A good principle to follow: "If it ain't broke, don't be fixin' on it."
But periodic "maintenance" will keep your machine in better working order.
Contradiction? No.
Important "Maintenance":
**Keep your important personal/business files and data backed up, preferably to "removable memory" ie. CD/DVD or External Hard Drive.
**Keep your Operating System updated (Windows auto-updates will do this for you, but DO NOT go willie-nillie adding all the optional and beta bells and whistles that Microsoft offers. For instance Internet Explorer 7.0 is still very much a "beta" product and has caused many people alot of grief.
**Keep your AntiVirus and AntiSpyware tools updated.
**Keep your JAVA Runtime Environment updated (download the newest version to a saved file, then go to add/remove to completely Uninstall your current old version prior to installing the new version)
**Run your Antivirus active -background protection, and manually run a complete scan of your machine at regular intervals according to how much you use your machine. At least a couple of times monthly, and maybe once weekly.
**Run your AntiSpyware tools more frequently, even daily if you are heavily on the internet. (Running AntiSpyware actively in the background can slow your machine down quite noticeably. Therefore, use only one AntiSpyware tool to run actively, if at any at all, and "rotate" your use of the other AntiSpyware tools. You should have Spybot S & D and Ad-Aware, and you may have other free or paid AntiSpyware products. Run one of them after your internet session today. Run your second tool after finished on the internet tomorrow. And the third, fourth, etc. one each after the next succeeding days in rotation. That way, you will have updated all of your tool, and run them all, probably in the course of a week.)
**Run Disk CleanUp regularly, probably after every heavy internet session, and if you have installed any new software. You'll often see specialized programs for cleanup, like CleanUp! 4.50, or CCleaner, or AFT Cleaner. Any one of those would be a great program (and free) to help your keep junk files cleared out, but your should "read-up' on what they do since they can be quite aggressive and even make some changes in your registry. The native MS Cleanup Manager will do the job for most owner/users. (I'll post a "cleanup protocol" at the end of this post so you can see what needs to be cleaned)
**Clear your JAVA Cache weekly.
**Run Scan Disk before Disk Defrag. Reboot to SAFE Mode to run these. Neither is likely to increase the "speed" of your machine's performance, but is more likely to reduce wear and tear on your Hard Drive, by reducing "seek/read/write" cycles caused by application and data that has been spread all over the Hard Drive, during use. Run them once weekly if your machine is used heavily, otherwise monthly.
**Cold boot your Modem and Router monthly. Today's broadband connections are designed and installed to perform as "always on" peripherals, but can and do experience minor corruption of configuration caused by ordinary usage and heat. Cold boot, means turn off your computer. Turn off your Router (unplug the power supply. Turn off your Modem and unplug the power and phone lines. Leave them all off for 1/2 hour. When powering up, turn on Modem first, then Router, then computer.
**Video Driver Updates? Forget about it. If your video display is pleasing/satisfactory to your use/needs, then your current video driver is doing its job. Many video driver updates are provided by the manufacturer for specific instances to accomodate "high-end" users. Many of the offered updates can even "decrease" your video display performance. If you do update your video drivers, completely Uninstall the old one according the manufacturer recommendations, prior to installing the update.
**Same for other Sound and peripheral updates.
**What about updates for MediaPlayer and RealPlayer, QuickTime, and viewpoint player, and such? Turn off auto-udaters and manually update if you run into a situation where you need a specific utility enhancement.
**What about IM updates? Same as above for media players.
So what about your original question? ——
System File Checker
If your machine requires repair of your Operating System, you will have been having Stop: Errors, application crashes, Blue Screens, and possibly significant machine slow-down/failures. All Windows Operating Systems, except ME, have a built in System File Checker and in Win2k/WinXP a utility called Windows File Protection. If/when you have any of the above symptoms, suspect malware, dust/heat, junk files, and fragmentation; in that order and perform maintenance as listed above. Lastly, you can run System File Checker, from your System Tools, or from Start - Run - (type)sfc /scannow. Have your installation CD handy to replace any missing or corrupted system files.
Check Disk
Hard Drives do come with "bad-sectors" and "may" develop new "bad-sectors" with use. Hey it's a machine and machines "eventually" wear out. But unless the above maintenance doesn't "fix" your symptom/problem there is no need to regularly run CHKDSK. Why not? Because most symptoms are caused by failure of the above maintenance and not by specific "bad-sector" hard drive failure. And Scan Disk/Disk Defragment will do much of the work of identifying Hard Drive problems and will mark any bad-sectors so the Hard Drive will "skip" that sector when writing.
