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Hints for keeping your computer 'up to snuff'
When you purchase your new computer you are full of hope that it will do the job. You fire it up and it takes less than a minute before you can begin work. Later, annoying pop ups and bugs seem to take over and your computer slows like you've put molasses in the system. Here are some helpful hints I have picked up from Berkeley, Mark F, Mark L, computer techs. here in Crow Creek, 'Bitug' (Broome IT Users' Group) and from PC World magazine.
6. Defrag the hard drive on a regular basis to increase free space but note that it will not speed up your computer: 7. Download Service Pack 2 and keep updates current. Option A: IE6 update 2 also has popup stoppers in it. A small icon which looks like a shield appears in the system tray. It links to the Security Centre Control panel, which lets your manage settings that turn Automatic updates and the Windows firewall on or off. But if you use your own software firewall, which is recommended, turn off the inbuilt one. If you do this you'll see lots of confusing little balloon alerts from the system tray. To end these alerts, double click the icon to open up the security centre, click the link on the left that reads 'change the way security centre alerts me', and the uncheck the Firewall alert check box. The same tip can also save you from the weekly nag alert that Automatic Updates sends out. If you update Windows manually, and if you have disabled Automatic Updates, uncheck the Automatic Updates check box, as well. Download critical updates and don't worry about the recommended window update bits. http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp. Option B: Go to Mozilla http://www.mozilla.org/ if you don't trust what 'Bill G.' is telling us. It stops popups and there are no back door problems and it will not require patches . There are also a few things in GPedit.msi to switch off as well to stop hackers and worms. 8. Shutting down your computer improperly is a sure way to damage the registry. It is a good idea to make a back up of the registry or if you have Windows XP use system restore. 9. Always uninstall programs and hardware with their own uninstall utilities or add/remove programs. This will also help your computer to boot quicker by deleting unnecessary programs. 10. Launch your often used programs from 'Quick launch' found in toolbars at the bottom of the desktop with a right click. In this way you won't have to load the shortcut bar and your icons can be viewed while accessing a variety of applications. 11. Trim your desktop icons by a right click - properties - customise desktop - remove seldom used icons to a folder which can be stored in the 'Quick launch' bar. 12. Use the 'Hibernate' feature for laptops and 'standby' for desktops for fast startups. For laptops - just close the lid to 'hibernate'.
13. Configure your browser security settings to medium/high
14. Turn off other application features you don't use
15. Turn off windows file sharing in the Networking control panel if you don't use it. 16. Update patches - right click my computer - properties - automatic updates tab - tick to keep my computer up to date - limit to critical updates because updates themselves might have flaws
17. Set security to medium
18. Use the 'system restore' which comes with XP if you make mistakes or you wish your computer to return to a time when it was running perfectly. However, turn off system restore when running your cleanup of virus and popups etc. so next time you reboot Windows you don't restore virus infected system files over the top of the clean ones.
19. Leave at least 25 % of your hard drive with free space
20. For XP users, consider formatting the hard drive every 6 months. This is done by inserting the recovery CD and following the prompts. Be careful with earlier computers because formatting the hard drive also gets rid of the drivers. Before you format write down the drivers which can be installed from the net if necessary. The process can take up to 2 hours if you haven't partitioned the hard drive and made a ghost copy of programs and files. 21. Finally, run a scan of C drive periodically - (suggest twice a month) : (right click C drive - properties). This will take at least 30 minutes.
PASSWORD SECURITY:
Create a boot disk
Laptop Battery Life:
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