These computer maintenance tips are well worth the time you will spend on them. It's kind of like cleaning and organizing your house. When everything is put away in the right place, and all the junk and clutter is cleaned up, it makes it much nicer to be there, and much easier place in which to work and play.
Here are the maintenance tasks I think are the most important:
General Computer Maintenance Tips:
- Keep all of your working files in one folder. The My Documents folder is offered by Windows expressly for this purpose. The benefits of keeping all your files in one place are multiple. One, you know where all your files are, two, it's easy to back them all up at once, and three, your machine will run faster.
- Don't put your personal files on the root of the C: drive. If you store a large number of files in the root folder, you could corrupt your disk file table which could lead to a "NTLDR is missing" error message when you boot the computer. Very bad. If you have personal files on the C: drive now, move them to the My Documents folder.
- Uninstall programs that you are not using. But don’t just delete the program. Remove it correctly so you won’t cause Windows errors. Go to Start, Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs. Find the program you want to remove in the list, and click the Remove button.
- If you download a zip file and expand it, delete the original zip file when you are done.
- Store your hardware drivers and purchased software installer files off your hard drive. A flash drive works great for this purpose.
- If you aren’t already using one, get a good surge protector and plug your computer and peripherals into it. If you live in an area with bad lightening storms, unplug you computer and peripherals during the storm.
- Practice safe computing. Don't accept software or downloads for which you didn’t ask. Delete any suspicious email without opening it. And even if the email came from your best friend, don't open any email attachments with the following extensions: * .exe, .com, .vbs, .bat, .mdb, .reg, and .js
Scheduled Computer Maintenance Tips:
Daily computer maintenance tips
- Update your anti-virus scan and anti-spyware definitions, if they aren’t being done automatically.
- Back up any critical files that you have changed today to your flash drive.
Weekly computer maintenance tips:
- Make sure your anti-virus and anti-spyware programs have been updated with the latest definitions, and run a full scan from both programs.
- Reboot your computer. (If you shutdown your computer each night, disregard this tip). If you leave your computer on all the time, definitely do this. It will reset the RAM, and your computer will run much better and faster.
chkdsk automatically. The Check Disk process could take over an hour, so schedule this when you have something else non-computer related to do. On rebooting the PC, you will see a window that shows the progress of the disk check. When it's finished,, it will boot back to the normal version of Windows.
Disclaimer included below. Opening your computer case could void your warranty, and expose you to possible electric shock. Please be careful.
6 month computer maintenance tips:
Go on dust patrol. FIRST, TURN OFF and UNPLUG your computer from the electrical socket. Blow out your keyboard with a compressed air can, and then turn it over and tap it with your hand a few times to shake out any other junk. Brush off the dust bunnies from your PC fan (and any other parts in the back of the PC). Also, open the computer case and GENTLY blow or vacuum out any dust in there, especially around the CPU chip (the big square chip on the mother board).
MAKE SURE you touch something metal to ground yourselfbefore you open the case and reach in there. Even the slightest static electricity zap can ruin a computer chip. This step is especially important if you live in a dusty place like Wyoming.
Annual computer maintenance tips:
Disclaimer included below. Opening your computer case could void your warranty, and expose you to possible electric shock. Please be careful.
6 month computer maintenance tips:
MAKE SURE you touch something metal to ground yourselfbefore you open the case and reach in there. Even the slightest static electricity zap can ruin a computer chip. This step is especially important if you live in a dusty place like Wyoming.
Annual computer maintenance tips:
- Check to see if you have the latest hardware drivers loaded for your printer, monitor and other peripherals.
