[Disk Cleanup] [ScanDisk] [Defrag] [System Restore] [Back to SOS-Today]
There is no need to pay a business or an individual to Maintenance your computer. Basic maintenance is very easy and can be scheduled using standard tools that come with your Windows Operating System. You can save your self some grief by setting up the system restore feature before installing new tools and programs on your computer. If something should go wrong or fail you can restore your system to a point before the failure. Used in conjunction with a firewall and a good anti-virus and parasite program your system should run problem free for some time.
If you use your computer more than 4 hours a day you should reboot your system and plan to clean up your temp files daily. Check your hard drive with the error checking tool in Windows XP (ScanDisk in earlier versions of Windows) about once a month. You should also check to see if your drive needs to be defragged at least once a month. If this is not done your computer can slow down. If you use your computer more than 4 hours a day or use high end programs such as a database, photo, video, or music editing or if you view videos on your PC you should maintenance your computer weekly or even daily. Let your computer's performance be your guide.
Step 1
To clean up your temp files on your drive (which will slow your computer down if these files get too big), Click on Windows Start, then move your mouse cursor to "My Computer", when selections appear for your drives right click on Local Disk (c:) then left click on properties then click on Disk Cleanup next to the graphical display of your hard drive capacity.
Step 2
After you click on Disk Cleanup, Another window will be displayed. Make sure you have a check mark in Temporary Internet Files, Temporary files and the recycle bin. Click on Ok and these temp files will be cleaned up on your drive.
ScanDisk (Error Checking) [Top]
Before using ScanDisk now called error checking in Windows XP or Defrag make sure you close all your programs that are running. You can do this by pressing the Ctrl Alt Delete keys. Click on each item to highlight it and then click on end task for each program except for Explorer and Systray. You will have to keep doing this for each program one at a time until they are closed.
(Note - Safe Mode)
You can also run your computer in safe mode by pressing and holding F8 while your computer is booting and then selecting Safe Mode with the up and down arrow keys keys on your keyboard then pressing the enter key. Running your computer in safe mode will only load those files necessary to run windows. Some people do their disk cleanup, scan and defrag in this mode in older versions of Windows.. This is the method I had used on my old computer to run my scan and defrag and other programs did not hinder Defrag or Scandisk from running. I have no problems with my new computer and XP running Error checking or Defrag in the normal mode.
Step 1
Click on Windows Start, then move your mouse cursor to "My Computer", when selections appear for your drives right click on Local Disk (c:) then left click on properties then click on tools.
Step 2
Click on the Tools tab
Step 3
Under Error-checking, click on the Check Now Button.
Step 4
A new box will appear called "Check disk options". Put a check mark in both of the options.
Step 5
After you click Ok, a box will pop up saying you cannot run disk check at this time, and do you want to start it the next time your computer restarts. Click on OK then restart your computer.
Step 1
Click on Windows Start, then move your mouse cursor to "My Computer", when selections appear for your drives right click on Local Disk (c:) then left click on properties then click on tools.
Step 2
Under Defragmentation, click on the Defragment Now button.
Step 3
After you click on ok, the previous display will be shown again, just click on OK again to start the Defrag for your Drive C.
