Personal Computer Clean Up for Windows XP
If your computer is running sluggish, if it periodically needs
to be rebooted or doesn't boot up as quickly as it used to, it
sounds like it's time for a Clean Up. The following instructions
below will give you step by step instructions on how to ensure
your PC continues to operate at its fullest potential. These
instructions are relevant for machines running Windows XP and
using Internet Explorer.
To begin, open up Internet Explorer, that's the blue lower case
letter "e", generally shown in the lower left corner of your
screen. Next click on the word Tools up at the top of your
screen. Once open, click Internet Options. In the middle of that
box you'll see a section called Temporary Internet Files. Click
the Delete Files button. Click the box Delete offline content
too, then OK. Once that is done, click the Delete Cookies button
within the Temporary Internet Files section. Click OK there too.
Next click the Settings button. Check for newer versions of
stored pages should be clicked to Automatically if it isn't
already. Change the Amount of Disk Space to use to 8MB. Click OK
twice.
Next go to the green Start button in the very lower left corner
of your screen. Click My Programs, Accessories, System Tools,
Check Disk Clean up. Use offline content or anything else it
asks. It will take a few moments while it is checking how much
space it can clean up. When you get the new pop-up window, make
sure there are checks in every box. Click OK
After running Disk Clean up, go to Ad-Aware, update and run the
program. If you don't have Ad-Aware SE Personal, it's a free
very comprehensive spyware removal tool and it's remarkably
simple to use. You can download it through Lavasoft
http://www.lavasoft.de/support/download/ Highly recommended.
After running Ad-Aware, reboot your computer.
You should perform the above maintenance about once a week. Then
on an as-needed basis, run Disk Defrag, which you can find in
Start, My Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defrag.
By following the above simple steps your computer should
continue to run at optimum performance!
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Jay is the web owner of http://www.dsl-in.com DSL, a website that provides
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