germaneventshub.com - Speed Up Your Computer

Want to Speed up your computer? Here is a complete list of steps that covers everything that you can possibly do to speed it up. I know that this seems like a very long list, but i guarantee that after doing all this you will see a considerable difference in your computerrs speed and performance! I am warning you that if you do every step, this will take three or more hours! If you dont want to do every step, the ones you need to do are: (1,2,3,5,6,7,13,14,15 (read 8-12 if you want to know more about step 13) The rest you can save for a later time like when you go to bed you can let them run overnight. If there is anything that i could have possibly not have added to this guide please email me and I will update accordingly!

1 - Task Manager. Do some research on your computer. Right click on your taskbar. Select the option "Task Manager". This is your best friend on the computer. It pretty much tells you what you need to know about your computers performance. The first time that you open it up it will be on the "Applications" tab. If not then go to it. The "Applications" tab is pretty straight forward. It tells you every application that is currently open. Simple right? The next tabis called "Processes" This tells you all the processes that are running. It is similar to applications, but these run in the background. So they are just applications that run in the background. In the bottom left hand corner of Task Manager there is a box that aso says "Processes". This tells you how many Processes(Background Applications) are running. If you are running XP, if the number is higher then 50, then you have way to many running at one time. If you have Vista, if the number is higher then 80, then you are running way to many at one time. To solve this problem, find a Process caled "Explorer.exe". Right click on it and select "End Process Tree". *** Warning, everything that you have open at this point will close itself out! Make sure that you save all Documents etc before doing this!*** Once done you will notice that number drop drastically! At this point you should have a totally blank screen with nothing on it. Before bringing it all back lets make sure that your computer calmed down first. The little box next to "Processes" is called "CPU Usage". Wait for that number to go into single digits. Once it is calmed down go back up to the top and click on the "Performance" tab. This tab shows both CPU Usage and PF Usage. It is a summary of the last few minutes of your computer. The top one is CPU Usage. Its the same as the CPU Usage box at the bottom. The Second one is Page File Usage, just ignore it for the time being. I will explain it later. Now make sure that your computer is calm for atleast a few seconds. Look at the CPU Usage chart. Make sure that the green line is low and it stays low. Now your ready to bring your computer back! Click File > New Task (Run). This brings up the run command box. Type Explorer. This will bring your computer back. Now go on to step 2.

2 - Msconfig. Click on Start > Run > type (msconfig). The two tabs you should concern yourself with at this point are "Services" and "Startup". Click on "Services" first. At the bottom there is a check box that says " Hide All Microsoft Services". Make sure that that box is checked off! You do not want to accidently stop a critical Microsoft Operating System service. Once you make sure its checked off, click the button that says "Disable All". Next button that you want to click is "Apply", dont click ok just yet because you still have to go to the Startup tab. Go to the "Startup" tab. Click "Disable All". Now you can click "OK". There will be a pop up! It wil ask you if you want to restart. Say yes. It will be the button on the left. Let your computer restart. What this is doing is giving your computer less work to do. Each time that your computer starts up, it turns on every single program that ou have on the computer in the background. What that does is it lets that program turn on two seconds faster. But that time is added to the startup time for your computer. Each time that you turn on your computer you probably wont use 70% of the programs on your computer! So whats the point in turning them on right? The same thing can be said about services. The are not all needed each time that you turn your computer on. If you do need a specific one, your computer will automatically turn it on when needed. When your computer comes back up there will be another pop up. It has alot of words in it. Feel free to read it if you want to. What you want to do here is check off the box that says something along the lines of "Dont show at startup". Then click OK. Remember your new friend Task Manager? bring it back up. Go to the "Performaces" tab. Your CPU Usage should be alot lower, also look at the Process box, it should also be alot lower. Your computer should be noticeably faster at this point. Procede to step 3.

