Today’s video explains why and how to use the Disk Defragmenter utility in Windows to speed up XP.
As shown in the video, these are the steps to get to the Disk Defragmenter screen:
Click on Start
Click on All Programs
Go to the Accessories folder
Then go to the System Tools folder
Click on Disk Defragmenter
From there, you can analyze your hard drive to see whether or not it needs to be defragmented and start the defragmetation process.
As you use your computer, the files on your hard drive may become fragmented, making it slower for your computer to access them. What defragmenting does is move these fragmented pieces so that they are contiguous, which means that the different pieces of data that make up your files will be placed adjacently next to each other. This will speed up XP access times for your files since it won’t have to go to different areas of your hard drive to piece together parts of a single file.
If your computer runs slow again in the future, you’ll want to run Disk Defragmenter again to see if file fragmentation may be one of the problems with your PC.
If the above video and explanation doesn’t make much sense to you, here’s a video by Andy and Sean of Lab Rats that visually explains what fragmentation is and should hopefully clear up any confusion you may have:
Now that you know what fragmentation is and how to defrag your hard drive, hopefully running Disk Defragmenter will help you to speed up XP and your computer’s overall performance.
In part 2, we covered using Registry Easy. Here is an alternative to using Registry Easy, this program is called RegDefense – it can be downloaded by clicking here. It’s always nice to have more than one of the same tool, whether it be antivirus, antispyware, or registry cleaners. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses and they all scan things differently and can find different results when scanning.
Here is a video showing how to use RegDefense and also how to use the Disk Cleanup tool in Windows XP.
As you can see, using RegDefense is just as simple as using Registry Easy. With free trials of both software available, you can test them out and see which one has the features you like better or provides you with the best results. Download links: RegDefense & Registry Easy.
Also mentioned in the video was Disk Cleanup, which is an excellent free tool that is built into Windows XP. To run Disk Cleanup, just click on Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup. If you have more than one hard drive, Disk Cleanup will ask you which one you want to scan. Normally, you would want to choose your primary hard drive, in most cases it would be the (C:) option.
Disk Cleanup then takes a few seconds or a few minutes to determine how much space can be freed up and then you will be presented with a screen that shows you the different options you can take. Check off the boxes for the actions you want Disk Cleanup to perform, then click OK to free up the amount of space that is shown. Freeing up disk space can help to increase computer speed & performance of the programs installed on your PC. So if your computer begins to run slowly again in the future, remember to run Disk Cleanup as part of your maintenance in addition to using software such as registry cleaners, antivirus scanners, antispyware/antimalware scanners to keep your PC running fast.
Here is a video to show you just how easy Registry Easy works:
Quick and easy, right? If you read the previous part in this series that detailed how to make a backup of your registry before making any changes to it, you’ll notice that it isn’t necessary to perform that step manually since Registry Easy will make the backup for you.
As you saw in the video, Registry Easy scans different aspects of your registry such as empty registry keys, system software settings, user settings, etc. Not only is it a registry scanner, but also has other features such as clearing your browser history, and removing junk and duplicate files which could slow down your PC’s performance.
Registry Easy also includes other ways to optimize your system to increase computer speed. It has the ability to adjust your TCP/IP settings to improve internet speeds. And it can perform memory tweaks to free up unused RAM to help your PC run faster.
This is part 1 of a series of cleaning your system registry to increase computer speed. This is just a quick introduction to the system registry and how to back it up.
Slow computer performance can be the result of poorly uninstalled programs. Even if you used the Add or Remove Programs feature in Windows, some programs may still leave behind their settings in your system registry. The system registry is a database that stores settings for Windows and the various programs installed on your system. Increase computer speed by finding unneeded settings in your registry and clean them up.
The system registry is not something that is recommended to be edited manually if you are a novice user. One wrong change could make your computer worse. If you will be working on your registry manually, it is strongly recommended to make a backup of it before you make any changes. To make a backup of your registry, follow these steps:
Click the Start button then choose the Run… option.
Type in regedit then click OK.
You should now see the Registry Editor window.
Click on File, then choose Export from the menu.
Type in a filename, such as registry-backup.
Choose All from the Selected Range option.
Choose a folder where you would like this backup to be saved, then click Save.
You should now have a saved .reg file as a backup in case any changes that are made to the registry result in adverse effects.
Since manual editing of the registry is not recommended unless you know what you are doing, part 2 of this series will highlight some registry cleaner software products that can help you remove unnecessary registry entries to increase computer speed.
This is just a quick introduction of ways to increase computer speed. Each topic will be covered in more depth in future postings. If your computer runs slow and you want to speed it up, here are a few simple things you can try.
Delete any unnecessary files and programs from your hard drive. If your hard drive is full, it will be slower in accessing data since there is a lot more information that it needs to sift through to find the exact data that is needed at the time. Running Disk Cleanup, removing old files and uninstalling rarely used programs can not only help free up extra disk space, but help your hard drive find the data quicker, which will make your PC seem faster.
Going along the lines with cleaning up your hard drive of unneeded files, another tip for how to speed up computer performance is by checking your hard drive for errors and disk fragmentation. Since this is just an overview, this topic will be covered in more detail later. Basically, if your hard drive is full of errors or is severely defragmented, this can slow down the operation of your PC. You can increase computer speedslightly by running the error checking and defragmentation tools available in Windows.
The next way to try to optimize your PC performance is to make sure it’s free of viruses, spyware, trojans, and other malware. Viruses and malware can severely slow down your PC, so be sure to download, install, and scan your computer with some antivirus and malware removal software.
While trying to uninstall unused software, you may find that some programs will leave behind some junk files. If you know the location that the program was installed in, you can remove these files manually. Some programs will also leave behind changes in your system registry. The registry is the database of settings that your computer uses to run the operating system and any programs that you have installed. Extraneous registry settings can cause your computer to slow down. It is not recommended and can result in doing more damage to manually edit the registry yourself. You can clean up unnecessary registry settings by using a registry cleaner program.
That is a quick overview of ways to increase computer speed. Look forward to future posts as we go into more detail covering the various methods of speeding up your PC, and reviews of registry cleaners, antivirus, antispyware, and more tools to help keep your PC optimized for fast performance.
