downloaded program files, and offline web pages. If you need help running Disk Clean Up visit Step 2.
Next clean out your browser History. Open up Internet Explorer and select the menu option Tools then Internet Options. Depending on your version of Windows will depend on where the option to clean out your History file will be located.
You should update your Internet Explorer to the Latest Version. An upgraded version of Internet Explorer will have fixes and new features that should improve Internet Explorer’s performance. We have seen a big difference between Internet Explorer 7 and 8. You can find it for free at Microsoft.com. You can also find out which version you are running by selecting Help then About. If you are running the latest version then check for updates by selecting Tools then Windows Update.
Here are some tweaks for Your Internet Explorer. Try this performance tweak for Windows XP, Vista or Windwos7. Select Start then Run (Search in Vista), or Windows Button and letter R at same time, and in the run box type in CMD. Now hit OK You will get a black dos screen. Type in this command: regsvr32 actxprxy.dll and hit Enter Changes will be effective after a restart.
Last but certainly not least are viruses and spyware. Spyware is the #1 cause of slow internet performance. If you have spyware software make sure to keep it up to date and scan your system at least once a month or even better daily. Make sure your software is capable of removing adware, pop-up generators, keyloggers, Trojans and hijackers. We use Trend Micro, and knock on wood, have not had many issues in a few years. Of course this is highly dependent on the places you frequent on the internet.
STEP 7 – The Software solution
All in one utilities for System maintenance, Registry Cleaning and Optimization
RegistryFix
RegistryFix.com has sold over 13 Million downloads and for many good reasons. It is the must sophisticated Registry Repair tool out there but very easy to use. RegistryFix will scan your system registry and hard drive for invalid file and system references. These invalid references may cause system instability, PC errors, constant crashes, and general system slowdowns.
XCOM Tools
With XcomTools you can safely clean, fix Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP registry errors and speed up your PCs with one click. Fixing Windows registry is an effective way to avoid blue screen of death, fix system slowdowns, stop error messages and speed up slow PC. By regularly using XcomTools
to fix Windows registry errors your computer will run faster and more stable and the PC performance will be improved.
The Windows Database contains a vast amount of information about your computer, with details on every setting, option, control, and operation. SpeedyPC scours the Windows Database for waste and junk files, clearing them out of the way so that your computer runs faster. SpeedyPC addresses common problem areas such as DLL files, fonts, start up, file associations, uninstalls, and more. SpeedyPc has a fully functional back up and restore option. SpeedyPC is a easy way to get your computer running great and keeping it running great. Compatible with Win98, ME 2K,XP and Vista.
Registry Easy
This piece of software will find and repair problems in your Windows Registry, Clean up evidence from your web browser, Clean out trash files and optimize your system in just a few mouse clicks. I like Registry Easy because it saves me a ton of time and I can always see a difference in performance after I have used it. Optimize system is a wonderful tool to close down some of the extra services you don’t need. You will also find an Optimize Internet option which provides a very quick way to boost your internet speed. Memory tweak will optimize your system memory giving your desktop application a speed boost. You can also solve issues with Internet Explorer and back up your Windows Registry. This tool gives you a lot of bang for your buck.
Note: You may need to disable your smart screen filter. To do so select the Tools drop down menu in Internet Explorer then select smart screen
filter
We conclude by thanking Free-Ebooks.net for some of the content in this article. Here is a nice FREE eBook called “Increasing Your Commputers Performance the Easy Way”, which has many of he same tips and techniques referenced. We hope we’ve given your old computer new life. Keep in mind in case your computer does blow up, read our reviews on Online Computer Backup and How to choose an Online Backup Service that is right for you.