Top 5 Weekly Computer Maintenance to dos

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gnfb

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#153884 11-Oct-2014 09:46

So I am your typical computer abuser, sorry user. I regularly sit down at my desk and think damm windows why is it so slow or clunky?
And I don't have an in house IT person.

Firstly I know why Its because i abuse it. I download liitle progams that look intresting then forget to remove them I go to dodgy sites I do all the things i shouldn't do. And it goes without saying its not a mac!

Accepting all that and I am not going to really change my ways.

What are the top 5 things i should be doing each week to make my pc run smoothly

Should I be running CCleaner? malewarebytes? do we still have to defragement our discs?

So I would appreciate if you clever ones could suggest Top 5 things us abusers should be doing each week to make our PC life better

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#1151717 11-Oct-2014 09:56

I do absolutely nothing so that's my only recommendation.

nathan

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#1151731 11-Oct-2014 10:10

i do nothing to optimise my PC either

so either stop downloading crap, or if you must, run that crap up in a VM using Hyper-V / VirtualBox / VirtualPC / VMWare etc, so you can snapshot and roll back or have all your crap contained in there.

johnr

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#1151732 11-Oct-2014 10:12

Nothing

Batman

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#1151736 11-Oct-2014 10:21

1 - look at new computers to buy to replace
2 - eat potato chips
3 - shake the keyboard of food scraps
4 - blow under the mouse
5 - swipe the index finger over the monitor top to see how much dust and be in awe

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#1151738 11-Oct-2014 10:22

this is not a weekly to do but install avast free. it will slow it down a bit but sounds like for you, you have NO CHOICE. set and forget. if too slow buy a faster SSD and a faster CPU. and Don't compare the lack of lag without avast. you just need it.

johnr

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#1151739 11-Oct-2014 10:23

joker97: 1 - look at new computers to buy to replace
2 - eat potato chips
3 - shake the keyboard of food scraps
4 - blow under the mouse
5 - swipe the index finger over the monitor top to see how much dust and be in awe

Bahahahaha classic thanks for my morning laugh

johnr

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#1151743 11-Oct-2014 10:25

@gnfb you could make sure all the prawn sites you visited are cleared from the history on a weekly basis :P

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tdgeek

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#1151746 11-Oct-2014 10:29

I don't do anything on my 6 month old rMBP, loving it. It runs the same all the time. I am sure that there is stuff I could do, I will look into that sometime

networkn

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#1151751 11-Oct-2014 10:45

Stop worrying about maintenance on your computer, run decent AV and or AntiMalware, and buy a SSD and another 4GB Memory for a total of 8 so you don't have to worry about slowness ever again.

Computers do not NEED weekly or even monthly maintenance except Windows Updates and Backups.

Problem solved :)

Hammerer

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#1151762 11-Oct-2014 11:01

Your biggest issue, apart from malware, is likely to be installing applications that slow down your system. You will notice when this happens because startup takes forever and the snappy responsiveness you were used to becomes sluggish. If you don't have enough physical memory then you might notice your disk being used more often as Windows transfers virtual memory data to and from the paging file on disk.

It is not a weekly task but I'd run Sysinternals Autoruns to select which programs I actually want loading at startup.

afe66

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#1151771 11-Oct-2014 11:36

Reinstall windows every 18m-24m from a clean backup then download the new updatess and create another vanilla windows back up for next time.
Reinstall the 10 programs in continual use and wait to see if I miss any of the others.

A.

josephhinvest

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#1151782 11-Oct-2014 12:05

Yep another Mac user. I plug in my time machine drive weekly. That's about it :)

Cheers,
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zaptor

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#1151831 11-Oct-2014 14:15

I don't think disk fragmentation is such a major issue since Windows 7.

I try and use portable versions of apps where possible to minimize registry bit-rot, and to prevent installations of unwanted bloat ware (which even ships with OSS nowadays).

Of course it goes without saying your typical browser with all it's lovely plugins can be a nice back door for stuff as well. Surfer beware.

Real time background activity/file scanners are a pain. But, sadly a reality in the Windows world.

Elpie

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#1151836 11-Oct-2014 14:45

gnfb:
What are the top 5 things i should be doing each week to make my pc run smoothly

Should I be running CCleaner? malewarebytes? do we still have to defragement our discs?

CCleaner (not the latest version, which is buggy) is useful but not a "should be running" app. I use it to clean out my PC every time my browser(s) are closed. It's not necessary but I like to remove traces of browsing history. Malwarebytes? Only if you suspect you may have malware. Then its useful for diagnostics. Defrag? Don't bother. Windows 7 and 8 run defrag automatically and manage this at OS level so you never need to unless you changed the default settings for defrag in Windows.

I don't do any regular PC maintenance. I don't have an antivirus installed, beyond the standard Windows security essentials. Once in a blue moon I run Auslogic's duplicate file finder and remove duplicates since I have a bad habit of having backups of backups and more copies in folders for Dropbox and SpiderOak. I also periodically clear out old system restore points and shadow copies, but that's a space saving thing and has no impact on normal PC performance.

Windows 7 and up are pretty good at looking after themselves. If a system is slow then moving the OS onto an SSD and adding more RAM would pay off. Keeping it clean of nasties is important though and if you are inclined to take risks then sandbox the risk with a VM.

nathan

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#1151839 11-Oct-2014 14:52

Elpie:
gnfb:
What are the top 5 things i should be doing each week to make my pc run smoothly

Should I be running CCleaner? malewarebytes? do we still have to defragement our discs?

CCleaner (not the latest version, which is buggy) is useful but not a "should be running" app. I use it to clean out my PC every time my browser(s) are closed. It's not necessary but I like to remove traces of browsing history. Malwarebytes? Only if you suspect you may have malware. Then its useful for diagnostics. Defrag? Don't bother. Windows 7 and 8 run defrag automatically and manage this at OS level so you never need to unless you changed the default settings for defrag in Windows.

I don't do any regular PC maintenance. I don't have an antivirus installed, beyond the standard Windows security essentials. Once in a blue moon I run Auslogic's duplicate file finder and remove duplicates since I have a bad habit of having backups of backups and more copies in folders for Dropbox and SpiderOak. I also periodically clear out old system restore points and shadow copies, but that's a space saving thing and has no impact on normal PC performance.

Windows 7 and up are pretty good at looking after themselves. If a system is slow then moving the OS onto an SSD and adding more RAM would pay off. Keeping it clean of nasties is important though and if you are inclined to take risks then sandbox the risk with a VM.

IE InPrivate Browsing, Firefox private window, or Chrome incognito mode could save you from having to remove traces of browsing history every time browsers are closed

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