3 - Deleting. Lets start getting rid of crap! Go to Start > Control Panel > Switch to Classic View. If you have XP you want to go to "Add and Remove Programs". If you have Vista you want to go to Progams. These are the exact same things, but just named differently. Take a look through the list. Is there any program that YOU installed that you dont use anymore? Please make sure that you specifically installed it! You dont want to go and uninstall the wrong program! If your not sure about the program DONT uninstall it! Feel free to ask me about it and ill let you know if you can or not. To uninstall in XP click on the program you dont want anymore and click "Change/Remove or Remove". In Vista you can either double click the program, or you can click the program and the uninstal button ontop. Once thats done we can now delete unimportant temp files. Click Start > My Computer. In XP, At the top click "Search". You want to search for "All Files and Folders". In the box "All or Part of the File Name:" type *.tmp . When its done searching delete all the files found there. In Vista there is a little search option in the top right of the screen. Type *.tmp into there. Delete all the files when done. Temp files are used so ou can open up websites faster. They take a snapshot of a page and store it on the computer. Not only does this take up alot of space, but it slows down the computer, because each time you open Internet Explorer it searches every temp file to see if you were there already. No lets go to Internet Explorer. Click on Tools > Internet Options. Here we are going to delete the rest of the temp files. Look for where it says something along the lines of "Delete Temporary Internet Files". Click "Delete Files". You might get a pop up asking if you want to delete offline content also say yes! You can also utilize the other options that you see there if you want to. Cookies saves login information. You can delete that but the next time you go to a website you will have to enter it in again. This process might take a few seconds or a few minutes depending on the last time it was done. You will also get an hourglass. Yor computer is not frozen. Just let it run. Once that is done, click the "Settings" button next to it. In the box "Disk Space" the default is 1024. You want to change that number to 25. This limits the amount of space that a temp file can take up. Now you want to delete all the files from your Recycling Bin. This is located on your desktop. Right click on it and choose "Empty Recycling Bin". And say yes to the pop up. Now Procede to Step 4 if you want or you can go straight to Step 5.

4 - Disk Cleanup. You are now going to run a Disk Cleanup, Disk Error Check, and CHKDSK. First the Disk Cleanup. This will delete all unnecessary files on your computer. Click Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup. This will take several minutes to complete. Once its done scanning, check off every box there is. Click OK. Say yes to the pop up. This part should only take a few minutes. Now its time for the final two programs. This process can and will take two hours or more! I recommend running this part when you go to bed. Lets do the CHKDSK first. Go to Start > Run. Type CMD. When the black Command Prompt Window pops up type in CHKDSK /R. There is a space between K and /. This will tell you that it cant run it while windows is running. It will ask you if you want to run it the next time windows reboots. Say yes. This will check all the operating system files to make sure that there are no errors in it. If it does find any it will automatically fix it for you. Now on to the Disk Error Check. This will check your hard drive and make sure that its working correctly. Open up My Computer. Right Click on "Local Disk C" and select "Properties". On the "Tools" tab look for the "Error-Checking" section and select "Check Now". There are two check boxes in this window. First check off the bottom box called "Scan for and Attempt Recovery of Bad Sectors." This will take a few minutes. Once its done click OK. Now run it again but with both boxes checked off. You will get a pop up telling you it cant run while the computer is running. It will run during the next reboot. Say yes. Finally you want to compress files. You should only do thi option ifyou are out of space on your computer. Go to My Compter. Right click on "Local Disk C". Check off the button that says "Compress drive to save disk space". There will be a pop up with two options. Make sure that option called "Apply changes to C:\, subfolders and files" is checked off. This task will take a long time to run depending on how much of the hard drive is used. Do this for every hard drive that you have in the computer. Now feel free to restart your computer. Procede to step 5.