CHKDSK is generally thought of as "safe", and is a "real favorite" for some folks who have discovered it. BUT, if CHKDSK identifies a "bad-sector" that happens to have important system or saved data, and the CHKDSK recovery/repair is not entirely successful, you "could" theoretically lose a piece of a file you wish you hadn't. (extrememly rare, and not usually a consideration) But that is why I listed BACKUP as the first item in maintenance!!!
So what else should I consider in good maintenance?
Limited User Account
We should all be doing our ordinary daily work from a "limited user account" and never perform application or internet browsing while logged into our machine with Administrator privileges. Why? Because if you run afoul of malware during your daily work, a "limited user account" will help to limit the damage to that account only and help prevent spread/installation of any malware load. If you are running with Administrative privileges, any malware you encounter has free run of your machine with the same "privilege" to install itself or run its payload that your Administrator enjoys. Not good.
Separate Partitions
Best practice is to Partition your Hard Drive(s) such that the Operating System has its own drive designation (usually c:/). Your application can all be placed on a separate partition, and your data/documents can be saved to a third partition. Why? If your Operating System experiences a failure/infection, the first concern of most folks is that they may lose important saved data and documents. If the Operating System is on its own Partition, then repair work can be done on that partition alone, all the way up to and including a Repair Installation and even partition re-format and reinstall of OS, thereby increasing the chance that your saved data/documents remain safe.
Should any of the above Cost you any Money.
No. In most cases, free utilities are available to handles all the above maintenance. Consult the resources listed here by Tom Coyote.
What else can I do to improve machine performance?
Dozens of thing. But usually such things are specific to each owner/user, and too extensive to list.
But everyone can get a significant boost by Turning Off Eye Candy in XP. Consider it.
Here's the CleanUp protocol:
Here's a complete routine to manually do that:
To clean out all the temporary files and cookies on your system.
Go to
Start - Run - (type) "cleanmgr" without the quotes.
Let it scan your system for files to remove.
Check these three boxes and then press ok to remove:
Temporary Files,
Temporary Internet Files,
Recycle Bin.
Then GoTo:
Start - Find/search - Files or folders - in the named box, type: *.tmp
When the list is generated, choose
Edit - select all - File - delete.
Note: If you cannot delete them all at once because you have too many, then click and hold ctrl and highlight a batch of them at a time. Once highlighted, R-click over the highlight and select delete.
Then use
Start - Run - (type) "%temp%" (without the quotes).
Delete the entire contents of that "temp" folder
(use Edit - Select All - press "Delete", click "Yes").
Then,
Empty your Temporary Internet Cache completely.
Close all instances of Outlook and Internet Explorer,
then use "Control Panel - Internet Options - General tab and click the "Delete File" button.
When prompted place a check in: "Delete all offline content", then click OK.
Then, use Windows Explorer to clean out ALL the other temp folders on your system
(navigate to the folder, (as listed below)
use "Edit - Select All", press "Delete", click "Yes"
* C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Temp\
* C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\
* C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Temp\
* C:\Windows\Prefetch\
* Empty your "Recycle Bin".
Note: This is a long manual way to clear out .tmp files. It is safe and highly recommended.
Eventually you may wish to use a "tool" to do this procedure for you on a regular basis.
Download: CleanUp! 4.50 from http://www.stevengould.org
Read about all the options for using this device and use it only after you are satisfied that you understand what it will do for you. I use it regularly, and have a squeaky clean computer as a result. I recommend the default setting that are set during installation.
After doing the above routines, do this separate cleaning of your ActiveX, applets and Java routines:
GoTo:
Control Panel - JAVA - (this will open your JAVA Control Panel)
(in some cases the steps might be Control Panel - JAVA plugins)
Once your JAVA Control Panel is open, you will see a Button down toward the bottom of that panel labeled "Delete Files"
Click - Delete Files - OK, Then close your JAVA Control Panel and Reboot.
Note: The current version of JAVA Runtime Environment is Version 8. If you are running an older version, there are specific "vulnerabilities" that have corrected in Version 8. Recommended: Use Add/Remove to "completely" uninstall your Current JAVA Runtime Environment. Then go to C:\Program Files and Delete the entire Folder of JAVA. Then install the newest version of JAVA Runtime Environment. Get it here:
http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp
Please note that in doing the above routines, you will "lose" any auto-login settings that Window has saved for you regarding Websites that you visit that require Username and Password to access the site, and any ActiveX scripts necessary to interact with the Website.
This is not a problem, since you will merely be required to "re-enter" your Username and Password the next time you visit any such site. (for instance, Here at TomCoyote) Or you will be asked to download a fresh copy of any required ActiveX. After that, Windows will again remember the settings for you and you will be able to auto-login again.
It's a good idea to clear up these features on a fairly regular basis, for a couple of reasons. First, ActiveX and applet routines occasionally become corrupted and can be infected with some malwares. Second, temporary internet files are often the first entry point of spyware/malware.
