Cleaning up your computer for better performance

If you want your computer to run as quickly and efficiently as possible, it's important to clean your computer up every once in awhile. This includes deleting old files, running virus scans, and freeing up disk space.

The following are some ways you can clean up your computer for better performance.

Install a virus checker and use it regularly.
A virus checker, such as Norton or McAfee, can keep your computer safe from viruses and other things that could harm the files and other things on your computer, increasing your computer's performance. While most of these run automatically on your computer to scan for threats and viruses, you should run a scan at least once a week.

In addition, you will also want to keep your anti-virus software up to date. This is important because updates occur often, as new viruses and threats are released continually.

Delete old files.
If you're like most people, you clean out your closet occasionally and get rid of those things that you don't use anymore and that are just taking up space and making it so your closet can't hold more recent, important things. The same holds true for your computer. Cleaning out old files that you no longer use will help free up space on your computer for other applications as well as making it run a little more smoothly.

Going to Add and Remove programs on your PC is the first step. Look through the list at things you know you haven't touched in a long time and probably won't any time soon and delete them from your computer. If you have games you haven't played, for example, you can delete those. Other programs you have installed can be deleted as well and then reinstalled if you have saved the installation disk.

Knowing what is taking up a lot of room can also help you choose. If you store all of your photos on your computer, it might be easier to save them onto a portable storage disk drive and then delete them from your computer.

You should also delete your temporary internet files regularly. These take up a huge amount of space because they store every site you have visited for easier access later.

Know what is slowing your computer down.
Certain programs and downloads are notorious for slowing down computers. This includes popular programs like P2P network software. In P2P, or peer-to-peer, file sharing networks, users download software from the network that allows them to log on and then download for free songs, videos, movies, software, and a wide range of media files. They also tend to infect your computer with viruses and spyware. Get them off of your computer entirely and you should see an improvement in speed afterwards.

Empty your Recycle Bin.
Sometimes, we may delete files accidentally. But they are not automatically deleted; instead, they go to the Recycle Bin, which allows you to retrieve files you may use again or may have deleted by accident. The Recycle bin takes up a lot of room, however, because even though you are deleting files, they are not really "gone" until you empty the Recycle Bin.

It is easy for old files to pile up on your computer. However, this can actually end up slowing it down. You can clean up your computer using the tips mentioned above for improved performance overall.