I hate maintenance; don’t you?
But, PC’s need maintenance just like anything else in life or the PC’s performance will suffer.
In this series on the basic work to be done to keep your system in great shape, I’ll tell you what else needs to be maintained on your PC.
The key to successful maintenance of a PC is to ensure that the maintenance is consistently done, usually on a weekly basis.
And the key to making that happen is utilize the program’s ability to regularly perform updates automatically. That way you don’t have to worry about it.
Let’s go through the list:
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Windows updates. In your security settings for Windows, you have the option of automatically getting critical updates. Select that option and as Microsoft (and Apple on Macs) comes out with updates, you’ll automatically receive them.
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Virus updates. Your program has an option to automatically check for updates. Make sure you select that option as virus updates often come out daily.
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Spyware updates. Your program should have an option to automatically check for updates.
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Registry maintenance. Not all programs have an automatic option. Fortunately, mine does and I have it set up to clean up the Registry every week.
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Data Backup. Most programs have an automatic option to back up the hard drive either completely or with an iteration update of the files that have changed on your hard drive since the last full backup.
In addition to the above list, I also defragment my hard drive at least once a month; often every two weeks. If you have a “protection suite” like Norton’s Systemworks, you have defragmenting in the program.
If you don’t have a suite-type program, look on your “Accessories” and then under “System Tools” from the Start tab in Windows. You’ll see “Disk Defragmenter” there. You can’t schedule the tool that comes with Windows, but running it — especially if you have never done this with your PC before — will significantly improve your PC.
What defragmentation does is move all of the information on your hard drive close in instead of scattered all over the disk. This allows your hard drive to retrieve information faster. It does other things, of course, but that’s the big reason I defragment my hard drive — faster retrieval of data.
But the trick to all of this is to have your PC on. To that end, I leave my PC on Friday night after work until I leave for work on Monday morning. And schedule all of my recurring maintenance on the programs on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights when I am sleeping.
Schedule the tasks automatically and allow the tasks to run overnight. The two keys to stress-free maintenance of your PC system.
Scot
[tags]backup, defragmenter, maintenance, registry, spyware, technology-for-writers, ten-keyboards, virus[/tags]
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