Home » Technology » PC Support » Good PC Housekeeping Guide

Good PC Housekeeping Guide

© Chris Cruickshank

This article contains details about how to look after your PC to ensure that it runs as quickly as it can. Just as your house can become untidy, so can your system! It is important that you carry out regular housekeeping chores so that your system is not only fast, but also free of clutter! The following items are covered.

1). Empty the rubbish — removing unwanted files

2). Temporary files — releasing disk space

3). Clear out your cache — emptying Internet clutter

4). Check your drive — using Scandisk

5). Optimising your hard drive — using a disk defragmentation tool

These tasks should be carried out at regular intervals (like once a week). I have placed the topics in the order that you should do them in order to gain the maximum effect on system performance.

**** Important Note ****

Care should be taken when carrying out the deletion of files. If you are not sure about a file — then leave it!

Empty the Rubbish

Like all good households, emptying the rubbish on a regular basis is essential. Before you know it, your new GB hard drive will soon groan under the weight of all the files you collect. Some of them are rubbish and can be safely removed. In this section, I will give some hints and tips on ways of making this process easier.

With any of these files, care should be taken, as they can be important files used by your application programs. It is also possible to buy programs that will do this for you, but care is needed, as it is easy to get carried away! If you are in any doubt about a file — then leave it. One wrongly deleted file can cause an entire application to fail to load and run!

Hints and Tips

The following is a list of hints and tips to help you manage your system more effectively.

Always install new programs into their own directory — not under (or in) \Windows. This makes it easier to find applications and keep their files together.

When downloading programs from the Internet, create a special folder (mine's called \Downloads), and place everything downloaded in there. You are sure to download some rubbish, and if it is all in one place, it is easy to remove. In addition, most downloaded programs come as .ZIP files. Once the files are extracted, the original .ZIP file can be removed.

Virus scan all downloaded files

If you have a partitioned hard disk (a physical disk separated into more than one logical drive), then try to keep like programs together. For example, my two hard disks are partitioned into seven drives C:, D:, E:, F:, G:, H: and I:. I've labelled each drive so that when I install programs, I know where to place the program. (In case you are wondering, here are my disk labels: C: Boot Disk contains DOS and Windows stuff plus any device driver files (to make peripherals like my SCSI tape drive work. D: Win Apps1 contains (some) of my windows applications (Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Database etc). E: Win Apps 2 contains the rest of my applications (currently Office 97 Professional). F: Internet contains my web browsers, IRC programs, Dial up stuff. G: Temporary is a small disk I use to dump stuff to be looked at later. H: Games — yes I play computer games! I: Web Site contains my entire web authoring software, utilities and my web sites! This sounds complicated but in truth, it makes it so much easier when finding files. Note: Repartitioning your hard disk will cause all data to be lost — only do this if you have a backup device!

The copyright of the article Good PC Housekeeping Guide in PC Support is owned by . Permission to republish Good PC Housekeeping Guide in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.