10 Tips To Speed Up Your Computer

Finding ways to speed up your computer is the most important thing you could do as a computer user. This might save your computer from being thrown out the window, or even smashed up with a hammer. This is how far people get pushed when computers don’t do what they want them to do. It is one of those annoying little things that you have to do all the time, maintenance jobs, just to speed up your computer.

When you have a slow computer and you are trying to work on it, you can easily get frustrated to the point of doing something drastic! Hey but calm down! I have to tell you something truthfully. It’s your fault that your computer is slow because you do not perform computer maintenance on it. It is your responsibility to speed up your computer and make it run at its optimal performance. Don’t go blaming the computer because it is slow, follow these steps below and fix your problem now!

Here is a link to my computer maintenance tips and tricks and my computer maintenance checklist.
Download this article as a PDF file to save to your computer. 10 Tips on How To Speed Up Your Computer.

10 tips on how to speed up your computer

Delete unwanted files

When I say to delete unwanted files, I do not mean you should go around your computer and delete any file you do not want. In this case, I’m talking about the files that you have created yourself, and are totally aware of what they are. For example if you created a Microsoft word document and you no longer need it, and never will, then I suggest you delete that file. This is the kind of junk that clogs up your computer. You have to ask yourself, “Do you really need it?”

Files that you have created such as documents and image files can be safely deleted by going to the file on your computer, right clicking on its, and choosing delete from the menu. Keeping your computer or organized and junk free, is a great way to speed up your computer.

Please see what files are safe to remove from my computer?

Delete hidden junk files

Hidden or temporary files are created without the user knowing. All you have to do is open files, browse the Internet, install programs, and more files are created in the background. There is so much happening in the background that most people are unaware of and do not know that this area exists.This is something you are going to have to learn about if you want to speed up your computer.

Here is an article about safely deleting temporary files.

Remove unwanted programs

Are you one of those people that constantly download programs and install them onto your computer? Every software program you have on your computer is taking up space. It is not only taking up space, but it might also be checking for updates and connecting to the Internet. It also might be starting up when your computer starts up. There are so many good reasons why you should remove unwanted programs.

Here is an article that shows you how to safely remove or delete programs from your computer.

Here is another article about removing a program from Windows Vista.

After you have removed the software program that you did not want, make sure you restart your computer to complete the process.

Defrag to speed up your computer

When you install programs and save files on your computer, the files are automatically saved to the closest available space on your hard drive. This means that files for your programs are fragmented if your hard disk drive is not organized correctly. This is why we need to de-frag our computer to place the files back together and to place the most frequently used files at the front for easy access.

You should defrag your computer at least once a week if you use your computer often. If you do not use your computer that often, then you can defrag less often.

If you are using the Windows disk defragmenter which is located at start menu>accessories>system tools>disk defragmenter, you can choose to “analyze” first before you choose defrag. This feature will tell you if you need to perform this task or not.

Here is a simple way to use the Windows disk defragmenter to defrag your computer hard drive.

Disk CleanUp

Disk CleanUp comes free with Windows and will get rid of the rest of the junk files that you have missed. Go to start menu>accessories>system tools>disk cleanup. You can see more information about this system tool on my computer maintenance checklist.

Always pay for a virus program!

By all means, you can waste your time trying to find the best free anti-virus program, but do you really want to risk it.

Don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with a free anti-virus program. In fact I will recommend Avast as my number one freebie. However, even though this proved to be secure, it is safer to have the extra security features that come with the paid versions. Now days most new antivirus also come with a firewall that if they do not, Windows provides a perfectly good firewall for free.

Over the past 25 years I have tested at least 10 paid virus programs and have ended up with

running on my computer. It does not annoy me, it is not asked be stupid questions that I cannot answer, and is not make me deal with difficult settings. I like a program that just does its job.

Please see Top 10 tips to protect yourself from viruses! And my Top virus removal software.

If you do not have a virus program installed you are risking everything! Sometimes your computer will gradually slow down when it gets a virus, and other times it will be crashing within minutes. Is that really worth the hassle?

