How to Make Your Computer Clean and Efficient

Have you ever noticed that your computer is starting to slow down compared to when you first got it and the things you used to do in a flash as now becoming a nuisance? Well a computer is like a child, it likes to make messes but it will never clean up after itself. What you as the computer user has to do is tell your computer to clean up its mess. The good thing about a computer is that it will never argue with you when you ask.

There are only two easy steps to cleaning your computer, and they are:

1) Throwing out the garbage: When I say garbage I mean your temporary files, these are the files that are made when you do everyday surfing on the web or when something is installed. They are made so that everything will run more smoothly and faster since it already has the files on the hard drive, ironically if you have too many than it can drastically reduce the speed and efficiency of your computer.

How to clean:

To clean the garbage click on the start button on the lower left corner of your computer then go to all programs > accessories > system tools > disk cleanup

It should load then a screen will come up with a check list. Check all except Hibernation File Cleaner if you use the hibernation function of your computer. Click ok and all the junk on your computer will be deleted.

Now that all the garbage is cleaned out, it's on to the next step, organizing your files.

2) Organizing the hard drive: When I say organizing I don't mean putting all your video files into a folder titled videos. What I mean is organizing the little bits of information that you have accumulated over time by installs, downloads and surfing the web. What happens is your hard drive will record the information in which ever order it gets the information. For example, say you are installing a program and surfing the net at the same time, the information from both of them will be mixed together like a smoothy. That will make it harder for your hard drive to find the information that you are asking for when you play a song or open up a webpage. So to clean the mess you will have to do what is called a defragmentation on your hard drive. To do this, just follow the steps.

How to Defrag:

!! Warning: this may take a few hours!!

!! I suggest leaving it overnight!!

To defrag click the start button on the lower left corner of your computer then go to all programs > accessories > system tools > disk defragmenter

Please close all running programs before you start a defragmentation.

Then click on defragment now and select all drives. After it is complete you will have a cleaner faster more efficient computer.