How to clean up your Windows XP?
Is your Windows XP too slow? Do all the programs take a minute or so to start? Does your computer take amount 15-20 mins to start up? You need to clean it up! You need to speed it up! You need to do the required maintenance! This article will show you how to do this!
However, cleaning up your system is a boring and time-consuming task। To help you decide whether cleaning your system is worth the effort, we have given you the “Pro’s & Con’s” of cleaning your system! This should help you decide whether you want to actually put in the time and effort and clean your system!
The Pros
The benefits of cleaning up your system, are listed here:Speed: A clean system runs faster than one that needs cleaning। Do you remember when you got your PC? It ran very fast। If योर system stays clean, you shouldn’t notice it running any slower over time। Unfortunately, most systems don’t stay clean and require attention. Give it that attention — do the cleaning — and your system can run just as fast as it did the day you got it.Reliability: A huge benefit of a clean system is that it is more reliable than one that is not clean. If you do not clean your system, over time it becomes unstable. Unstable systems crash. Unstable systems have a tendency to lose data. Unstable systems are a real pain. Clean your system, and you should see stability. Stress reduction: Having a clean system can reduce stress and provide peace of mind. How so? Consider the worry you would have if a virus infected your system, or if you weren’t sure that the financial data on it was safe…you know what we mean! Worry comes in all shapes and sizes. If you clean your computer, you have a better control on what’s on your computer and how it’s being used.Economics: Cleaning your computer can save you money — sometimes lots of money. “Running low on space? Get a new drive! Computer running slow? Get a new system!” That is the general thinking that most people have. Some of those new drives and new systems would have been unnecessary had the users done just a little cleaning.
The Cons
Time-consumption: Cleaning your computer takes time. You probably have little time right now. Cleaning your computer can take anywhere from a small amount to a substantial amount of time.How much time will your clean-up take? We can’t answer that, but we can say be prepared for a time commitment and be patient — your time will pay off in the end when your computer is running more smoothly. You don’t have to do all the cleaning together, although you could. You can spend the time over a period of days or weeks, as the time becomes available. We have showed you how to "schedule your cleaning" later in this article.
The bother: We won’t lie to you — cleaning up your computer can be a boring. But we encourage you to not procrastinate cleaning; don’t put it off!
So, what say? Are you going to clean your system? We HIGHLY recommend that you do! But before you start deleting files and cleaning up your system, you first need to take some precautions and learn some basics of system maintenance!
Before you do anything! - Precautions!
Here are some basic precautions or rules to follow so that you do not damage your computer in the process of cleaning it up!Don’t delete files without knowing what you are deleting:When cleaning up your system, you are going to delete many files. However, do not delete a file if you do not know what it is. If you are in doubt, simply move the file to a different directory. If everything goes well and nothing stops working, then you know that you can safely delete the file. If something stops working, then you can always move that file back to it’s original location. Make periodic backups of your system: If you’re getting ready to do a huge cleaning session, you might want to make a backup all your valuable information before you start.
How to backup valuable information?
It’s pretty simple. Just take all the files and data that is important to you and burn it on a CD, DVD, Zip Drive whatever. That’s all. You need to do this kind of backup form time to time whether or not you are “cleaning up” your system. You never know when a computer will stop working and you will loose all your valuable data.
Be careful how you delete programs: In the days of DOS, programs usually consisted of a couple of files or all the files in a given directory। It is not so in Windows. When you install a program, the installation program can move pieces and parts all over the system. Because of that, the best way to delete a program is to use either the "uninstaller" provided with the software or the "Add/Remove Programs" applet in the "Control Panel". ’t just delete the main folder of the program — pieces and parts will remain scattered all over your system.If a new icon shows up on your desktop suddenly, don’t double-click it: If you don’t know why it’s there, someone (or some program) has possibly put it there. If you don’t know what it does, DO NOT double-click it and run it? Its most likely some sort of virus.
