dan > speedy computer

How to speed up your computer...
...and reduce computer freezes and free up disk space
Introduction - The tips below are designed for Windows 95/98, and will most likely work on Windows ME/2000/XP. Feel free to skip any steps below, but the more you do, the faster your computer should run. If you do all the steps, it is best to perform them sequentially, and the entire process should take a couple hours (not including the scandisk and defrag in step 6).

Theory - If you clean the digital filth that builds up on your computer over time, your PC should run as good as new. (If your computer is new, these tips probably won't help for a few more months.)

Disclaimer - Everything you do on you computer, even if suggested by me or someone else, is your own responsibility. There is always the risk that you could delete important files or programs and even render your computer entirely useless. Any of the steps below you might perform are done at your own risk.


Index
0. Speed Test
1. Back up all your files
2. Do a virus scan
3. Do a spyware scan
4. Remove or turn off unnecessary programs
5. Remove unnecessary files
6. System configuration and hard disk maintenance
7. Other optional steps to try


0. Speed Test - Try this before you do any of the steps listed below. Shut down your computer. Start a stopwatch when you turn your computer back on and see how many seconds it takes to boot (until the last program finishes loading). Write this time down. Time how long it takes to open and then close a large program, such as Microsoft Word. Try this test a few times in a row, since it might be faster after the first attempt. Write these times down. Finally, write down how much free space your hard disk has (Click on My Computer, then right-click on your hard disk drive, probably C, and select Properties). After you try all the suggestions listed below, see if your computer boots and runs faster.


1. Back up all your files - If any of the following steps cause a problem, you don't want to lose your files. It's a good idea to back up your computer regularly anyways. If you still have the installation CDs for all of your programs and Windows, you probably only need to back up your data files (for example, the My Documents folder). Copy the files to another computer on your network or burn them to a CD.


2. Do a virus scan - Go to http://housecall.antivirus.com/ and use their free online virus scanner. It may take several hours and your computer needs to be connected to the Internet during this time. This is an excellent, free virus scanner provided by Trend Micro.


3. Do a spyware scan - Go to http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ and download Ad-aware for free. Install and run the program. It will find and remove any spyware - potentially malicious programs that are running on your computer without your permission, often attempting to spy on what you are doing and access the Internet to send information collected on you. If you have installed any file sharing programs on your computer, you will almost surely have malicious spyware secretly installed. File sharing programs suspected of secretly installing spyware on your computer include Kazaa, iMesh, BearShare, and most others. One way to know that you have spyware running on your computer is if you get frequent Internet pop-up adds, even when surfing reputable web sites. Ad-aware should remove most of this garbage.

Restart your computer, and resolve any error messages that might occur.


4. Remove or turn off unnecessary programs - The fewer programs you have running at any given time, the faster your computer will run. You should keep the processor (CPU) and memory (RAM) as free as possible, which means you want the fewest possible number of programs running. Limit the programs that are started up on your computer at boot time. This will make your computer start up faster and will make it faster when you are using it, as less programs will be running. If at any time during the steps below you are prompted to restart your computer, it would probably be wise to do so at that time (you might be restarting numerous times).
  • Clean your system tray - Right-click on all of the icons in your system tray (the bottom right of your screen). Look through the options to turn off the "run at startup" feature or to remove the program (icon) from your system tray.

  • Clean out your Startup folder - Click Start | Programs | Startup. If there are any programs listed in there that you don't need to start up when your computer boots, remove them by right-clicking and deleting them (don't worry - it will only delete the shortcut, not the actual program). I leave my Startup folder empty.

  • Clean some startup files - This step is for more advanced users, and probably doesn't need to be done on most computers. Don't do it if you are worried about messing something up. Click Start | Run, then type sysedit. Look in autoexec.bat for unnecessary lines and remove them. Look in win.ini under the section "[windows]" where it says "load=" and "run=" and remove any unnecessary lines.

  • Remove unnecessary programs - Most people end up removing many programs here, and this is a great step in cleaning up your computer. Click Start | Settings | Control Panel | Add/Remove Programs | From the Install/Uninstall Tab look through the list for any programs you no longer use or do not need. For each unnecessary program you find, select it and click Add/Remove and uninstall the program. I highly recommend that you remove Real Player if you have it installed - it has to be one of the worst programs ever made - it spies on your activities, accesses the Internet without your permission, hogs system resources, and is likely the cause of many of your computer crashes.

  • Restart your computer, and resolve any error messages that might occur.

  • Prevent more programs from starting up at boot time - Click Start | Run, then type msconfig. Click on the Startup tab on the far right. Look through the list of programs, and uncheck any programs you don't want to start up when your computer boots. Leave the absolute minimum number of programs to start up. If you are unsure what a program is, look at the description on the right for clues. If you can't figure it out, type the name of the program into an Internet search engine, and you should be able to find out what the program is. Some programs that you should leave checked are: LoadQM, LoadPowerProfile, SystemTray, and ScanRegistry.

  • Restart your computer, and resolve any error messages that might occur.

  • Uninstall any remaining unnecessary running programs - Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to bring up a task list of all running programs. These are the remaining programs currently running on your computer after all of the steps you performed above. Look up on an online search engine any programs with which you are unfamiliar. Make sure you have the bare minimum number of programs running. Consider uninstalling (or changing the settings) on any programs you don't want to have running on your computer.

  • Restart your computer, and resolve any error messages that might occur.

