Top 4 tips to improve performance on Windows 7

The general problem that most of the computer users face is low speed or low performance of the PC. The reasons for the low performance can be many ranging from the fragmentation of the files on your PC to the spyware attacks on your PC. The key in improving the performance lies in identifying the areas which are degrading your systems performance and act accordingly.

I would like to share my knowledge on few of the areas which lead to poor performance and the steps to be followed using the options in Windows 7 to improve the performance of PC hosting Windows 7 OS.

The following tips may help you improve the speed and performance of your Windows 7 PC significantly.

Avoid Disk fragmentation to improve the access speed to data.

Disk Fragmentation is one of the main causes of the main reasons for the poor performance of a system. The reason being, when files are fragmented it takes considerably more time for the OS to gather all the pieces of the file from the disk to read the contents of a file, leading to poor performance.

The best way to overcome this problem is to use Disk Defragmenter. The Defragmenter is a utility available on Windows OS which brings together the fragmented pieces of a file/folder on the disk such that each file/folder occupies a contiguous space on the disk. All the files and folders are arranged neatly on the disk using this utility.

The next question that would arise now is when to use the defragmenter.

The defragmenter can be run on your system when the free space available on your disk is less than 15 percent or when you have installed a new software or added numerous files/folders to your disk.

Once you have identified the reason now below are the steps to be followed to use Disk Defragmenter.

1) Click on Start --> All Programs --> Accessories --> System Tools. Here you have the utility Disk Defragmenter. Click on this. A new dialog box of Disk Defragmenter opens up.
2) All the drives present on the system are listed in the Current status of the Defragmenter dialog box. Select the drives that you want to defragment. Now you have the option Analyze Disk at the right hand bottom of the window. Click on this to Analyze the drives that you have selected. This is to get an estimate of the time that it would take to complete the defragmentation of a particular drive.
3) Once this is completed, click on Defragment Disk option present next to Analyze disk option.
4) In the current status window the status of the defragmentation is displayed. Once this is done the details of the Disk defragmentation are displayed.
5) One also has the option of scheduling the disk defragmentation by using the Configure Schedule Option in the dialog box.

Clean up the disk regularly to improve the performance by removing unwanted clutter.

There is loads of unwanted stuff that resides on the disk consuming a healthy amount of disk space which reduces the system performance. To avoid this poor performance as a result of this one should regularly clean up the disk by deleting all the unwanted stuff on the disk.

Disk Cleanup is the tool that can serve this purpose efficiently. The best part of this tool is that it identifies the files/folders that can be safely removed from your computer. Once it identified the tool gives you an option of selecting whether or not you want to delete those files from the disk.

The following are the steps to follow for using the Disk Cleanup tool.

1) Click on Start --> All Programs --> Accessories --> System Tools. Here you have the utility Disk Cleanup. Click on this. A new dialog box of Disk Cleanup opens up.
2) Once you click the Disk Cleanup icon the system calculates the amount of space that can be freed on your disk by deleting the unwanted files like temporary internet files, recycle bin items, temporary system files, downloaded programs like Java Applets, programs that are no longer in use.
3) The Disk Cleanup dialogue box pops up which consists of the list of files that can be removed from the disk.
4) Uncheck all the files that you do not want to delete and click on OK button. You will be prompted for a confirmation, and on clicking yes the process of Disk Cleanup starts. This takes a few minuted depending on the amount of data being deleted. Once done the dialogue box closes.

Check For Disk errors using Check now and fix them.

As you use your hard drive, it can develop bad sectors. Bad sectors slow down hard disk performance and sometimes make data writing (such as file saving) difficult, or even impossible. The Error Checking utility Check Now scans the hard drive for bad sectors, and scans for file system errors to see whether certain files or folders are misplaced.

Now coming to the frequency of using this utility, this should be run on a weekly basis if the computer is being used daily.

Steps for using Check Now.

1) Before proceeding to run the tool all the files on the system should be closed.
2) Click on My Computer Icon on the desktop or click on Start --> My Computer.
3) If there are multiple drives, select the drive on which you want to run the Check Now.
4) Now right click on the drive and click on Properties.
5) In the properties dialog box click on Tools
6) In the tools section you have the option if Check Now.
7) Error checking dialog box opens in which check against the option Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors and click on Start.
8) If there are bad sectors it is displayed and you can fix them.

Protect your computer against spy ware

Spyware is a malicious software that collects personal information without we knowing and also slow down your computer. It also does not ask any permissions so that it can be avoided or identified. Sensitive personal information like User names and passwords and other confidential online information of us is at risk because of spyware. Not only does the spyware indulge in our privacy but also indulges the performance of our system. To overcome spyware, one can make use of the PC safety scan from Windows Live OneCare. This scan is a free service that helps check for and remove viruses. This does not only check for viruses but also helps removing junk from the disk thus helping in improving performance.

Top 4 tips to improve performance on Windows 7

Avoid Disk fragmentation to improve the access speed to data.

Clean up the disk regularly to improve the performance by removing unwanted clutter.

Check For Disk errors using Check now and fix them.

Protect your computer against spy ware

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