Speed Up Your Computer

Posted on July 1, 2010 by LJ Earnest
Categories: Techniques

Photo by Viernest

A person I know was saying she was going to go out and get more memory for her older computer because it had slowed down so badly. I told her that while getting more memory was probably a good idea, there were some other things she should consider as well. She needed to give her computer a thorough housecleaning to speed it up.

Uninstall Unused Programs

Most of us install programs to enhance the basic functionality of our computers. But often they may get replaced with other programs, or our interests change. This leaves programs that are no longer used on your computer. Cleaning them off will give you back hard drive space and often speed up the computer.

To uninstall programs in Windows, you can use the Windows Uninstaller (Control Panel/Uninstall Programs) or other programs that can more thoroughly remove programs.

Clean Up the Junk

Windows is notorious for saving temporary files it deems necessary to run, and all web browsers save various files to cache to increase loading time. Getting rid of this stuff can free up ever more hard drive space. In Windows I use two programs to help me with this task.

Glary

Glary Utilities is a free utility package that can do a quick cleanup of the worst offenders as well as help you clean up other areas on your computer. The 1-Click Maintenance is a good basic cleanup and a place to start.

(I was shocked when I ran Glary at work and discovered 5 GB, yes GIGAbytes of anti-virus update files)

CCleaner

CCleaner is another utility for cleanup that does a more thorough job than Glary. But it is also more dangerous in that it can more easily wipe out important data. Always do an Analyze before allowing the program to clean.

These three things help keep my computer junk free. Do you have any favorites to add? Tell us below.

Photo by Viernest