NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article, January 2009
Basic Maintenance for that New Computer
By Ira Wilsker, APCUG Director;
Columnist, The Examiner, Beaumont, TX; Radio & TV Show Host

Iwilsker@apcug.net
(click to email author)

WEBSITES:
http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html
http://www.ccleaner.com
http://www.pcdecrapifier.com
http://www.iobit.com
http://www.safer-networking.org
http://www.wisecleaner.com
http://www.malwarebytes.org

Computers were a popular gift this holiday season, whether purchased for another, or as a gift to one’s self. Right out of the box a new desktop or laptop (notebook) computer will run just fine, as the manufacturer designed it to run. Just like a new car, a new computer requires some periodic maintenance to keep it running like new. Also, just like a new car, some tweaks can possibly improve its performance as well. List like a car, ignore the maintenance and there will likely be trouble down the road.

Some of the simple tasks that need to be performed periodically on that new (or old) desktop or laptop are deleting old and obsolete files, “defragging” the hard drive to improve performance, periodically reviewing and editing items that load when the computer starts or “boots up”, and removing useless and unwanted programs that have been installed by the manufacturer as “trial” versions. While some of these tasks can be performed by utilities built into most modern versions of Windows, as is common, many of these tasks can be better and more efficiently performed by third party software. Third party software that can perform these tasks can either be commercial and purchased from local stores or online, or some titles may be available for free download, and are referred to as “freeware”.

When brand new, before the computer is even turned on the first time by its owner, the hard drive in the computer is typically well organized, with the operating system (Windows) and installed program files sitting neatly and orderly on the hard drive. This sense of order makes it relatively quick and easy to load programs, as they sit in adjacent parts on the hard drive, and can be quickly read with a minimum of mechanical effort. As the computer is used, and the hard drive reads and writes large amounts of data, some of this sense of order on the hard drive is lost, and the data and files become fragmented, or scattered around the hard drive, making programs slow to read and load. The more fragmented the information on the hard drive, the harder and slower the drive functions, leading to a noticeable degradation in performance. Unless the hard drive is periodically “defragged”, the colloquial term for defragmenting, the performance of the hard drive will continue to deteriorate. Recent versions of Windows offer a basic tool to defragment the hard drive, but it only performs basic and minimally adequate defragmentation. In XP for example, opening Windows Explorer (the file manager), and right clicking the mouse on the words “Drive C” will open a window; then click on “Properties” and then “Tools” will display the hard drive maintenance tools built into XP, including the disk defragmenting utility. Alternatively, the user can click on START – ALL PROGRAMS – ACCESSORIES – SYSTEM TOOLS – DISK DEFRAGMENTER and then “Defragment Now”. Depending on the size of the hard drive, its native speed, and how much information is on the hard drive, the defragmentation process may take anywhere from several minutes to several hours.

The defragmenting utility built into Windows is just a basic utility, and lacks the speed and power of some of the third party utilities. One that I have used, which is acclaimed by several computer publications, and available as a free download is IObit’s Smart Defrag, which can be downloaded at http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html. Smart Defrag is free for both personal and business use, and does a faster and better job than Microsoft’s integral product.

Windows leaves a lot of clutter on the hard drive that devours hard drive space, eating away at the capacity of the hard drive. One of the best free hard drive cleaning utilities, which deletes useless and obsolete files from the hard drive, and that has won wide acclaim by the computer press is CCleaner. This program has been downloaded millions of times, and is available for free at http://www.ccleaner.com. CCleaner has other integral functions, but it is best known for its ability to remove clutter. It is not unusual for a first run to delete hundreds of megs of useless information from the hard drive, freeing up valuable hard drive space.

Another waste of hard drive space is the trial software and advertising installed on a new computer by the manufacturer, referred to in the industry as “bloatware”. The manufacturers are actually paid a fee to place this material on a new computer, and sometimes receive commissions for the purchase of the listed items. One major computer manufacturer charges an additional $50 to get a computer without this software installed, supposedly to make up for the loss in advertising revenue. Another major manufacturer has argued that without this on-computer advertising revenue, computers would be more expensive to purchase, as the advertising subsidizes the cost of the computer. It is a time consuming task to identify and remove this frequently unwanted software, but there is a free product on the web that has a nasty name, but does a fine job of removing it. The program is PC Decrapifier, and available for free download at http://www.pcdecrapifier.com.

When a computer is turned on or booted, in addition to the operating system, a number of programs are also loaded. These programs take time to load, and consume system resources, which eventually slows the computer. Windows has a utility to control which programs load at startup, but it lacks information on the programs, and is not intuitive to use. There are several third party utilities, both commercial and freeware, which are generically referred to as “Startup Managers” which ease this function, and labels which programs are necessary and which are not. By simply unchecking a box adjacent to the unwanted programs (and maybe clicking on “apply” or “ok”), they will not load at the next boot, thus improving performance. Some free utilities that have a startup manager are the CCleaner mentioned above (click on TOOLS – STARTUP), and IObit’s Advanced System Care FREE (http://www.iobit.com) which has a startup manager under Utilities - Admin Tools – Startup manager. One of the best startup managers available is a utility included with the popular anti-spyware product Spybot Search and Destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org), where the startup manager can be found under Mode – Advanced – Tools – System Startup. Spybot lists color coded startup items as red (delete them), yellow (personal choice), and green (safe - leave them alone). Clicking on the right edge of the screen in Spybot opens a window that explains what each item is when it is when the item is highlighted.

There are many other software tasks that can improve performance, like safely cleaning the registry (Wise Registry Cleaner – Free, http://www.wisecleaner.com), and removing spyware (Malware Bytes AntiMalware, http://www.malwarebytes.org). If the user is willing to spend some money, it is usually safe to add memory to the computer, up to the limits of the operating system and motherboard. Adding memory is a well documented way to improve performance, and often not expensive. One neighbor purchased a gig of memory on sale at a local office supply store, and installed it himself on his Vista laptop computer; he now marvels at the improvement in performance.

Take good care of your computer, and it will give you years of performance and user satisfaction. Neglect or abuse your computer and it may make cyber life difficult for you, the user.

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