Use Windows System Restore Utility:
System restore is a Windows XP utility that basically lets you go back in time! Suppose you change some delicate Windows settings and your computer does not work properly, then you can use system restore to change the settings back to the original settings and make everything work properly again. Using System Restore:Before you make any major changes on your computer or delete any risky files or change any major settings, you must use System Restore to create a “restore point”. The restore point basically is a note of all the systems settings etc. before you made the changes. If something goes wrong, you can use this restore point to get things back to normal. Setting a restore point:
Choose Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>System Restore
The System Restore window appears.
Select the “Create a Restore Point” radio button and click Next.
Enter a description for the restore point and click Create. You do not need to type in anything technical in the “Desctiption”. It’s just the name of the restore point so that you can use the restore point in the future. So just put in some simple descriptive term or phrase that you can remember.
In a few moments you’re notified that the restore point is created.
If something goes wrong and you need to restore your system…
Choose Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>System Restore and start System Restore
In the first program window, select the “Restore My Computer to an Earlier Time” option and click Next.
A calendar appears, revealing all the available restore points.
Click any date shown in bold. The right side of the screen shows the description of the restore points available for that date.
Pick the restore point desired and click Next.
When prompted, confirm that you want to do a restore.
When you confirm, System Restore sets another restore point before actually doing the restore you want. It does this so that you can undo the restore you’re about to do if need be.
After a reboot, your system behaves exactly as it did when the selected restore point was set.
Having understood the basic precautions that you must take, let us take a look at a simple cleaning schedule that you can implement in your busy schedule to keep your computer running fast!
Creating a cleaning schedule...for a fast PC!
As we have said before, cleaning can take some time to accomplish, but you don’t need to do the cleaning all at once. You can break up the big job of cleaning into smaller, more manageable tasks. Do a little here and a little there until you’re done cleaning completely.
In reality, cleaning is never done completely — it should be done continuously. If you set up a schedule for your cleaning, your system can remain clean and you lower the chance of having a messed-up computer. So what type of schedule should you set up for cleaning? In this article we have told you about things you can do once a week and once a month to keep your system clean.
Weekly Tasks!
Got some spare time on your hands today? The following list explains just five things that you can do in just 10 or 20 minutes to help make your system cleaner. Try to do these at least once every week:Clean the trash: To empty your computer trash, right-click your Recycle Bin (on the Desktop) and choose Empty.
Eliminate unneeded e-mail messages: Go to your e-mail program and empty the e-mails from three areas: Sent Items, Deleted Items, and Junk E-mail। (These names are typical in Outlook; the folder names may be different in your e-mail program.) Note: In some cases you may want to keep some of your e-mails in your “Sent Items” folder for example. Please do so. Do not delete things just because we tell you to do so!
Delete unused programs: Choose “Start >Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs” to open the Add/Remove Programs window। Examine the programs listed there and see if you can delete any. If you don’t use it any more, you should delete it. It is important to be brave here. You might not want to delete any programs even if you have not used them for the last 3-4 months. But you must delete them. Many times you will find programs that you used many months ago for some particular task and do not use any more. Delete these programs. You can always re-install them. We know that takes time to re-install, but think of the time these installed programs take by slowing down your computer each day. So delete them. Be brave.
Clean out the Web cache: The Web cache is your system’s storage of files downloaded from the Internet। Why are they downloaded? So that next time you visit the site, the site is completely stored on your system and everything goes faster! However, you must delete these files from time to time because if you don't the build up and eat a large part of your systems space. Exactly how to remove your web cache depends on the type of browser you have. In Internet Explorer you choose “Tools>Internet Options” to display the Internet Options dialog box. Select the General tab and click Delete Files.
Clean out the root directory: Every drive has a root directory, the place at the top of the drive’s file hierarchy. For instance, the root directory for the C: drive is C:\. All paths for other files and folders start with the root directory.You can clutter up your root directory, putting lots of files and folders there, but doing so can really slow down your system and make it much less organized. Periodically clearing out your root directory helps prevent this slowdown and disorganization. Take a look at the files and folders stored there. If possible, move the files elsewhere or delete them. The only folders that should be in the root directory are those that represent major data divisions. Move folders of lesser importance further down in the hierarchy.
These are just some small tasks that you must do weekly to keep your systems performance up. However, there are some more important tasks that you must do at least once a month to keep your system from breaking down. They are explained in the next section.
