When you first purchase your computer you will notice that all of your programs open almost instantly, you can browse files very quickly and it takes just a fraction of a second to open photos and documents. Over time this performance tends to fade until one day you decide that you just cant take it any more and either buy a new computer or upgrade your current one.

There is no denying the fact that sometimes you will just have to upgrade if you want more performance - This is not always the case. Just like a car, with regular servicing your computer will run almost like new for much longer. These 10 simple steps will help even the most novice of users keep their computer running well.

The below steps are assuming that you are using Windows XP. If you are using another version of windows the steps are likely very similar. Pressing the F1 key while at the desktop will open Windows Help and Support Center which may assist you further. Failing that feel free to contact us and we can give you some more specific information for your computer.

Step One - Remove Unused Programs

If you’ve had your computer for a long time now it’s likely that you have a handful of programs installed that just never get used. The first step to good computer maintenance is simply removing these programs.

Doing this will clear up precious hard drive space and in some cases also remove some background applications which take up much needed memory.

Doing this is much easier than you may think. Just click on the Start Menu and open up the Control Panel. From here, select Add or Remove Programs. This will open the Add or Remove Programs window which lists all the programs you currently have installed along with the amount of disk space they are taking up. Just go through this list and remove the ones you no long use.

Step Two - Disk Cleanup

Another simple way to clear disk space is to run the Disk Cleanup wizard provided with Windows. As the name would suggest, this application checks your hard drive for Temporary Internet Files, items stored in your Recyle Bin and a range of other unnecessary ones which will be building up on your computer.

To open this wizard go to the Start Menu and under All Programs select the Accessories menu. From here go down to System Tools and click Disk Cleanup.

After doing this it will display a box asking which drive you would like to clean up. Make your selection and it will immediately begin searching your computer for files it can safely delete for you. After a few minutes you will be shown a box listing all the different components you can remove and how much disk space each of these is taking up.

Once you have selected the files you are happy to remove click OK at the bottom of the window and the process will begin. After it has finished removing these files the wizard will close and you can carry on using your computer as normal.

Step Three - Adware Removal

Another very common cause of a slow computer is Adware. Virtually anyone who has used the Internet on their computer for a reasonable amount of time is going to have some form of it on their computer. Just because you cant notice these processes running doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.

The purpose and activity of Adware can vary greatly and can often be confused with a virus. Whilst it is not a particularly good idea to have loads of them on your computer, they are generally not as dangerous as a virus. Their main goal is to give you those annoying pop-ups advertising different websites and products.

Aside from the obvious frustration these pop-ups cause, the Adware also takes up some of the space on both your memory and processor which results in less performance. Over the years I have seen astounding changes in performance simply by removing these items from a client’s computer.

Unfortunately Windows doesn’t supply us with an answer to this problem so finding the solution is up to you. There are many free applications available online which will help you to remove them quite well and this is often the best way to do it. My personal choice is Ad-Aware FREE by Lavasoft.

Step Four - Disk Defragmenter

After completing the above three steps you should be seeing a notable difference in your computer’s performance. What we have done so far is free up hard drive and memory space and take some of the load off your processor. We are now going to organise your files better on the hard drive so Windows can read them faster.

Quick Explanation: Hard drives are split into small blocks known as sectors. When a file is written to the hard drive it is spread across as many sectors as it requires. Windows will generally try to write to the first free sector it can find and then continue on systematically to the next free sector. Over time files can become jumbled - or fragmented - amongst these sectors and Windows has to move around all over the drive to piece together the information and show you the end result.

Obviously as Windows has to piece together a fragmented file it is going to take a longer period of time to open, save etc. Running Windows’ Disk Defragmenter aligns these files as best it can so that the majority of the file is written to the one area of the disk. The more you run this the better your computer will perform and the shorter the defragmentation process will be. Having said this there is no need to do it any more than once a week at the most - Usually once a month is fine.

To run the Windows Disk Defragmenter go to the Start Menu and go to All Programs. Select Accessories and go down to the System Tools menu. Click on Disk Defragmenter and the application will begin. You will be shown all hard drives, removable drives and partitions on your computer. Select the drive you would like to defragment, C drive being of highest importance, and click Defragment at the bottom.