Avoid multitasking with large programs

If you’re anything like me, you will have 20 Windows open at the same time, with your Internet browser having at least 15 tabs opened as well. Yes I know it is crazy and I’m trying to reform. I have a lot of experience in multitasking and have realized that some programs cannot be open at the same time as others. For example you should not be running a large program like Photoshop or Pinnacle video studio, while running a virus scan at the same time. We all know what the right thing to do is, but we just can’t help ourselves.

Warning: Working on 20 programs at the same time is not good if you are trying to speed up your computer!

Use an external hard drive for backup

Nowadays there is no excuse for not backing up your files! It is unbelievably cheap to buy an external hard drive or even a portable USB flash drive to store backup files on. Both these portable devices are simple to connect to the computer via a USB plug. Once connected, you will find the device if you go to your start menu and then press on computer. For older versions of Windows it will be called my computer.

Also see this video on YouTube: how to move files around on your computer.

You can use these devices to store all of your files on, leaving your computer clean and free to work on.

Update programs regularly

Every program on your computer must be updated regularly. If you do not do this, you will find that you will get problems, guaranteed! Even Windows itself needs updating, along with any other applications and games, and even hidden device driver software.

To see if your device drivers are performing properly you can go to the Control Panel, click on system, advanced settings, and then you will find device manager under the hardware tab.

Here is an article: what are device drivers and why do I need them?

I use a program called Driver Finder. Most computers need a program like this because having outdated driver software on your computer can cause horrendous problems. Having the wrong driver software on your computer has been known to cause black screens, blue screens, and total computer crashes.

To find out if Windows needs updating, simply go to your start menu and type in the search section, “Windows update”. A link will appear in the menu, click on it to see your details. See the screen shot below.

Upgrade your computer memory

When you buy a new computer now days it should come with a minimum of 2 GB of memory installed. This should be okay for a year or two, however as times change, you will eventually need to upgrade your memory.

Older computers are in an even worse situation. People are using old computers to do new things that these computers were not made for. Upgrading your computer memory and increasing your hard drive size can help speed up an old computer.

When upgrading your computer memory in order to speed up your computer, there are two options, to do it yourself or get someone else to do it for you. If you are seriously hopeless with technical stuff, like my friend Deb, I would suggest you take it to a computer store for the upgrade.

If you are willing to give it a go you can buy computer memory online (making sure you have the right type) and do it yourself.

Please see this article: upgrade computer memory

Install a program to do it all for you! Speed up your computer!

A software program will not upgrade your memory but it will clean out all the junk files, delete unused registry keys, and even remind you to update. When buying a program to perform computer maintenance for you, definitely make sure it involves a one-off payment. I do not recommend buying a computer maintenance program that has to be paid for yearly. This is going beyond a joke!

Linux Tools On Windows? Linux is well known for its powerful command-line utilities–but what isn’t well known is that you can install same powerful tools on Windows in just minutes.

Linux Tools On Windows–The Official Windows Version

Microsoft has long recognized the value of Linux and Unix–Microsoft was even planning to replace Windows with its own version of Unix, called Xenix, back in the late 1980s. Alas, Microsoft signed a deal with IBM to develop OS/2, parts of which evolved into Windows NT and the current versions of Windows.

After stopping support on Xenix, Microsoft produced an official package called Windows Services for Unix. For Windows Vista and Windows 7, the package was renamed Subsystem for Unix-based Applications (SUA). It includes over 350 Unix applications, plus libraries that allow Windows to talk to Unix.

Unfortunately, two things prevent us from recommending you install SUA today. First, it requires either the Enterprise or Ultimate editions of Windows, so most users can’t use it. Second, many of the Linux utilities it includes are years out of date, depriving users of some of the best features.

Linux Tools on Windows Using Cygwin

Begun in 1995, Cygwin is by far the most popular way to run Linux tools on Windows. Contributing to its popularity is the fact that it’s free and it supports a dizzying array of Linux tools–a full installation of Linux tools can take up over 4 GB of disk space, although you don’t need that much to get started.