5 - Installing updates Part 1. You will now make sure that your computer is completely up-to-date with all the Microsoft updates. Now lets update Microsoft! Go to Start > All Programs > Windows Update. This will open up Windows update. This is a service provided by Microsoft to update its components. It might ask you several times to accept things. Always accept whatever it asks. If you have never run Windows Update beforehand then there will be an option on the top that says "Get Microsoft Update Today" Click the green button to get it. Accept and continue with everything it asks you until you get back to the main page again. When you see options for "Express" or "Custom" choose "Custom". This option gives you more flexability in choosing what to update. This scan will take several minutes to complete! (You might get a option to update beforedhand. This is only to verify if you have a good copy of windows.) Once the scan is complete you will see the word "Customize your results" in large letters accross the top. You can now pick and choose what you want to update. There are three pages to this update site. It will always open up to "High Priority". These are updates that Microsoft recommends you getting. They will always be checked off. Dont touch anything on this page. On the left hand side look for "Software, Optional". Click on it. Check off every option here. To simplify things ou can also select "Select All" option. The only one that i dont recommed is "Windows Search 4.0." I know what it is but its not necessary at all! It just slows down your computer. So uncheck that one. Also check the box dont show again. Finally look at the last option "Hardware, Optional". Dont pick anything here yet. Now your ready to click on "Review and install updates". It will ask you one more time to confirm. Click on "Install Updates". It might ask you to accept some agreements. Accept them all. Let this run. Depending on how many updates you have it can take 10 minutes or up to 2 hours. Please dot skip this step! This is a very important step! Microsoft gives them to you for your safety on the computer. Once its done it might ask you to reboot. Let it reboot. When your computer is back up run Windows update again. Keep running it until you dont have any more updates left. It shouldnt be more then 3 times. The last few times it should go alot faster! Once you dont have any updates left we can move onto Driver Updates.

6 - Installing updates Part 2. Go to Start > and right click on My Computer > select Manage. This is also a new friend! On the left, you will see several options. At the top it says "Computer Management (Local)". Underneath that "System Tools". At the bottom of that list there is "Device Manager". This is what we are going to work on next. Open it up. On the right hand side make sure that there are no indications like !* or anything telling you that there is an error. We will now update drivers. Having the latest drivers for your computer is beneficial to you and the computer. It will run smoother and you will also get more features sometimes. What you want to do is expand every + and right click on every option and select "Update Driver". "Welcome to the Hardware Update Wizard" will pop up! It will ask you a question with three choices. Choose the first one, "Yes, this time only". Now click "Next>". Keep the default setting on this page. "Install the software automatically (Recommended)" should be checked off. Click "Next>" again. It will now search for a newer driver. If it finds one it will update it if not then it will tell you it cant. In any case just click Finish and then do it all over again for the next one. Keep doing this for all the items listed. The only ones you dont need to check are the last option "Universal Serial Bus Controllers". This entire process shouldnt take more then 15-25 minutes. Once its done restart your computer again. Now move onto step 7.

7 - CCleaner Part 1. First download and install CCleaner. http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/ Select "Download Latest Version". Let it install with all the default settings. It should take less then a minute to install. Once installed run the program. First thing you want to do is clean the computer. If you notice there are four options on the left hand side. "Cleaner", "Registry", "Tools", and "Options". Go to the "Options" tab. Now you see five options. Select the "Advanced" sub-tab. There are only two boxes checked off at this point. The first box and the fourth box. You want to uncheck the first box "Only delete files in Windows Temp folders older than 48 hours". Now the only that should be checked off is "Show prompt to backup registry issues". This is a very important thing!!!! Read steps 8 - 12 for information on how to do run it properly, or skip to 13 for an overview.