If this is the first time you have done this on your computer it may take quite a while to complete. After a few seconds you will be given a basic graph representing the fragmentation of your files.

Step Five - Virus Scan

As with Adware, viruses can also run as a background process on your computer taking up valuable resources and possibly doing more permanent damage at the same time.

You can run a virus scan on your computer as often as you like. The downside to running these scans is that they will make your computer extremely sluggish until the scan has finished. For this reason I generally recommend a monthly scan of clients’ computers.

As with Adware removal tools, finding the software is up to you. Again there are plenty of free programs available which do the trick for the average home user. My personal preference is AVG Anti Virus Free Edition by Grisoft.

This is a very simple program to install and use and automatically updates daily if you have a broadband connection so you know you always have protection against the latest viruses.

Step Six - Remove Startup Programs

Many of the computers that I see have far too many programs loading at startup. These are programs such as Messenger and other online chat applications, email clients and any other programs which automatically load when you turn your computer on. You may not see these programs working but if you have a look at the icons near your clock on the taskbar (bottom right) you will see some of them.

There are a few different ways to remove these programs from your startup list. By doing this we eliminate a lot of the wait time involved in turning your computer on. It also reduces the number of processes your computer has to run while idling.

The easiest way to do this is to remove applications from the startup list via the System Configuration Utility. To open this go to the Start Menu and click Run. In this box type msconfig and click OK.

This will open the System Configuration Utility and show you some configuration options for your computer. What we are interested in at the moment is the Startup tab on the right. Click this tab and you will see a list of most of the processes that run when you turn your computer on. Any items you see in this list that you don’t feel you need to start when your computer does, simply remove it’s tick. When you are done, click OK. If you are unsure what something may be its best to leave it turned on and seek advice.

Note that some programs cannot be stopped in this manor. qttask (Quick Time) and msnmsgr (MSN Messenger) for example have to be configured manually.

Step Seven - Windows Updates

Keeping your copy of Windows up to date is very important for a number of reasons. Mainly for security and stability purposes. Thankfully this is one area that Windows does help us out with. You can configure the updates to download and install automatically via the Automatic Updates window in Control Panel.

Making sure Windows is up to date is one of the easiest ways to avoid some of those annoying error messages and have your computer running consistently. You will notice that for a lot of companies offering support for their software the first question they will ask is whether or not you have done all of your Windows Updates.

Step Eight - Backups

Unfortunately no amount of maintenance is going to eliminate the possibility of a hard drive error. If you’ve ever had your hard drive crash you will know just how catastrophic that can be. The solution? Backups!

Although many are overwhelmed by the concept of backing up their data, the process can be made as simple as clicking a shortcut or running an application. Windows provides it’s own backup application -  aptly named Backup - found in the System Tools menu. This can take maybe 10 or 15 minutes for the average user to set up but is very intuitive (not to mention free).

If this application doesn’t suit your needs there are countless other options available online for you to try.

Step Nine - Hard Drive Error Checking

Checking for errors on your Hard Drive can prevent many major problems later down the track. Doing this will show you any disk errors you may have and can be an indicator of your disk’s health, allowing you to replace it before it dies. Error Checking also attempts to repair any damaged files it finds along the way.

This is yet another feature offered by Windows XP but is more difficult to find that the rest. Open My Computer, right click the drive you want to check and click Properties. Under the Tools tab select error checking and choose your options. Note that the process requires exclusive access to the disk you select. This means that you cannot check your C Drive without restarting your computer.

Step Ten - Keep Some Free Space

The most common misconception amongst my clients is that Hard Drive space effects computer’s performance. Of course if you have a lot of data on your disk and don’t defragment it will slow down somewhat, however having 20 GB of free space wont necessarily make your computer any faster than having only 10 GB.

The one time that disk space will effect performance is when you are getting down to your last few hundred megabytes. When your computer starts to run out of memory (RAM) it will start moving this information to the pagefile on your Hard Drive. If your disk has no space either then you can imagine the problem this will cause.

All you need to do is ensure that you have a decent amount of disk space left. I generally recommend keeping 1 GB free however you could get away with as little as 300MB.