Slow PC? let's fix it!

EyUp! I wrote this for a facebook group but i thought i'd blog it too

I know many people have issues with their computers. They go slow, play up or overheat. and so many go to landfil or over to africa where they are stripped for copper and gold in toxic conditions. This sucks and I want to help fix them than put them in the trash!

Imwellconfused.me.uk present's Hookers Hint's

If it's slow do you run windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 or 8?

If your running Vista basic/W7 starter Microsoft actually placed some restrictions which have been known to reduce functionality essentially holding the computer you purchased under ransom for you to upgrade to home premium.  Now i know it's a Wikipedia article but here are the differing W7 versions


Now this blog post today will highlight how to cleanup junk and speed things up. Some of the optimisations are minimal and some complicated but I will try my best to make it easy to understand. If stuck with something I will help in the comments.

Lets clean the crap first!
Go to http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner//download/standard and download CCleaner standard edition.

When installed run ccleaner. it'll come up with 4 tabs down the side (top to bottom) and a white box with two tabs, Windows and Applications, lots of tick boxes and 2 buttons, Analyze and Run cleaner. Concentrate on the white box. The other options we'll explore later

tick every box in Applications tab and in the Windows tab Tick everything bar the final tick box "wipe free space"
In many machines the wipe free space is not needed unless you are security consicous and are willing the leave the computer alone for several hours. - If you have a solid state hard disk DO NOT RUN THE WIPE FREE SPACE. To run it on a flash solid state drive and reduces the life of the drive slightly.

Selecting many tick boxes will give a warning about losing cookies, window sizes and icon positions and recently used documents.
If you need to keep the desktop as it it for work or need to remember where you placed documents you can untick the following options

(in System)
Start menu Shortcuts
(in advanced)
Menu order cache
Window Size/Location Cache
User Assist History
if unticked. these will keep the desktop as you need to keep it

With the rest of them ticked You'll have to login again to all your web pages and services you use, so if unsure of passwords write them down temporarily. I am not responsible for lost passwords

Ignore the Analyze button and click Run Cleaner. It'll give you an are you sure warning. let it run and have a cuppa. when you come back it'll tell you how much crap it's cleaned. (let me know - tech support gore is fun)

Reboot the computer. and see if it seems to run faster. There may not be a huge increase in this instance but it could be at the same time a huge difference for older machines with less memory In the next post I'll show you how to change startup options and hard disk indexing. (not needed in a home use environment)

Tell me how you get on

Paul