As with all types of computer systems, the performance of a system would eventually break down. As much as we'd want to keep our computer running smoothly, it doesn't tend to be the case most of the time. The normal wear-and-tear of the system will eventually take its toll and slow the system down to a crawl. Surely, a Here's a few maintenance tips that can be done to keep your system in tip-top shape. Note that this is for Microsoft Windows systems.
1.) Minimize startup items: It must be taken into consideration that as we install more and more programs into the system, some of these items tend to be loaded by default into the startup group of the computer. This, in turn, makes the computer start up time considerably longer, as programs that you don't need to load necessarily at once are being preloaded. To prevent this, and only keep important programs running (e.g. antivirus, ISP software), you can do the System Configuration Utility.
To open this Windows utility, just click on Start -> Run -> msconfig. Go to the startup tab, and weed out the items you do not want to load at startup. Be careful with disabling items though, and if you are not sure as to what a certain program or listing does, just type in the startup item's name in Google, and most of the time, you'd get the information about it.
2.) Cleaning out the clutter: As with normal use, Windows keeps copies of the web pages you visit (e.g. cookies, temporary internet files), programs you load (Windows' prefetch folder), and some compressed old files. Overtime, if you don't keep an eye for it, the space consumed by these items would be huge. Now, you might think that this would not be an issue if you have a big hard drive, but it still is. To maintain this, we can use another Windows utility that takes care of these items. This utility is called Disk Cleanup.
To access Disk Cleanup, go to My Computer. You can have a shortcut of it in your desktop or if not, click on Start->My Computer. Once there, right click on your hard drive C: (by default it is named Local Disk C:) and select Properties. You should have the option to do the Disk Cleanup there [there is a button for the disk cleanup beside the pie chart which describes your current drive space situation]. It would be advisable to perform this once a month or so, to prevent items from accumulating.
3.) Say Bye-bye to Unused Programs: As much as it would be nice to keep all the programs we install, not all of these software are going to be used anyway. For example, you have Ulead's photo software. You were able to get a copy of Adobe Photoshop. Eventually one of those programs would be left out. Another example is with productivity suites. You might've heard of free software like OpenOffice.org or IBM's Lotus Suite and have installed both on your system to try them out. Then, you eventually get Microsoft Office and use it consistently, all those other programs would be unused and is set to grow molds [not literally] in your hard drive. Do yourself a favor, and lessen the clutter by removing all the unused programs in your system.
You can do this by going to the Control Panel (Start -> Control Panel), and selecting Add/Remove Programs. You should get a list of all the programs installed in your computer. Go through the list and remove all the programs you are not using. A word of precaution though, as with disabling startup items, if you are not familiar with the program you are trying to remove, google it first before proceeding. It never hurts to be careful.
I'm pretty sure that there are still other items that can be done to further improve performance. I might've missed a workaround or two, but this is the basic steps you can take to ensure your system performs nicely. But if all else fails, you could back up your files and do a complete Windows reinstallation. But that should always be the last resort. ^_^ V
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