How to speed up your Windows computer

So…you’ve had your computer for a long time, and you’ve noticed that it’s not as fast as it used to be. It’s been getting slower and slower.

If you don’t have the benefit of an IT person at your disposal, then you might benefit from knowing a little about what you can do to speed up your computer.
There is no magic bullet…

What your computer probably needs is a bit of tender loving care with some free tools to help you do the following:

1. Maintenance – clean and oil things up.
2. Manage for speed – help your computer work faster.

The easy to use tools you need to get started are:

1. Advanced System Care (ASC) – free download here
2. Process Quick Link (PQL) – free download here
3. Smart Defrag (SD) – free download here
4. Anti Virus – I use Avast free version from here

Your Maintenance Check List


Once you have downloaded and installed the free tools above, go through this maintenance check list. (Like a good IT person, please back up everything before you begin.)

Steps	Tools
Uninstall all useless software from your computer.	Use Windows Add or Remove programs. If Windows can’t remove some stubborn software, use Software Uninstaller in ASC. The tool you have just downloaded.
Delete all useless files.	Delete useless files from all folders. Check your Recycle Bin. If nothing important is in there, then delete everything.
Check computer for viruses	Use your anti virus software. I prefer Avast as my anti virus software.
Clean up something called the Registry.	Use Registry Fix in ASC. Use Registry Defrag in ASC.
Do something called Defragmenting your computer.	Use the Smart Defrag tool you have just downloaded.

Now that you have done a bit of housekeeping, it’s time to help your computer work faster.


The Speed Checklist


Unless you have a computer with a super fast processor and huge random access memory (RAM). Then you probably want to do the following three things:

1. Help your computer start up faster.
2. Stop unnecessary processes running in the background.
3. Keep random access memory clean.

This is how to do this painlessly:

Fast start up.	Stop programs from starting automatically. Use Manage Startups in ASC to choose which programs should NOT start up automatically.
Manage background processes.	Use the PQL tool to find the unnecessary processes running in the background. Use Windows Task Manager to terminate these unnecessary processes.
Memory clean up.	Regularly clean random access memory. Use SmartRAM options in ASC to do this for you.

My thoughts on all this


The Good:
The tools are free and without them you will probably have to find an IT guy. After my first run, maintenance has been easy especially for things like memory management.

When I see performance dipping I just clear up the memory which takes seconds.

The Bad:
At first, it all seems rather daunting and time consuming. But so is having a slow machine.
You need to take extra care when terminating a background process. Use the Process Quick List tool as your guide.

The Bottom Line:
I prefer a faster computer, don’t you?