subject: How To Make Your Computer Run Faster [print this page] Most people use a computer nearly everyday, as they help them to do various things quicker than they would otherwise be able to do them. Unfortunately, over time, problems and errors build up on computers, which have a huge effect on the computer's performance and speed. Whilst this effect might not initially seem to make that much difference, those extra few seconds of waiting around to open a program or save a file soon add up.
Fortunately, making your computer run faster is no great mystery, and is something that anyone can do with a little time and effort. The first steps to take are as follows...
- Run a disk cleanup
- Uninstall programs no longer in use (especially ones that run when your system starts up)
- Run a hard disk defragmenter
Doing these three things won't take long at all, and you will definitely notice that your computer boots faster, and applications load more quickly, afterwards.
The next step to making your computer faster is to stop some programs from auto-starting. This can be done by clicking Start in the bottom left corner of the screen and then clicking on Run, and typing 'msconfig' at the command prompt.
This command shows the list of all the programs that are loaded when you start up your computer. You will probably see that there are lots of programs that you don't need. You can simply turn off any programs that are useless. It is however important to keep the anti-virus and other important system components enabled.
Cleaning up your computer's registry is the next thing that you should do. You can do that manually, but a safer and quicker approach is to use a registry cleaning program. Once your registry has been reviewed and streamlined, more hard disk space will be freed up and Windows will run faster.
Clearing your computer of any viruses, worms, trojan horses, adware and spyware is another important step to take. Any one of these can significantly hinder the performance of your computer and, should be unfortunate enough to have a combination of them, then you are running a great risk of your computer soon becoming unusable.
Should none of the above take your computer back to an acceptable running speed, then it may be necessary to reformat your hard drive and re-install everything again. Another option is to upgrade your hard drive, which may seem extreme, but the storage capacity of the hard disk can hinder the performance of any computer and, over time, magnetic disks also degrade.
