What you should do every day:
· Keep your computer up-to-date with virus protection and spyware software. You want to prevent viruses and spyware from possibly destroying your computer.
· Make a backup of any documents that you used. You can do this through what is called an incremental backup. You can access the Backup utility by clicking on the start menu, then Accessories, then System Tools and selecting Backup and Restore menu option.
· If you're computer freezes or an application crashed (stopped working) restart your computer. Restarting a computer is called rebooting.
What you should do once a week:
· Perform a full virus scan and spyware scan. Most of these types of applications can be scheduled to run automatically at a time that you set.
· Do a full backup. Many of the computers that I work on are beyond a point of fixing. Many of them have to be re-installed all over again. If you do not backup your computer, you risk losing everything - your documents and applications. Why take the chance?
· Perform a disk defragmentation of the hard drive(s). This will speed up your computer and put all of your data in the "right" space. You can do this by going to the Start menu, selecting All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and then Defragmenting the hard drive.
· You should run Disk Cleanup. You can do this by clicking on the Start Menu, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and then Disk Cleanup. You can follow the defaults. One thing to keep in mind though is that if you use Microsoft Office, one of the options is to delete the Setup tools. Un-checkmark that box, otherwise you will need to use the original CDs to do upgrades.
· You should delete all temporary files. You can do this by clicking on the Start menu and selecting Search menu option. In the search box type in *.tmp. Select All Files, and then select Search. When all of the files are displayed, click on one of them, then hold down the Ctrl key and press the letter A. This selects all of the files. Press the Delete key to delete all of these temp files.
What should be done every month:
· Microsoft has updates every second Tuesday of the month. It is a good idea to install these updates. Some of them are critical and some are fixes to problems reported by the customers. By default, Windows wants to install the critical updates.
You can manually install these updates and other drives by going to the Tools menu in Internet Explorer, or clicking on the Start menu and selecting Windows Updates from the All Programs menu. When the window opens, select Custom and all of the available updates will appear. Some are listed as Optional, but you should install all of them.
· You should also go to the manufacturer's site and look for current drivers there as well.
· You can also go to a site like versiontracker to update the drivers on your computer.
· You should invest in a one click utility program to cleanup your computer. The one I recommend is from Uniblue called Powersuite. A link to this application is in the Resource box.
· Click on the Tools menu in Internet Explorer and select the Internet options menu option. Click on the General tab and then click on the Browsing History button. Click on the delete button under the Internet Temporary Files area. This will help speed up Internet Explorer.
What should be done every year:
· Open up the computer and clean out the dust. You can use a can of air to do this. On a laptop, spray the canned air into the open vents on the laptop.
· Go to Add/Remove programs in the Control Panel and get rid of programs you no longer use.
· Open up My Computer by double clicking on the icon. Click on the Drive C: icon and then right click on it and select properties. One of the options is disk error checking. Click on this button. You will be prompted that this will start the next time the computer is restarted. Click on the Yes button, and restart your computer.
· You should double click on the Windows folder and select any folder that starts with a dollar sign ($). These folders are windows updates and over time you will have hundreds of them. The best way to select them is to click on the first folder with a dollar sign, scroll down to the last folder and hold the shift key down. Now click on that folder. All of the dollar sign folders will be selected. Press the Delete key to delete them.
· You should go to the Windows folder and then double click on the Temp folder. Click on one of the icons, then select Ctrl + A. This will select all of files. Press the delete button. This will delete all of the Windows temporary files. This can be in the thousands of files.
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