Monthly cleaning tasks...
Clean up your desktop: Take a look at your desktop। It is probably filled with all sorts of different and useless icons। Remove all the icons that you do not use anymore। Be brave here to! Leave only the programs and files that you use frequently. Remove everything else!Store away project data: If you’re a project-oriented type of person, you probably finished up a few projects this past month. Why not remove the data associated with those projects so that it no longer clutters your hard drive? Keep the current projects on your desktop! Just remove the projects that are already completed! Eliminate spyware: Spyware is a growing! Spyware started as a way for “unethical marketers” to track what you do with your computer. Now it has grown to include all sorts of pop-ups. A pop-up blocker may suppress the pop-ups, but the underlying problem — spyware — is still there.
Most of the time, spyware is hiding it’self on your computer and recording information about you like: Which sites you visit, what you do on the Internet, some of them even record usernames and passwords. So you must get rid of spyware.
Since Spyware is such a big problem now-a-days, we have devoted a whole section of this article to "Spyware"! We HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you read the next section and remove the spyware from your system.
Getting rid of all the spyware on your PC!
Before you can think about getting rid of spyware, you need to know wheter you have "Spyware" on your system.
Indications that you have spyware on your computer:
Flickering screen: If your computer screen flickers without reason, spyware could be the cause. Many spyware programs - especially those used in office environments - periodically take "screenshots" and store them. While the screenshot is being made and stored, the screen can flicker.
Just in case you do not know, a "screenshot" is a picture of the monitor and everything that is on it like the programs etc. that you are running.
New browser toolbars: Some spyware installs it's own toolbars in your browser। If you don’t know where the toolbar came from, chances are good that it came from spyware.
Sluggish system: If your system starts responding slower than you remember, spyware could be the cause। Running spyware (it is, after all, a program) takes time normally spent running your other programs.
Low system resources: Windows lets you know when it detects that your system resources are getting low। If you start seeing warnings about your system resources, it could be due to poorly written spyware consuming the resources normally allocated to other programs.
Inability to change home page: If your browser’s home page suddenly changes to a page different from what you chose, you could have a browser hijacker spyware on your system. If you cannot change the home page to one you want, you’re surely infected.
Unwanted advertisements: If you see pop-up or banner ads appear onscreen, you may have spyware installed. If you really want to understand how spyware works and all the damage it can do, you could check out these links: http://www.spywareguide.com/ & http://www.spywareinfo.com/
Eliminating spyware
Spyware is hard to remove। Spyware programs often install themselves in several places on your system and include methods for “healing” themselves. This means that, if you don’t get rid of all the spyware, it reinstalls itself from the pieces and parts that are left on the system. Spyware often hooks itself deeply into your operating system. Deleting the wrong files could make the system unusable.Please Note: You could seriously cripple your system if you start deleting files left and right. So don’t do that either. If you suspect undetected spyware on your system, a number of detection utilities are available. The best free program we recommend is "Spybot Search & Destroy". You can get it by downloading it from
http://www.download.com/ or http://www.safer-networking.org/
To use Spybot Search & Destroy, follow these steps:
Download and install the program.
Run the program by choosing Start > Programs >Spybot - Search & Destroy > Spybot - Search and Destroy।
The main program window, appears shortly. The interface for Spybot S&D is very easy to use.
Click “Check for Problems”. The program runs through thousands of permutations of spyware programs that could be on your system. Depending on your number of files and hard drives’ sizes etc. that you have, the program will take some time. (On an average PC it takes 15mins.)
After the checking is done, select which things you want the program to correct (by selecting the check box beside each item) and click Fix Selected Problems। Most problems are solved through deletion, but Spybot S&D automatically creates a Windows XP system "restore point" before doing anything.
In case the spyware deletion causes problems; you can then use Windows XP to restore the system to its condition just before the restore point was set.
When Spybot S&D is done, exit the program and restart your system. You should notice a difference in performance right away.
There is one last step to "Monthly cleaning" that must be done to make your system run fast and it is covered in the next section...
Defragmenting your drive??
