Optimising And Securing Your Xp Computer

Optimising and Securing your XP Computer

Optimising and Securing your XP Computer

These are simple to follow and understand steps anyone can take to optimise and secure your PC computer and prevent the need for professional repairs.

Optimisation

Graphics Settings

Superfluous graphical flourishes are a major source of unnecessary processor usage in windows operating systems. You can disable all or most of them by right clicking on the My Computer icon on your desktop and going to properties, the clicking on the advanced tab, then clicking the settings button in the performance area. From here you can enable or disable any graphical feature. I prefer to disable all but the bottom three options as this gives great benefit in terms of performance without impacting on the operating systems aesthetics.

Startup Items

Many programs such as quicktime and acrobat reader install un necessary components which load at startup and take up system resources. These programs are designed to speed up the loadinf and provide additional features to their master program but most provide services that no one actually uses and they infact slow down your computer more than they help. You can disable these items by clicking on the start button and clicking run. Type in msconfig and click run. This will bring up a window, click on the startup tab and untick and programs you do not want to run at startup. It would be wise to be cautious at this stage. Do not disable any programs which you actually require or any programs relating to your computers security programs as this will leave you open to threats from the internet. If you go to the service tab you can also disable the indexer service which speeds up windows search but uses a lot of system resources.

Security

An unsecured computer will require regular repair which can become costly. You can avoid these difficulties and avoiding having to call the repairman by installing some security programs. Viruses come in many forms. Most are easy to remove but some are not and may even require you to completely reinstall your operating system. Viruses have been around for nearly two decades and have evolved greatly in that time into a variety of threats not just to your computer but also to your identity and financial security.

Avast Antivirus

Avast is a free anti virus program which protects you from viruses contracted through, web pages, programs and files, network traffic or emails. Once you have installed this program run a complete system scan. This will search every file on your computer for potential viruses and ask you whether you want to delete them.

Spybot S&D

Spybot Search and Destroy protects you from spyware, adware, Trojans and malware. It can also immunise you by blacklisting websites and browser addons. Once you have installed this program run a complete computer scan. This will check your computer for evidence of any known type of spyware and list out all the infections for you afterwards. You can then easily remove them from your computer by clicking Fix selected problems.

Thanks for reading my articles and good luck optimising and securing your PC.

by: Sam Harnett

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