[TopAce]

In the past few weeks, my computer has slowed down rather drastically. Today I bothered to do some routine maintenance tasks, hoping that things would get better.

I did the following:

- A fast virus scan with AVG. Only those folders got scanned that recently received new content.
- Removed a lot of unnecessary files from my hard drive. Now I have a 90 GB free disk space on my 152 GB HD. That sounds satisfactory, doesn't it?
- Those files that I might need in the future got extracted into a .rar to save even more space.
- Remove temporary Internet files and delete all files from Windows/Temp

I plan to do the following in the near future (hopefully this evening):

- A more thorough virus scan
- A thorough Scandisk
- Clean the computer's interior (emphasis on hardwares that are easily reachable; I don't want to get every piece of hardware out for now; I'm not an expert so I might mess things up badly)
- Find some more files that I don't need and delete/RAR them.
- And lastly, run a defragmentation.

Can anyone give me some further advice on what to do? Or what *not* to do?

[BloodEagle]

Clean out the registry.

[MP-Ryan]

Personally, I'd recommend you run defrag twice before doing anything else.  Then take a can of compressed air and dust out the interior.

If your system hasn't had a full format and reinstall of Windows in the last two years, I'd recommend you partition your hard disk (if you haven't already), dump all your data on the new partition, and then format the existing Windows partition and reinstall the OS.

I've gotten so efficient at it that I run three partitions:  Windows, Data, and Swap.  Every 8-12 months, I wipe the Windows partition and reinstall.  Takes me less than 3 hours to have my system running exactly as before with a clean Windows installation.  I'll be doing it again when my Windows 7 discs arrive in early November, though that will probably take longer as I have two systems to do and I need the Win7 drivers for everything in advance.

[TopAce]

Clean out the registry.

Will do.

...
If your system hasn't had a full format and reinstall of Windows in the last two years, I'd recommend you partition your hard disk (if you haven't already), dump all your data on the new partition, and then format the existing Windows partition and reinstall the OS.

It's been more than two years since I installed Windows, so it would be time for a reinstallation. Problem is that I don't have much of a clue about partitioning. I tried it, but I didn't have much patience to dig myself into it. What are chances that I mess up my installation irreversibly?

[BloodEagle]

What are chances that I mess up my installation irreversibly?

Considering that you'd be completely erasing Windows? Pretty good. 

[Herra Tohtori]

Here's what you can do too:


-clean out unnecessary crap that windows runs upon start. Run->msconfig opens up a window that lets you configure a bunch of things. Services and Startup tabs would be the tabs with most relevance for speeding up a computer.

Do a little research on what services you need, and disable those you do not need. Don't disable things you don't know what they do though.

Do same with startup list of executables. Remove stuff like qttask (quicktime related crap), jusched (java update scheduler - you really don't need that to run at startup, java doesn't update that often and you can do it manually if you ever need to), google toolbar, office quick launch and other meaningless crap that just slows down the startup and doesn't really give a meaningful boost to the speed of starting these applications.

If you happen to disable some service that another service depends on, open services.msc which lets you start and stop services as well as adjust their startup preference (automatic/manual/disabled). You can see services' dependancies from their properties.


-For cleaning out the registry, I recommend NOT using any automagical registry cleaning software. Instead, use fully manual RegCleaner by Jouni Vuorio. Even though this software has excellent backup properties, I recommend only deleting entries that you absolutely certainly know are obsolete and unnecessary. It also allows you to adjust startup list and even gives you access to uninstall menu (which is the same as Add/Remove programs), but I prefer to do these tasks with Windows' own msconfig and Add/Remove programs tools.


-set the menu delay smaller.  You'll be amazed at how much this improves the handling of Start menu, and other cascading menu's.

[colecampbell666]

Personally, I'd recommend you run defrag twice before doing anything else.  Then take a can of compressed air and dust out the interior.

If your system hasn't had a full format and reinstall of Windows in the last two years, I'd recommend you partition your hard disk (if you haven't already), dump all your data on the new partition, and then format the existing Windows partition and reinstall the OS.

I've gotten so efficient at it that I run three partitions:  Windows, Data, and Swap.  Every 8-12 months, I wipe the Windows partition and reinstall.  Takes me less than 3 hours to have my system running exactly as before with a clean Windows installation.  I'll be doing it again when my Windows 7 discs arrive in early November, though that will probably take longer as I have two systems to do and I need the Win7 drivers for everything in advance.

Have you ever thought of making an HD clone with Clonezilla? It's pretty easy, and saves time.

[CP5670]

I'm guessing that by "slowed down" you mean that basic tasks in Windows have become unresponsive. If you have tried defragging, then as Herra said, the culprit is probably the useless background services that various programs install. I see tons of these on most computers I come across. If you strip them down to the bare minimum (Windows and driver related), you should get some improvement. Registry clutter won't cause much slowdown except in extreme cases.

A Windows reinstall would also fix this but might be more work than necessary. Windows doesn't necessarily degrade over time, although it needs to be maintained correctly. I have been on my current XP install since 2004.

[MP-Ryan]

Have you ever thought of making an HD clone with Clonezilla? It's pretty easy, and saves time.

I just found CloneZilla about a month ago myself, so I haven't tried it out yet.  I'm planning on cloning both computers when I install Win7 though.

[colecampbell666]

Every time I install Windows I think to do it, but I never get around to it before the HD gets cluttered.

[TrashMan]

Partitioning is easy.
Just be sure to back up important data on another Hard Disk or a stick or burn them to a CD.

Then start the installation of new windows (you know how to do that, right?). You'll have the option to format everything before you install. After the formating you get the option to partition the disk.

Trust me, partitioning is the smart thing to do. I got 3 partitions myself.

[MP-Ryan]

You can partition as part of a format/reinstall, or if he wants a backup on the hard disk prior he can actually create new partitions from within Windows.

Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Disk Management (On Vista, I can't remember if XP has the same path or not).

Select your physical disk and existing partition, then right-click.  Shrink volume will remove the free space from the existing partition and give you unallocated space on the disk.  You can then right-click on the unallocated space to create a new partition.  It allows you to specify size, and you must leave a small amount of unallocated space on the disk.  Space is set in MB, not GB, so multiple the GB value you want by 1024 to get MB.

Just looking at mine, I actually have ~80 GB of unallocated space right now because I left room for a Linux installation whenever I get around to putting one on here.

[TrashMan]

If he's going to do it that way, then de-fragging before is a MUST. Neat partitions work better.

[TopAce]

Looks like I won't defrag at all. The program says that my HD doesn't need defragging. It shows how fragmented my HD is at the moment, and how fragmented it will be after a defrag. There isn't much difference.