One thing you really benefit from every month is "defragmenting" your hard drive। As you add, change, rearrange, and delete files, information stored on the hard drive, it can become very unorganized. Information is stored in bits and pieces here and there so that Windows has to grab data from all over your hard drive when you open a file. That slows down the system. You can organize things by defragmenting your hard drive, which essentially puts pieces of individual files back together. When done, Windows can more easily and quickly access your files. You should defragment your drive at the end of every month.
How to defragment?
Click Start>My Computer. If you have a My Computer icon on your desktop, you can double-click it. Windows displays the My Computer window.
Right-click the drive you want to defragment and choose “Properties” from the context menu.
Windows displays the drive’s Properties dialog box. Click the Tools tab.
Click Defragment Now.You see the Disk Defragmenter window.
You can then defragment by clicking Defragment.
The process tends to take some time, depending on the information that is stored on your system। This is a time consuming activity but we recommend that you do it at least once a month.
After performing all these weekly and monthly tasks, your system should be moderately clean. Now, the next step is to speed up Windows XP by tweaking some settings
Imporving the Windows XP Performance!
Windows even has a configuration area where you can set performance options for your system. It’s pretty hard to find, unless you know where to look. To display the "Performance Options" dialog box, click Start > right-click My Computer, and choose Properties.
If your system is configured to have a My Computer icon on the desktop, you could right-click it, if you prefer। Either way, the System Properties dialog box comes up! In the "Advanced" tab click the "Settings" button under the "Performance" section and the "Performance Options" window will open. There are tabs in the Performance Options dialog box, each covering distinct areas of performance. Each tab is discussed below.
Visual effects
I bet you never gave much thought to the visual effects used in Windows XP। Most people don’t; the effects are very subtle. Just little things, like shadows in key places or screen objects that slide smoothly or fade as they’re no longer needed.Visual effects, like these and so many others, can rob a system of its performance. If you’ve got a fast system with plenty of power, you may be able to spare a few processor cycles. On older systems, those with slow graphics cards, or those with limited memory, visual effects do nothing except slow a system.Some people might like the windows visual effects and want to keep them. But if you are a serious user, you probably don’t care about visual effects. You want speed. You can use the Visual Effects tab to remove all the unnecessary visual effects and speed up your system. The Visual Effects tab on the Performance Options dialog box is where you control what effects you want Windows to display. Do so by selecting or deselecting the check boxes.
Some of the visual effects options art explained here:Let Windows Choose What’s Best for My Computer: By default, this is selected. If you would rather dictate what Windows does, select one of the other radio buttons.Adjust for Best Appearance: This options selects all the visual effects.Adjust for Best Performance: This option turns off all visual effects. Custom: To turn individual effects on and off at your will, select this option. Then you can select or de-select the indivisual checkboxes to have or remove particular visual effects.
We reccomend that you do not use any visual effects if you really want speed। This speeds up the system a lot.
Advanced performance options
The less noticeable performance options are accessible by clicking the Advanced tabYou can change only three things on the Advanced tab:Processor scheduling: For most desktop systems, you should leave the default, "Programs", selected। Only select Background Services if your computer runs some critical programs as system services. Memory usage: The second setting controls how Windows allocates memory (RAM) to programs. For most systems, the "Programs" default is just fine. The System Cache selection is appropriate if you’re running your system as a server. For instance, if your system is used as an active file or print server — in addition to doing your work — then you should select System Cache.Virtual memory: This setting indicates how Windows uses hard drive space for system purposes. A paging file is a chunk of hard drive space Windows uses for swapping programs in and out of RAM. This is a little tricky option so we recommend the you do not play with it much.
Now, that you have improved your system performance, let us come to the most irritating part of a slow computer: The time it takes to start-up or boot! In the next section we will show you how to find out why your computer is taking so much time to start-up and how to fix the problem and make your computer start-up a whole lot faster!
Speeding up your PC's start-up speed!
To control your computers startup, you can use "Msconfig". It is a program that tells you what’s going on whenever you start Windows.The reality is quite simple: msconfig allows you to modify how your system starts. When Windows starts, it loads all sorts of things, from a variety of places. If your system is slow or you’re having problems starting at all, it could be because of conflicts between different programs that run when your system starts.
