As technology has advanced over the years, so has our software industry. With the advent of Windows 7 we now rarely do anything to keep our Windows clean and maintained. However most of us miss some of the things that are very important and are not exactly, the operating systems responsibility. Some people go with the approach that leads them to perform a new “clean” installation of Windows every year or so, which is not bad, but a lot of hassle, installing all your software, etc. With my little tips, you can keep your windows working reasonably fast.
Have you ever wondered why your windows installation has almost always gone down in performance as more and more new software is installed and uninstalled? Below i have listed the 10 most important things that you can do to keep your windows running more “responsively“.
1. Get A Decent Antivirus – No seriously people tend to like whatever antivirus they have, one that has ever picked up or removed a virus for them is the Best. This is very wrong. Almost every antivirus uses the same logical mechanics to catch viruses and other harmful junk, what is usually different is the memory and CPU usage and this is exactly what you should be focusing on. I personally like to use “Microsoft Security Essentials” which is pretty good when it comes to memory and CPU usage, but the thing is i am always willing to change if i find one that uses even lesser resources. Don’t get me started on people using 2 antiviruses!
2. Keep Your Drivers Updated – Once in while it’s always good to check your vendor’s website for updates of your device drivers, although some of you may think Windows does this automatically but seriously letting windows decide drivers for you is like having a random person driving your car. Do not go for experimental or unstable driver releases just for the sake of being most updated. I would recommend using a good software that manages this for you but if you can’t do that then manually doing this once every 4-5 months isn’t that difficult and usually saves you a lot of problems.
3. Keep Your User Profiles Directory Clean – It’s your job to keep it clean, because Windows really can’t help you everywhere. You need to see every extra icon, shortcut, file, etc as an extra overhead and resource wastage. You need to keep less files on your desktop, remove shortcuts that you don’t use. Make sure you clear your browser’s cache and other junk every once in a while and don’t download everything to your documents especially those huge videos.
4. Do Not Install Software That Uses Registry In Any Other Partition Then Your Windows Installation Partition – I have seen a lot of people thinking they are saving space and won’t have to install the software again because it is in another partition but what they don’t realize is that most software today completely rely on Windows Registry and other factors which are lost when you do a “clean” install. That is why, I always recommend resizing your Windows Installation partition for extra space for more software. Not considering games as traditional software. Always keep lots of free space in Windows installation partition, Windows can always use it for hibernation, virtual page files and temporary storage required by software that needs it.
5. When You Are Going For A Sleep, Once In Every 3-4 Months Run a Disk Defragmenter – Over time as we continue to move, copy and add more data to our drives, they become fragmented and the disk performs slower, it is always better to have a drive as less fragmented as possible. Windows comes with a utility for this, you can possibly use that if you’re too lazy to find a better one.
6. Optimize & Tweak Windows Registry – I already mentioned how most software depends on the registry and that is why it is essential to keep it optimized in order to gain performance improvements. A very good software is “CCleaner”, which i believe is FREE.
7. Occasionally Check Task Manager To Look For Resource Hungry Applications And Services – In the end most of the time its not the Windows but a bad developed Application or Service that is eating away all the resources due to bad programming practices or simply a poor algorithmic. Often times i find programs and services that i really don’t need and sometimes i find services that are only used very rarely. I disable both of them. Only to Enable the ones that i use very rarely when i use them.
8. It’s Okay Some Applications Need To Be Restarted Once In A While – My biggest example would be Firefox. Even with the latest Firefox, i.e Firefox 4, i have to restart my browser every 5-6 hours or so, not because exactly Firefox is poor, but most of the plugins and addons that i use are poorly programmed. With the introduction of Firefox session saving and reloading its no problem and it saves me extra memory usage that Firefox usually starts taking. This also applies to other software like: Adobe Photoshop, etc. You need to look out for these applications yourself by peeking into the Task Manager randomly.
9. Close Unnecessary Applications – This includes applications that continue to sit in your taskbar. If you are not downloading or uploading and definitely not in the mood of seeding then close that uTorrent sitting in your taskbar eating away extra connections to DHT. Some people say there Windows is getting slower and they have 20 programs running in the background almost always. You have to be yourself more resource aware.
10. Uninstall Software That You Won’t Be Using For A While – People often keep software thinking that it won’t hurt me keeping it, but the thing is if you want a faster performance you always have to given in something. In this case you’ll have to reinstall the software when you will need it again but it is very beneficial in terms of performance.
No comments:
Post a Comment