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Speed up your PC in four simple steps.

November 8th, 2006

Simple steps to improve your PC’s performance.

1. Upgrade your memory - Use at least 256MB ram for Win2k/98 etc, and at least 512MB ram for XP/VISTA (1GB recommended).
2. Reinstall your OS - if your are using a windows based OS, reinstall it at least once every few months (or you can mirror a clean installation and restore it easily) Windows tends to get slowed down after a few weeks of operation. (make sure you format the partition before you reinstall). Also, when you reinstall, install only the software you need.
3. Turn off unnecessary startup/taskbar apps (run MSCONFIG or SYSEDIT)
4. Turn off unnecessary windows services (XP and 2k). XP Unnecessary services list

More tips: 

1. Use a firewall software - zonelabs zonealarm is relatively OK but they tend to phone home which is disturbing.
2. Use an antivirus - try AntiVir which is free for personal non commercial use.
3. Have an OS and Data partition, where the OS partition contains the Operating System and software, and the data partition contains… er… data. Mirror the OS partition so you can restore it easily.
4. Don’t visit dodgy sites (dOH)
5. Don’t download suspicious software - if you are downloading anything, download it directly from the manufacturers site or a reputed site like download.com. Beware anything which has spyware/adware.
6. Use firefox to surf (a bit safer than IE)
7. Use a simple version of any software. I use Office 97 for wordprocessing as it  does most of what I want (and doesnt require gigabytes of space and GHZ of processing power like newer Office/Open Office releases)

Have a tip not listed here? Please add it as a comment! Thanks

Entry Filed under: IT