Spring Cleaning: Your PC
Well, its that time of the year again… and if you are like most PC users out there – it’s time for a spring cleaning. Read my simple tips for cleaning up your PC this spring – and you will see a performance boost – guaranteed!
First things first, we need to defrag your hard drive. But before you navigate to my computer and start the defrag utility, I want you to clear out your temporary files. Yes, lets do this before we defrag, as it will help speed up the process since there are less files for it to comb through. Whats the easiest way to delete my temporary files you might ask.
One way you can do this is by going into My Computer, right clicking on your C drive [Where Windows is installed] and selecting properties from within the context menu. After you have 
done that you should see a window like the one to the left; Go ahead and click on the Disk Cleanup button.
For most users selecting all of the check boxes except the last two should be sufficient. Click OK and if will remove the selected files.
There is one more quick step before the defrag if you so choose: Duplicate files removal. Start by rummaging your my documents folder and such for duplicate files. If you were thinking about doing this by hand, and manually looking into folders and comparing the files… why not let the computer do it for you? It makes sense after all… computers are meant to simplify our life. If you want a free duplicate file removal tool then give Fast Duplicate File Finder a try. Its completely free and works efficiently, giving you a preview of the ‘duplicates’ it finds. No more delays – its time!
When all of that is complete its time for the defrag. If you closed out of the original context menu then go back into it by right clicking on your C drive and select properties. This time click the Tools tab. Then click the Defragment Now button. Make sure that your C drive is selected and click Defragment.
Bet your sick of staring at that computer screen, but theres one more step in my little process – cleaning your registry. The easiest way I came up with to clean out the registry is running a utility that does the work for you… Just go here and download CCleaner. Install and run the application and then click Registry > Scan for Issues. When the scan is complete, you can view what it has found. Click Fix Selected issues when you are ready for it to make the changes.
When you have done all of this on your system, go ahead and reboot, then give yourself a pat on the back and sip on some of that lemonade. You deserve it!
Questions, comments or suggestions? Post them below!
Note: These tips and how-to’s are meant for Windows XP. While some of them will work for other 9X OS’s and Vista that was not the intent. If you would like me to provide tutorials on disk management in other versions of Windows let me know. I chose XP because most of my clients that I support are running XP.