8 - CCleaner Part 2. Now go back to the "Cleaner" main-tab. There are two sub-tabs at the top "Windows" and "Applications". First we will deal with the Windows tab. The first Option is "Internet Explorer". There are seven check boxes here. Depending on what you need you should pick and choose what you want. The first is "Temporary Internet Files", leave this one checked. Next is "Cookies", leave this one checked if you want to delete all your login information. I recommend leaving it checked because you might have some tracking cookies and those are bad. But if you dont want to risk loosing certain login information you can tell it not to delete those. Go to the "Options" tab, sub-tab "Cookies". Here you can tell it to keep the cookies of websites like yahoo etc. To do that, click on the ones that you want to keep and click the arrow to move it to the right column. Once you have saved the ones you wanted go back to the "Cleaner" tab. You can leave "History" checked unless you really need to rember all the sites you have been to in the past 3 months! Next is "Recently Typed URLs". If you leave it checked this will delete all the urls you have ever been to. So lets say if you go to yahoo alot, it wont show up in the URL box anymore, until you type it in again. This one is up to you. I recommend leaving it checked, if you really want to save certain websites then add them to your favorites so its easier to find next time. Next is "Delete Index.dat files". Leave it checked off because they can be made again. Next is "Last Download location", leave it checked because it doesnt do much just changes it back to the "My Completed Downloads" folder. Last is "Autocomplete Form History". This is up to you again, but i recommend getting keeping it. This is a list of all the things that you ever typed into a search engine and passwords or anything else in Internet Explorer. So basicaly leave ALL these Options checked except "Autocomplete Form History". Move onto step 9

9 - CCleaner Part 3. Second option "Windows Explorer". There are four options here. All of them refer to recent things. First is "Recent Documents", this is a list of recet documents. Leave it checked. Next is "Run (in Start Menu)", leave it checked also. Next is "Search Autocomplete", leave that one checked also. And finally "Other Explorer MRU's". Leave that one checked. Basically leave all the options checked because it keeps info that is just wasting space on your hard drive and each time you do something it has to search through those files. And the smaller that those files are the faster your computer is! Go to step 10

10 - CCleaner Part 4. Third Option "System". There are eight options here. Leave "Empty Recycle Bin" checked, it just re-deletes stuff from the recycling bin. The next one is "Temporary Files". Leave that one checked, just to make sure you got it all. Next is "Clipboard". FYI your computer deletes this each time you turn your computer off. It saves the last 10 or so things that you coppied. Leave it checked. Next is Memory Dumps. Leave it checked. These are files that are created each time your computer has an error message, has a blue screen, goes into sleep mode, or any number of other things. They arent really important. They are rarely ever used in tech support. Just get rid of them, they take up alot of space. Next is "Chkdsk File Fragments". Leave it checked. Kinda hard to explain. So just trust me cleaning this up is a good thing. Next is "Windows Log Files" If you want to see what the are, go to Start > right click on My Computer and go to "Manage". Go to "Event Viewer". The options under here are Windows log files. So just leave it checked. Next is "Start Menu Shortcuts" and "Desktop Shortcuts". Leave them both UNchecked. These are shortcuts that you have on your desktop and Start Menu. Basically leave everything checked but the last two options. Go to step 11.

11 - CCleaner Part 5. Fourth Option "Advanced". First up is "Old Prefetch Data", these are files that are used when opening up applications. It will delte files of programs that you havent used in more then two weeks. I recommend checking it because if there is a program that you use only once a month that file will be automatically recreated. Next is "Menu Order Cache", this will possibly delete the order of things in the Start Menu. It wont delete anything. Check it off and say OK to the pop up. Next is "Tray Notificatio Cache". These are the icons next to the clock. If you ever uninstalled a program from your computer, its still in the cache. I recommend checking it. Say OK to the pop up. Next is "Window Siz/Location Cache". I doubt that you have ever used it. It is custom settings in "My Computer", like view settings. It wont delete any files dontworry. So check it off and say OK to the pop up. Next is "User Assist History", this is a list of the most recent programs used. Get rid of it its not really needed. Check it off and say OK to the pop-up. Next is "IIS Log Files", its similar to the "History" folder. It just keeps a log of all the websites that you have been to. Check it off. Next is "Hotfix Uninstallers". Dont check this off! Just incase you need to uninstall any Windows updates. If you get rid of these files you wont be able to uninstall them if necessary. Last is "Custom Files and Folders", this will clean your custom files and folders that you have selected in Options > Include. Check it off, since there is nothing in there. So basically check off everything except "HotFix Uninstallers". Go on to step 12.