You can correct such a condition by cleaning up the startup files। Using the msconfig utility, you can see a list of what Windows loads and individually select which of those items should load and those it should not!To start msconfig:
Choose Start>Run
In the Open text box, type msconfig.exe and click OK.
The program is executed and very shortly you see the System Configuration Utility program window.
Notice that there’s no menu bar for the program; everything is handled through a series of tabs. These tabs represent different aspects of how Windows starts on your system.
The tabs on the utility are:System।ini: This tab shows the contents of the system.ini startup file. The tab doesn’t contain the file text but presents the file contents in a hierarchy.Win.ini: This tab shows the contents of the win.ini file. A carryover from earlier versions of Windows, this file is used for compatibility with some older programs. Again, the file contents are displayed in a hierarchical manner.Boot.ini: This tab shows the actual contents of the boot.ini file. This file indicates exactly how your system should boot. On most systems the file is pretty similar, but it becomes critical if you have multiple operating systems or different versions of Windows on the same system.Services: This tab lists all the services that Windows can start. Startup: This tab lists all the programs automatically started whenever you begin Windows.Additional tabs may be present, depending on your system’s configuration. For instance, you may see tabs that contain environment or international settings.
Modifying the startup process
The General tab on the System Configuration Utility dialog box allows you to say, in the most general way, how your system starts. Three options are available on the tab:
Normal Startup: With this default selected, Windows loads all the programs, drivers, and services it was instructed to load.Diagnostic Startup: This option is, in some respects, similar to starting your computer in safe mode. When you choose this radio button, Windows only loads the most basic services and drivers.Normally, you choose Diagnostic Startup only to get rid of all the potential problem areas in one move. If your system starts problem-free with Diagnostic Startup selected, you would then move onto Selective Startup to narrow the problem even further.Selective Startup: This option enables you to make choices regarding which startup files are to be processed. If you deselect one of the check boxes under this option, then the corresponding startup file is skipped when Windows starts.
If you’re experiencing startup problems, follow these steps:
Choose Start>Run, type "msconfig.exe" in the Open dialog box, and click OK.
The System Configuration Utility program window appears.
Deselect all the check boxes under Selective Startup and click OK. The boot.ini option is not a check box; you won’t be able to change it.
Restart Windows.
You should have no problem.
Go back to msconfig, select the first check box (system.ini), and click OK.
Restart Windows again to see if your problems crop up again. If your problems crop up, you know the problem is in system.ini. If they don’t crop up, then you know system.ini had no problem.
Repeat the process until you’ve selected all the check boxes one at a time, restarting Windows after each.
Through this process, you can determine which startup file is causing problems. You won’t yet know which command in the file is causing problems, but you’ll know where to look closer.
Now, the next step is to remove the file that is specifically causing the problems.
Modifying startup files
The hierarchical display shown represents the section of the startup file. The check boxes beside each section name allow you to indicate if you want that section processed when Windows starts. By selectively turning off different sections and restarting Windows, you can determine which section of the startup file may be causing your problems.If a section name has a plus sign to the left, clicking it displays the contents of that particular section. Again, use check boxes to determine whether Windows should process a command line.Be very careful when it comes to modifying the boot.ini file. In fact, you should not modify it unless you know absolutely what you’re doing. If you mess up the file, your system won’t boot!! That means you won’t even be able to get back to msconfig to fix it. Be careful!
Before you do any changes to you startup we recommend that you set a "system restore point" as explained earlier.
Modifying what is started
Perhaps the most informative tab in msconfig is Startup. This tab lists programs that automatically run every time you start Windows. Each startup item has a check box next to it; you can turn off the program next time you start Windows by de-selecting it.
Using msconfig’s Startup tab, you can select which programs should be started when you begin Windows and which should’t. De-select the check box for any programs you don’t want started and then reboot. If problems crop up, you can also go back to msconfig, select the check box, and restart.
If the problems that come up are serious, you can always use the System Restore utility.
That is the end of the guide to the basics of Windows XP cleanup and control. I hope you did like it and find it helpful.
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