Reasons
There are several reasons for a pc or a laptop becoming slow. I am not
considering virus activity here, I am concerning only to general
maintenance.
1)The most frequent reason is having many programs running on the
computer at the same time. If you look at the right corner of windows
task bar, you will find icons of programs currently running on your
computer. Close down unnecessary programs whenever not necessary. Also
if you disable some programs from startup it will save some memory for
other programs. Usually necessary programs include the anti virus, anti
spyware, firewall , modem etc. whereas you can safely remove programs
such as computer games, adobe reader speed launch, picasa media
detector, ms office, and any other such programs from startup. You can
start open those programs from programs menu whenever you need to run
them.
2) To a certain extent screen savers and desktop wall papers consume
RAM. You can turn off screen saver, and set the wallpaper to blank
3) If you have important work to do on your computer and it is not
running as you’d expec then you should consider removing any Computer
Games that are installed on your computer. (Not the ones that come
preinstalled with windows and listed under accessories >
Entertainment.)
In this situation you simply can not affort the luxury to have computer
Games. Either you should uninstall all Games or consider yourself
buying a more Powerful computer.
4) Another reason of computer running slow is having less space on hard
disk, particularly on the C partition where windows is usually
installed. If there is very little space and you are getting messages
that there is no space left on C drive or messages that Virtual Memory
is too low, then that can be a cause of computer slowing down.
5) Fragmented or scattered files can cause a slight delay in computer operation.
6) Another reason of slow down is leftover, obsolete entries in the
windows registry, unused dlls, etc from previously uninstalled
programs. They go on accumulating in your windows registry and on the
hard disk if you do not use a separate registry cleaning software time
to time.
I am listing a few softwares here. ATF cleaner, RegScrubXP , ccleaner
and Advanced Windows Care Personal Free Edition. They are good for
cleaning your daily online cache at the end of the online session,
before closing your computer. Remember that most virus programs enter
your computer as temporary internet files, so if you make it a habit to
delete as much as of it as frequently as possible.
More on using ccleaner
You may need to save some of the browsing history, the urls that you
had visited, and the cookies of your online banking, and other trusted
sites, then you can use ccleaner to keep the cookies. In ccleaner there
is an option under the menu options > Cookies. Cookies to delete and
cookies to keep. You can view a list of all cookies accumulated and
send them in the right panel to mark them to be kept. But in order to
save your cookies you should avoid using other softwares ot tools that
delete cookies. For example in Tools > Internet options >
Internet History > Delete All
If you use the browser’s delete option then it will delete all cookies
. So use only ccleaner for that purpose. But remember that ccleaner has
only some of the options enabled by default. It has so may options,
take your time to understand what it deletes if you have some specific
needs. If you are a casual user then use ccleaner only in its default
options. Let other boxes be unchecked while running cleaner option. But
I have tried to run it with all options checked, and nothing was harmed
on my pc. If you are the adventurous type then yo should explore all
options of ccleaner. If you ever face a virus activity on your computer
at that time remember to run ccleaner with all boxes checked, with one
special setting. Click on Options > Advanced and Uncheck the
checkbox in front of ” Only delete files in windows temp folder older
than 48 hours”
This will remove all temp files.
Solution
Here are some steps you can use to lessen the burden on your computer
making it run faster. (Copy and paste these instructions on your
desktop in a new text file. It will be easier for you to read them
after rebooting your computer, when you are not online)
1) To begin with click on start > run type msconfig. Press ok. Click
on Startup tab. Uncheck names of those programs there that you do not
need at startup. (These settings are reversible, if you uncheck
something and later decide that it is necessary at startup; you can
always come back and change the settings again.) Press Apply. Press
close. Click on restart to reboot the computer. After reboot system
configuration message window appears . Check the box that says do not
display this again, and press ok to close the box.
2) If possible uninstall some programs from your computer which are not
essential.(start > control panel > add/remove programs)
3) Right Click on Desktop > Select properties
Click on Screen Saver. Choose None from the list . Press Apply
Click On Desktop Tab . In the list of Backgrounds select None. Press Apply.
Press Ok to Exit
4) Run cCleaner or AWC Personal to clean your registry and temp files.
5) Run Defrag. start > all programs > Accessories > system tools > disk defragmentor.
6) See to it that there is enough free space left on the hard disk
partition where windows is installed. Copy files elsewhere and delete
them to make space from your hard disk partition where windows is
installed.
You can copy all files from the My Documents Folder and any other
folder you have used to save your text files, music, video, downloaded
files etc. You can copy them to another partition on your hard disk D,
E etc, if there are extra partitions and they have free space.
