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Computer Maintenance
Computer maintenance is done every month at least once a month more often if you use office software, and add and remove software and files often. Scandisk can be done once a week if necessary. It helps to cut down on some error messages for some computer owners. keep a eye out on the amount of space left on your hard drive. letting it get below 25% of space left can cause problems. Others are good till they get down to the 10% mark. Disk cleanup is no different than keeping a clean home. Use this as often as you want too. All of this maintenance will help your computer to have a longer life span. It will keep your computer from having to work overtime. A computer that is well maintained will last longer than one that is neglected.
Cleanup:
Please remove all unneeded software and files from your computer. To remove
software go to "Start" then "settings" then "control panel" find the "add
and remove icon" double click then after it generates the list of software
go through them and see what if any you can do without highlight to get the
info on when last used to the right and click on the remove button if you
feel you can live without the software. Please don't remove Norton
Anti-virus this way, or their Security suite. Use Norton's own uninstaller
to remove their software. Incase you get a warning about shared files. Don't
remove any files that are shared.
Disk Cleanup:
The Disk Cleanup tool is found by clicking "Start", pointing to All
"Programs", then "Accessories", then "System Tools", and then clicking "Disk
Cleanup". select from the window display what you want it to clean up.
Untick those you want left alone. Our page for disk cleanup
scandisk / checkdisk:
In Windows 98/ME edition it is located in Start > All Programs > Accessories
> System Tools > "scandisk" > "Select all Options", > "Start".
In XP:
Option 1. Start, right-click "My Computer", "Manage", "Storage", "Disk
Management", right-click the Volume, "Properties", "Tools tab", "Check
Now"..., Select all Options, Start.
Option 2. Double-click "My computer" on the Desktop (or Start, My
Computer), select drive, right click "Properties", "Tools tab", Check
Now..., Select all Options, Start.
Option 3. "My Computer", right-click the drive, "Properties", "Tools
tab", Check Now..., Select all Options, Start.
You may be prompted to restart Windows before it will run.
Option 4. If the above does not work try this:
Hit Start -> Run -> Type the following:
chkdsk /f /r /x
Hit enter. Reboot the computer like normal (start then turn off computer
then restart/reboot)
"When Windows comes back up, Windows XP will prompt you to do a
scan...hit nothing when it prompts you *leave keyboard and mouse
alone* after waiting a couple of seconds the computer start its scan."
Extra information about the above commands... type the entire thing in
as wrote above:
/f means to fix errors on the disk
/r means to attempt to fix and recover bad sectors
/x means to have the computer give the disk checker direct access.
Defrag:
close all other programs and turn off your screen saver. Log off the
internet then right click your firewall and antivirus icons in the tray
beside your clock and select the shutdown on each. Be sure to close all
programs that run automatically in the background, as an example; windows
messenger, real player software etc. These will often interrupt the
defragging process. Microsoft claims you can use your computer while it
defrags. This makes no sense to me if you are writing to disk. So I advise
you to do nothing while the defrag is running. Go shopping, visit the
friends or family, or clean house, or grab some coffee/tea and watch some
TV.
Double click on "My Computer".
Right Click on the C: Drive and choose "Properties".
Choose the "Tools tab".
Select the "Defragment now" Button
or Click the Defragment button
I never select the analyze button. I found out that Windows will let the
fragmented files get pretty bad before it will say you need to defrag. So
skip this option and defrag because it's been a month and you have used your
computer quite a bit, and possibly removed and added software. Keep in mind
that Windows 2000 and XP is a network operating system and that if you are a
user using Windows 2000 or XP on a network you may need to have Admin
privileges in order to run the maintenance tools on XP. The same goes for
each user on a computer if they are set up with restrictions, or set up as a
certain type of user. Some ADMIN don't restrict the users this way. others
have to be ADMIN in order to run any type of tools on the box.
Note: A minimum of 15 percent free space on your hard disk is needed for
Disk Defragmenter to run. This is yet another argument in favor of frequent
and aggressive use of the Disk Cleanup tool. Plus cleaning your computer of
all unnecessary software and files.
Computer maintenance is done at least once a month if you use your computer
regularly. If you have a week of aggressively adding of new software and
removing it then you will be better off doing the computer maintenance
afterwards too. When your box becomes 75% full you will have to be very
aggressive with this. Especially the removing of unnecessary software.
Areas to check often are music files that you may have doubles of, text
files, and office files that are out dated. If you are blessed with a cd
burner I suggest you burn as much of these as possible to a disk, and then
remove the files from your computer. This is specially true if your running
out of space.
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