How to maintaing your system

[Rokko]

maintaing your system

by:Ahmed M. Dirie

webdefied

http://www.webdefied.com

June 01, 2002

 

Maintaining a computer system to perform at it's best may seem like a hard task to do. But when done properly, the results are astonishing. Though most of you use your computer only for assignments, or games, or just to browse the net, those simple tasks such as browsing the net can be real time consuming with an un-maintained computer.

 

Running regular virus checks can be one thing. But that doesn't help in enhancing its performance and increasing its speed. This however is a good thing. To keep your system at it's level best, you want to delete your temporary internet files and windows temp files. But this is not all. Running a scandisk regularly and a disk defragment is what helps its performance.

 

When running a scandisk as well as a defrag, you want to do this from Safe Mode Windows. Safe Mode windows is basically just windows with no extra programs running in the background. This mode is good when running diagnostics on your system. To get into Safe Mode Windows, perform the following steps.

 

1- Shut off your computer.

2- Turn it on, and continually press on the F8 key in 1 second intervals.

3- The windows options menu should come up shortly after.

4- Choose the Safe Mode Windows Option, this normally is option 3.

5- Once selecting it, press the enter key.

 

Note: If this is your first time performing both the scandisk and the defrag, then do not be surprised if this takes a little over 3 hours. The scandisk should take roughly 1.5 hours as well as the defrag.

 

6- Start by clicking on the Start menu.

7- Choose programs, then accessories, and system tools.

8- From system tools, the first application you want to run is Scan Disk.

9- Once it is open, make sure you highlight C: Drive, and choose the thorough option.

10- Put a checkmark beside "Automatically Fix Errors", and press start when you are ready.

 

This will take a while, and you only need to run this at least once a month. Anytime between, just choose the standard mode of scandisk which takes not more than three minutes.

 

Upon completion of scandisk, close it down. To run Disk Defragmenter, follow the steps below.

 

1- Perform steps 6-7.

2- Choose Disk Defragmenter.

3- Press OK on the next screen, and it should start to defrag your system.

 

This should complete in 1.5 hours, if not more. This all depends on how fragmented your computer is. In other words, how messed up your system is. The first time can be long and gruesome, but if you run this once or twice a week, it should not take more than 10 - 20 minutes.

 

Once you've completed the above. You can shut down the computer. Restart it the normal way (do not press F8). Once in windows, you can clean out your temp files as follows.

 

1- Click on Start, and select Programs.

2- Select Accessories, System Tools, the click on Disk Cleanup. (On systems with Win98+)

3- It should prompt you if you want to scan C: (C Drive). Press OK.

4- When it is complete, it will show you a report of what folders need to be cleaned.

5- Put a check mark beside each folder, and continue from there.

6- Once complete, you may close it down unless it does so automatically.

 

Now you have successfully run a General Maintenance on your system. Notice any difference?