5. Remove unnecessary files - If you are running low on free hard disk space on your computer (less than 200 MB or so), then you should delete some files. System performance can be negatively affected if you have very little free space on your computer because Windows utilizes free disk space to perform optimizations. If you have plenty of free space (more than 500 MB, for example), then you might not need to delete any files, although it is probably still a good idea. In some cases, deleting files can make your computer run faster.
  • Delete temporary Internet files - This step is optional. Open Internet Explorer, and in the Tools menu, click on Internet Options. [To temporarily free up disk space, click the "Delete Files…" button to remove temporary Internet files.] Click the "Settings…" button and you can choose an amount of disk space to use for your temporary Internet files. I've heard that a reasonable size for a 56K connection is 40 MB, and as little as 10 MB for cable or DSL. I leave mine at 100 MB because I'm not running low on disk space.

  • Remove the contents of the Windows temporary folder - You should also be able to safely delete everything in C:\windows\temp.

  • Browse for other unnecessary files and folders to delete - Use Explorer to look through your computer for files or folders that you can safely delete (you can open Explorer by clicking Start | Run, then typing Explorer. You may find folders belonging to programs you uninstalled above. You can usually safely delete these folders (but first look through them to see if there is anything important in them). Video, audio, and image files can take up an especially large amount of space, so look out for those. Don't spend too much time deleting small files, focus on the files above 100 KB or 1 MB. To see the size of files, click the View menu, then Details. It is usually helpful to click on the head of the "Size" column in the file listing to sort your files from largest to smallest, so you can quickly focus on only the largest files in each folder.

  • Search for other files to delete - Click Start | Find | Files or Folders…, then on the Name & Location tab, leave the first two fields blank and select your hard drive (probably C:) on the "Look in:" option. Make sure "Include subfolders" is checked. Click on the Advanced tab and set the "Size is:" field to "At least" 20,000 KB (approx. 20 MB) or so. Click the "Find Now" button and this should search your entire hard drive for any files over the size you specified. Delete anything you don't need.

  • Empty and configure the Recycle Bin - Double-click the Recycle Bin on your desktop to open a window listing the contents. Quickly make sure there isn't anything in there you might have deleted on accident, then close the window (if you found anything you still need, make sure to take it out of the Recycle Bin now). Right-click the Recycle Bin and choose Empty Recycle Bin. To minimize the disk space used by Recycle Bin in the future, right-click it and select Properties. Then choose the maximum percent of your disk drive the Recycle Bin is permitted to use.

  • Restart your computer, and resolve any error messages that might occur.

6. System configuration and hard disk maintenance - These steps will help you to make sure that your computer is configured correctly for optimal speed. In some of the steps below (Scandisk and Defrag), you should temporarily stop all running programs, including screen savers (use Ctrl+Alt+Delete to close them…but don't close Explorer!).
  • Verify 32-bit configuration - Right-click on My Computer on the Desktop, and select Properties. In the Performance tab verify the File System and Virtual Memory are 32-bit. Then click on the "Virtual Memory…" button and make sure the option is selected to have Windows manage your virtual memory settings.

  • Configure your Desktop settings - I have found that removing images from my Desktop Background significantly increases the speed of my computer. Right-click your Desktop and choose Properties. On the Background tab, either select None for Wallpaper, or choose a small image or pattern to tile. On the Effects tab, removing some of the Visual effects might slightly increase your computer speed. On the Web tab, unselect "View my Active Desktop as a web page" unless you have a reason to leave it selected.

  • Run System File Checker - Click Start | Run, then type sfc. Select "Scan for altered files" and click Start.

  • Restart your computer, and resolve any error messages that might occur.

  • Run scandisk - Scandisk is a great program that will find and fix errors with your hard disk and file system. Open My Computer on the Desktop and right-click on your hard drive and select Properties. In the Tools tab, on the Error-checking status click the "Check Now…" button to open Scandisk. Select your hard disk drive and perform a Thorough test, and check the Automatically fix errors box. This disk scan may take several hours.

  • Restart your computer, and resolve any error messages that might occur.

  • Defragment your disk drive - Defragmenting your disk drive can reduce the amount of time it takes your computer to read from and write to your hard disk, increasing your computer speed. Open My Computer on the Desktop and right-click on your hard drive and select Properties. In the Tools tab, on the Defragmentation status click the "Defragment Now…" This may take several hours. If any other programs are running at the same time, the defrag process may continually restart, and never complete.

  • Restart your computer, and resolve any error messages that might occur.

7. Other optional steps to try - You probably don't need to do any of these, but you might want to briefly read it just in case.
  • Configure Internet Explorer - Start | Settings | Control Panel | Add/Remove Programs | From the Install/Uninstall Tab select Microsoft Internet Explorer then click Add/Remove and select the option to Repair. If you are unable to repair Internet Explorer, consider uninstalling and then reinstalling it.

  • Consider not using the My Documents folder - Apparently there is a problem with a memory leak associated with mydoc.dll (in Windows 95/98). On my computer, as I browse through the My Documents folder, my computer gets slower and slower with each folder I view. When I moved my data files to a folder outside of My Documents, the problem was solved.

  • Don't use programs that hog your system resources and cause your computer to crash - Virus scanners that are always active on your computer are notorious for this. I don't ever use installed active virus scanners because they have caused so many problems. If you decide to stop using them, do so at your own risk, and make sure you use other methods to prevent viruses, such as avoiding downloading programs from the Internet, being careful with which emails you open, and using a personal firewall (Zone Labs makes the best free personal firewall, Zone Alarm, available at http://www.zonelabs.com/).

You're done! You should probably back up your computer again now that you have everything optimized. Do some speed tests again and compare them to your initial tests, and also see how much disk space you freed up. Let me know what your results are.

If you need to speed up your computer more than this, the best solution is a hardware upgrade. Adding more memory (RAM) to your computer is the most cost effective solution, especially if you have 128 MB of RAM or less. To see how much RAM you have, click on Start | Settings | Control Panel | System. You might also want to consider buying a new inexpensive computer.


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Last update: 07 February 2004.