The great thing about Cygwin is that it makes all of its tools available to the regular Windows command line, yet if you choose to use one of the Linux command lines, you can still use all of the Windows tools. This means there’s no trade off–you get powerful Linux tools without giving up anything (except a bit of disk space).

Installing Linux Tools on Windows

Installing Cygwin is a breeze. Go to cygwin.com, click the Install Cygwin link, and download and run setup.exe. Cygwin will open a window that lets you choose what you want to install–by default only a minimal set of Linux tools are installed.

After choosing which programs you want to install, Cygwin’s setup.exe will automatically download all the necessary files. This step may take a while, particularly if you have a slow Internet connection or you selected a lot of packages. After downloading all the files, Cygwin will install them and offer to create an icon for you on your desktop and Start menu to launch the Bash shell. I highly suggest you accept, for you can use copies of this launcher to create your own launchers to your favorite Linux tools.

After installation, Cygwin runs a few post-installation scripts. Sometimes these scripts pop up windows which disappear after a moment. Don’t be alarmed–this is a quirk in Windows and you won’t see it again until you upgrade Cygwin.

Using Linux Tools On Windows

After your installation finishes, I suggest you dive right in to Cygwin. Double-click the Bash Shell icon on your desktop, which will open the default Windows terminal and the Linux Bash shell.

A shell, in Linux jargon, is a program which loads other programs. It can also be used to create shell scripts, which are very similar to Windows batch files. Linux shells almost always end with the letters sh (for SHell); there are a number of other shells you can choose from in Cygwin, but Bash is the best for learning about Linux.

After launching Bash, you may discover that it uses different filenames than what you expect. In Windows, all full filenames start with a drive prefix, for example C:\Program Files. In Cygwin applications, all full filenames start with a single forward slash, /. Unfortunately this means filenames are different in Cygwin and Windows; here’s how to find your files no matter where you are:

• In Windows all of your Cygwin files are in the C:\cygwin folder. Most files will be in your Cygwin user directory, which is C:\cygwin\home\*username* (where username is your Windows username).
• In Cygwin all of your Windows drives can be found in the /cygdrive folder. Files in your Documents folder will be in /cygdrive/c/Users/*username*/Documents

You can see all of the files in the current directory in Cygwin by typing ls. You can change directory by typing cd followed by the directory name you want to move visit. These are the same commands you would type in a Windows command line.

Learning To Use Linux Tools on Windows

Hundreds, maybe thousands, of books have been written about learning Linux, so I don’t expect to teach you everything you want to know about using Linux tools on Windows in this one article. But I can leave you with a few hints on how to find more information:

Linux Tools On Windows–Bash

• Most Linux programs come with a manual page. You can read the manual page by typing man before the name of the program. For example, try running man bash right now.
• Try doing in Bash anything you would usually do on the Windows command line. In most cases, Windows and Linux use programs with the same names, so switching is easy.

About the author:

David A. Harding is a Linux Professional Institute certified system administrator and freelance writer with over 10 years experience working with Linux. He’s been published in over a dozen magazines and has given over 50 presentations about Linux–including two Software Freedom Day keynotes. Dave always loves to hear from readers and can be reached at dave@dtrt.org.

Borrow from your local library a copy of Linux Administration: A Beginner’s Guide (Fifth Edition) by Wale Soyinka. The book focuses on teaching Linux to experienced Windows users, so it makes an excellent introduction to Linux tools on Windows.

Get Linux For Free!
Linux is a bulletproof operating system to replace Windoze on your PC or laptop. Linux is fast, stable, and immune to viruses and spyware. Very easy to install tv aerials and so simple, grandma can use it. Linux rocks!

Linux For The Home PC
So simple grandma can use it. Immune to viruses & spyware. Best of all, it is FREE!

LinuxEZ Guide!
Linux for the desktop PC is here! Best of all, you can get Linux for free! Linux is loaded with software and games to give you the greatest computing experience. Our guide is written for the novice user and will help you get started. Linux is ultra reliable and immune to spyware and viruses. Try it now!

best mobile broadband