We see some pros and cons with this. First is that we all would love a computer that takes care of itself and has no issues. We don’t need to do anything to it the computer just always works and is as fast as it possibly can be all by itself. It’s a great idea. The reality of it is that with Vista we are getting closer and closer to that but we still don’t have a 100% efficiency yet. Most computers that you get new we have found have schedules set to run at like 3:00am or 5:00am and have had the “or next turn on” option turned off. This is counterproductive to keeping your computer from being a slow computer. This is why as a computer user, it is a good idea to know how to do your own maintenance just to make sure either your computer is taking care of itself or know that you need to run a few scans to keep up on it. We recommend doing the basic steps 1-3 at least every month to two months. After all we need to keep our computer from becoming the all known slow computer we will soon get frustrated with.

Well what should you do? What do you do when you need help and have a slow computer? What possibly could you do yourself without paying someone $50-$100 just to look at it? After all this is what computers are made for right? They are made for you to use as a tool to do sometimes complex and sometime simple computing. What good is a computer going to do you if it stops doing simple functions? Or what if takes so long to do a function that your frustration isn’t worth using your computer at all? Well there are some things that you as a computer user can do to prevent these future problems from happening. In this site we will show you some ways and some simple commands that you can follow to make sure that your computer is running top notch and will not slow down from its original performance. We will provide easy step-by-step guides to help you in organizing your computer to make your computer suitable for your needs. Our team will start posting on different basics that you can do to help free your slow computer and keep it running at the most efficient level possible. All of these tools are starting points to help you become knowledgeable and understand your computer system and its capabilities. Many of these tools are built within your operating system and you just need to know how to use them.

STEP 1: Now that we have a general background of what is on our computers we need to clean it up. One of the most powerful tools that we have at our disposal is the add remove programs. We would recommend especially to people that have just purchased a new computer the first thing we would do is take the time and go to this tool and get rid of trial programs or programs you know you will not ever use. It is beneficial to you to remove the stuff you don’t need properly. You can find this tool by following the commands:

Click START  – Click Control Panel – Program and Features

This will give you a list of the software that is installed on your computer. We would recommend that you scroll through these and anything that you see that is a 30 day trial or something that you have no interest in using remove. CAUTION: If you do not know what a program is or what it does do not remove it! We would recommend doing some research on the software if you are not sure what it is for or what it does. When you find software that you do not need click on it and Click Uninstall. This is the button right at the top tool bar next to organize, views, change and repair. Then follow the directions from there. This is one way of removing software properly and will help organize and remove software you do not need freeing up your computers resources.

Step 2: The first thing that we like to do and advice people is that you need to make sure your Recycle Bin is empty. You can do this by clicking on it on your desk top and clicking Empty the Recycle Bin. You will be prompted are you sure you want to permanently delete this and click Yes.
Now you are ready to defragment and put a stop to your slow computer. You can do this by these commands:

Click Start – Computer – *Right Click on Local Disk (C:) – Properties – Click on Tool Tab – Click Defragment Now

This sometimes can take 30 minutes to hours. It just depends on how bad your computer needs to be optimized. Click defragment and let it run.

*Important: Depending on how many hard drives you have on your computer they may be named something different or have another letter (D:), (F:), (G:), ect.

Step3: There are a couple of ways to access this specific folder and to remove programs from this startup list. It is important to know that this will not remove the program from your computer it will just remove it from the list the computer uses to pre-start it. We will show you the two easiest ways to do this. For the first way to do this please follow the command:

Click Start – Click All Programs (wait for them to populate) – Find the folder that is called Startup

Ounce you have found this folder you can Right Click the programs in it and click delete. Do this until the Startup folder is empty. If it already says empty that is exactly what we want to see.

The second way to do this is a little bit more involved but it is what most people use when they are optimizing the performance of their computers.

Click Start- in Start Search type in Run – Click on Run – Next to open type msconfig

This will open your system configuration and you can click on the Startup Tab. Now you have a list of the programs that are starting when you turn on your computer. Uncheck the box next to the program so it will not start up when windows starts and click ok. Caution: Again if you do not know what the program does or is do some research before taking it off the list. The good thing is that you cannot do much harm hear. If something is not right you can always go back and undo what you did and re-check the box. This is a great simple way to avoid a slow computer.