12 - CCleaner Part 6. Applications tab. Leave everything checked. This just cleans all the aplications that are on your computer. The only thing I would not check off is the "Office" boxes. Go to the next step.

13 - CCLeaner Summary. I recommend reading steps 8 - 12 to help you understand what you are doing better! On the "Cleaner" tab, sub-tab "Windows", every option should be checked off except the following: "Start Menu Shortcuts" "Desktop Shortcuts" and "Hotfix Uninstallers. On the sub-tab "Applications" every option should be checked except "Office" boxes. Once this is done click "Analyze" and when thats done click "Run Cleaner" This might take a minute or 2. Next you want to click "Analyze" and "Run Cleaner" again until you dont have anything left. Once that is done you want to go to Registry. Leave everything checked! Click "Scan for Issues" and then "Fix selected issues". Say YES to the pop up!!! You need to back it up! Save it in the default location. When its saved, click "Fix All Selected Issues", and say OK to the pop up. Click close when done. Do "Scan for Issues" etc again until you dont have any errors. You are finally done with CCleaner!

14 - Defrag. You will need to download two more programs. Both are made by Auslogics. http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/ Download the last three programs. Registry Defrag, Disk Defrag, and System Information. The last one isnt necessary, but very helpful in finding out more about your computer! Once you download both Defrags, install them both. The registry defrag will ask you to install ask toolbar. This is up to you. Once both are installed, run the "Disk Defrag" first. Before you click the "Next" button, click Settings > Program Settings. On the "Defragmentation" tab make sure that both boxes are checked off. Also change the "CPU Usage" from "Normal" to "Highest". Click OK. Click Next>. This will take a few minutes! When its done do it one more time by clicking the "<Back" button. This is just in case it missed anything. When its done a second time do any other drives that you may have. If you dont have any other drives then lick "Finish". Now run the "Registry Defrag". When this runs you cannot do anything else on the computer! When it opens up click "Next>". This wil take a few seconds. Click "Next>" and "Defrag". It will do it during the next reboot. Let it reboot now. Continue to next step.

15 - Antivirus. This step wont really speed up your computer, but it never hurts to run this! If you dont have antivirus on your computer GET ONE! If you want a free one get AVG Free. The link is at the bottom. If you want to pay for it it will give you an option for it. If you want a higher end AV then i recommend getting Trend Mirco. Its expensive, but has alot of featuresthat make it well worth the price! Also Get Spy-Bot and Ad-Aware. Download and install both programs. The links are also at the bottom of the page. Once you have all three, I recommend running all three in safe mode. In safe mode it will run alot faster then normally! To get to safe mode go to Start > Run > msconfig and select the BOOT tab. Check off Safeboot in either Vista o XP. This will boot you into safe mode. Once in safemode run your av and Spware programs. If it does find stuff keep running them till they are clean.

16 - RAM. This step wont really help make your computer faster either, but having more memory is always good!. Its always good to have extra memory. With XP you should have atlesat 1 gb + and Vista should have 2 gb +. I have found the best place to get more Memory is http://www.crucial.com/. Not only are they usually the cheapest, but they offer a tool that scans your computer telling you what you have and what you should get!

17 - Tips and Tricks. I recommend running the Disk Defrag atleast once a week. Also make sure that you do Windows update atleast once a week also. Try and run your anti spyware programs once a week, but if you cant then shoot for once a month. Also run the CCleaner Registry fix and the Registry Defrag once a month. This will help keep your computer running as smoothly as possible!

I hope that this guide helps you! If anyone can add anything to it please let me now and I will update accordingly. If you have any other questions feel free to ym me or email me and ill be more then happy to answer them!