When you are a computer user, you always want to keep your computer running
smoothly, and this cannot happen if you don’t follow a computer maintenance process
from time to time. It depends on how much you use the computer, if you use it like
4-8 hours a day, after few weeks it becomes slower due to the buildup of data.

A computer is like your house. You cannot live in a house and you never clean it.
The bigger mess you get, the harder it is to clean. But if you regularly clean it,
the work will be easy and not so big. It’s the same matter with your computer.
Performing a computer maintenance is very important especially if you were using
your computer every day.

The computer maintenance could be divided into two parts: Internal maintenance and
external maintenance. You need to do both types in order to keep your computer up to
speed and running smoothly.

Internal Maintenance: It makes your computer runs faster and work to its optimum
performance level. It involves organizing and deleting files and removing unwanted
programs etc…

– Removing junk files: You can safely delete files with the help of Windows
including:
Disk Cleanup: It will remove temporary files, saved offline WebPages, downloaded
program files… Right click on “my computer” and select the drive you want to
clean, then choose properties and click on disk cleanup button.
Browsing history: While surfing the Internet and browsing websites, you are
collecting a big amount of files such as cookies, history, form data, passwords and
temporary internet files. By regularly removing those files you are keeping your
computer to run smoothly. Open Internet Explorer, from the menu at the top, select
Tools, then choose Internet Options, in the General Tab, click the button Delete
under the heading “browsing history”.
– Remove any unwanted programs or which their trial period has already expired.
– Register your programs: If any program is installed on your system and it is not
registered, it always shows that disturbing message saying that you need to register
it, which means there is a process that is running on your system, so either select
not to show this window ever again, or register it.
– Install only the programs that you need: Installing too many programs makes your
system runs too slow. If you have 2 photo editing programs installed, remove one and
keep the other that you always use. The less programs are installed the better for
your computer performance.
– Watch out from viruses: If your computer is infected with a virus, it will surely
slow it down. Keep your computer secure by installing a reliable antivirus.
– Clean the errors in your registry: To prevent your computer from crashing due to
certain errors, fix them using a paid or a free program. (CCleaner is a free tool
which you may use to do this).
– Defrag: Using The Windows Disk defragmenter helps the computer to run smoothly by
organizing files and data and moving them to two areas. Easy access area for the
most used files and the opposite for least used ones. It’s an easy process which
could be done following this: Start menu > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools
> Disk Defragmenter.
– Startup Programs: If you have a lot of programs installed on your system, many of
them will start up once you Windows is on, and they always take a long time to start
up. Disabling these programs will avoid you to wait for all of them to load and your
computer will start faster than before. To do so, type “msconfig” in the search bar
of the start menu if you have Windows 7 or Vista, or execute it if you have Windows
XP. Select the Startup Tab and uncheck all the programs that you do not like to wait
for them to load when you restart your computer.
– Avoid Opening many large programs: As an example, you should not run Photoshop
along with a virus scan at the same time. It will make your Windows runs very slow.
– Update Programs Regularly: You will face many problems if you do not update your
programs on your computer. Even Windows itself has to be updated along with other
applications and games etc…
– Disable Automatic Updates: Disabling those automatic updates is a good way to
speed up your computer, because once you start up your computer, all the programs
check the Internet to see if they have to be updated or not.

External Maintenance: It involves taking care of the physical parts of your computer.

– Safely clean inside your computer: Computers can even shutdown, overheat or even
blow up from dust build up. Use a soft paint brush or an air compressor to remove
dust properly. Make sure you do not move any wires or connections.
– Clean your LCD Screen: Making your LCD Screen look streak free is not that easy.
However the correct way to wipe the dust away is to use one of the computer dust
squeegees or a very soft, dry cloth.
– Upgrade your computer’s memory: It’s not a hard process. First, determine what
kind of RAM your computer takes and make sure it has open slots to hold it, release
the clips and remove the RAM. Then insert your new ram into a slot, and for a best
performance, I’d recomend you to use a new RAM which matches the existing one’s
specifications and configuration.