Best Ways to Maintain Your Computer, Part 1

You know, I get questions often from you readers asking what can I do to keep my computer running smoothly. So, today we start looking at things you can do to maintain your computer system.

I hear, “My computer is slowing down since I got it. What should I do to speed it up?” Here are some things you can do.

Have you rebooted your computer lately? If not, do so? Make sure that Windows has been totally updated. Click on the start menu and type, “Check for updates,” click it, and let it run. Choose all available updates and reboot afterward or when told to by Windows. Update your regular applications. I suggest downloading the free Home Updater from “Patch My PC” at ghtech.site/patch for this purpose.

Run your antivirus app, making sure it is updated. If it finds problems, remove them. Then, as I often suggest, install the free version of Malwarebytes at ghtech.site/Malwarebytes. Download it, install it, and run it and see what can be removed.

A crowded hard drive is often at fault so, uninstall programs that you no longer use. Do you have a bazillion pictures gathered on your C: drive? If so, delete the blurred, boring, or unneeded ones. Store the rest online, keeping in mind that photos are large files and need lots of room. You may want to get one or more free storage services or pay for one large area all alone. Also, for a large multitude of files, an external hard drive is not a bad onetime investment.

You may really want to explore using external devices such as flash drives (256GB at Amazon, ghtech.site/256) and external hard drives (1TB drives at Amazon, ghtech.site/1tb). These devices provide an huge amount of storage space for your data and they are easy to carry around with you in case you need to access it from another device. External hard drives also come with backup software, so if anything happens on your computer, your data should still be safe on the external hard drive.

After the above is completed, do a fresh reboot/restart of your computer. Then click on the start menu and type, “PC,” then select either “My PC” “Your PC” (“This PC” for Windows 11) or whatever similar shows up. Then right click on your C: Drive and at the bottom select Properties. Now, select, “Disk Cleanup.” A quicker way to get there is by pressing the “Windows menu key + R” simultaneously, then type, “cleanmgr,” choose your C: drive, if not already selected, then press OK. After it finishes running, click the button on the lower-left area reading, “Clean up system files.” Choose C: again, if needed, and let it run. These steps could take anywhere from 2 minutes to over an hour depending on how long ago, and if, it was run before.

When it finishes, check all the boxes on the left unless there is something you do not want cleaned. Some people use their Recycle Bin for storage and do not clean it, which is not recommended as one day it could vanish. This will delete the excess unneeded files from your computer. It could give you lots of fresh space. It will not harm any other files or programs. (See the graphic below for more detail.)

I originally thought this would be a single column; however, I just realized I will be back with more tips for maintaining your computer next week. See you then.