Otherwise you can copy all on cd/dvds. After making backup delete as
much of them as you do not need frequently from their original
location. This will free up some space on the partition
There are several reasons for a pc or a laptop becoming slow. I am not
considering virus activity here, I am concerning only to general
maintenance.
1)The most frequent reason is having many programs running on the
computer at the same time. If you look at the right corner of windows
task bar, you will find icons of programs currently running on your
computer. Close down unnecessary programs whenever not necessary. Also
if you disable some programs from startup it will save some memory for
other programs. Usually necessary programs include the anti virus, anti
spyware, firewall , modem etc. whereas you can safely remove programs
such as computer games, adobe reader speed launch, picasa media
detector, ms office, and any other such programs from startup. You can
start open those programs from programs menu whenever you need to run
them.
2) To a certain extent screen savers and desktop wall papers consume
RAM. You can turn off screen saver, and set the wallpaper to blank
3) If you have important work to do on your computer and it is not
running as you’d expec then you should consider removing any Computer
Games that are installed on your computer. (Not the ones that come
preinstalled with windows and listed under accessories >
Entertainment.)
In this situation you simply can not affort the luxury to have computer
Games. Either you should uninstall all Games or consider yourself
buying a more Powerful computer.
4) Another reason of computer running slow is having less space on hard
disk, particularly on the C partition where windows is usually
installed. If there is very little space and you are getting messages
that there is no space left on C drive or messages that Virtual Memory
is too low, then that can be a cause of computer slowing down.
5) Fragmented or scattered files can cause a slight delay in computer operation.
6) Another reason of slow down is leftover, obsolete entries in the
windows registry, unused dlls, etc from previously uninstalled
programs. They go on accumulating in your windows registry and on the
hard disk if you do not use a separate registry cleaning software time
to time.
I am listing a few softwares here. ATF cleaner, RegScrubXP , ccleaner
and Advanced Windows Care Personal Free Edition. They are good for
cleaning your daily online cache at the end of the online session,
before closing your computer. Remember that most virus programs enter
your computer as temporary internet files, so if you make it a habit to
delete as much as of it as frequently as possible.
More on using ccleaner
You may need to save some of the browsing history, the urls that you
had visited, and the cookies of your online banking, and other trusted
sites, then you can use ccleaner to keep the cookies. In ccleaner there
is an option under the menu options > Cookies. Cookies to delete and
cookies to keep. You can view a list of all cookies accumulated and
send them in the right panel to mark them to be kept. But in order to
save your cookies you should avoid using other softwares ot tools that
delete cookies. For example in Tools > Internet options >
Internet History > Delete All
If you use the browser’s delete option then it will delete all cookies
. So use only ccleaner for that purpose. But remember that ccleaner has
only some of the options enabled by default. It has so may options,
take your time to understand what it deletes if you have some specific
needs. If you are a casual user then use ccleaner only in its default
options. Let other boxes be unchecked while running cleaner option. But
I have tried to run it with all options checked, and nothing was harmed
on my pc. If you are the adventurous type then yo should explore all
options of ccleaner. If you ever face a virus activity on your computer
at that time remember to run ccleaner with all boxes checked, with one
special setting. Click on Options > Advanced and Uncheck the
checkbox in front of ” Only delete files in windows temp folder older
than 48 hours”
This will remove all temp files.
Solution
Here are some steps you can use to lessen the burden on your computer
making it run faster. (Copy and paste these instructions on your
desktop in a new text file. It will be easier for you to read them
after rebooting your computer, when you are not online)
1) To begin with click on start > run type msconfig. Press ok. Click
on Startup tab. Uncheck names of those programs there that you do not
need at startup. (These settings are reversible, if you uncheck
something and later decide that it is necessary at startup; you can
always come back and change the settings again.) Press Apply. Press
close. Click on restart to reboot the computer. After reboot system
configuration message window appears . Check the box that says do not
display this again, and press ok to close the box.
2) If possible uninstall some programs from your computer which are not
essential.(start > control panel > add/remove programs)
3) Right Click on Desktop > Select properties
Click on Screen Saver. Choose None from the list . Press Apply
Click On Desktop Tab . In the list of Backgrounds select None. Press Apply.
Press Ok to Exit
4) Run cCleaner or AWC Personal to clean your registry and temp files.
5) Run Defrag. start > all programs > Accessories > system tools > disk defragmentor.
6) See to it that there is enough free space left on the hard disk
partition where windows is installed. Copy files elsewhere and delete
them to make space from your hard disk partition where windows is
installed.
You can copy all files from the My Documents Folder and any other
folder you have used to save your text files, music, video, downloaded
files etc. You can copy them to another partition on your hard disk D,
E etc, if there are extra partitions and they have free space.
Otherwise you can copy all on cd/dvds. After making backup delete as
much of them as you do not need frequently from their original
location. This will free up some space on the partition