Basic System Protection

Here is a suggested maintenance schedule for your computer:                 

*   See our Computer Security page for more information.
** See below for more information.

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A very good service that can help you assess your computer and then tune it up is www.pcpitstop.com. These folks have some advertising on their site but it's not offensive. They will do an analysis of a number of key areas on your computer and give you a "checkered flag" (excellent rating) or several levels of "some improvement needed".  Each recommendation of what your computer comes with "how to" links that should be straightforward enough for most people to follow. Highly recommended! You will need to run Internet Explorer to perform the tests at this site.

Background Information and How To

1. If you have a continuous connection to the Web, ensure that your computer is secure against attacks. See our Computer Security page.

2. Keep your Windows operating system updated. Read all the fine print before updating and follow any pre-update procedures.

3. Periodically defragment your hard drive.

4. Back up your data and system on a regular basis.

"How To" Section

Defragment Your Hard Drive

Background Information
Emails and Web Browsing are among the biggest contributors to disk fragmentation. One reason for disk fragmentation is Windows Restore Points. Daily, Windows writes and erases Restore Points to your hard drive. This process is to provide a fail-safe but it also slows performance. Also, Windows does not consistently defragment its own restore points.

To benefit fully from disk defragmentation, we must do more than run a disk defragger periodically. The system maintenance procedures below should always be done BEFORE doing defragmentation.

Clear Internet Cache 
Delete Temporary Files 
Delete Junk Mail 
Maintain at least 50% Free Space
Remove Seldom Used Programs 

Remember to close ALL applications during the disk defragmentation process. 

Here's How 

Step 1 (all Windows versions)
Start the computer in SAFE MODE. (This mode starts the computer with a minimum set of processes and thus gives the defragmentation process more resources and fewer interruptions by other running programs.

Step 2
Scan the hard drive and repair any errors. If errors are present on the hard drive, the defragmentation process will have difficulty and may take up to many hours to finis or may not finish.

Step 3 (all Windows versions)
Remove temporary Internet files.

Step 4 (Windows XP)

Open My Computer then right click the hard drive (usually C:) and then select Properties from the pop-up menu that appears. Click the Tools tab.

Click the Defragment Now button.

Be sure that the drive that you want to defrag is selected, then click the Defragment button.

Be Patient. The computer may take up to 2 hours to do this procedure.

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Start the computer in SAFE MODE
1. Shut down the computer
2. Turn on the computer and immediately start tapping the F8 key on your keyboard (if this does not work,  hold down the F8 key). You have to be quick about it on some faster computers. If you do not see the screen described in the next step, shut down the computer and repeat this step again.
 3. You will see a screen that offers you several options (depending on which version of Windows you are using). Use your up or down arrow keys to choose safe mode and then press the enter key.
4. When you are finished with SAFE MODE, close all programs and restart the computer as you normally would.

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Remove Temporary Internet files
The cache or Temporary Internet Files are files like graphics, Web pages, cookies, and so forth, that are stored on your computer’s hard disk to speed up surfing. The idea is that if you surf to Amazon.com, your browser will take certain files from that site and store them on your computer’s hard drive. Next time you surf to Amazon.com, the page should load faster because you already have some of the information stored on your computer’s hard disk as Temporary Internet Files. All these Temporary Internet Files are stored in a special sub-directory in your Windows directory called Temporary Internet Files.

1. Close any open Internet browser windows.

2. Open the Control Panel:
Windows® 2000 users: from the Windows taskbar, click Start, point to Settings, and click Control Panel.
Windows® XP users: from the Windows taskbar, click Start, and then click Control Panel.

3. Open the Internet Options dialog box:
Windows 98, ME, and 2000 users: double-click Internet Options.
Windows XP users: click Network and Internet Connections, and then click Internet Options.

4. On the General tab, in the Temporary Internet files section, click Delete Files.

5. Make sure the Delete all offline content check box is selected.

6. Click OK.

7. If available, click Apply.

8. Click OK.

Check Your Hard Drive for Errors

Step 1 (all Windows versions)
Start the computer in SAFE MODE. (This mode starts the computer with a minimum set of processes and thus gives the defragmentation process more resources and fewer interruptions by other running programs.

Step 2 (all Windows versions)
Remove temporary Internet files.

Step 3 (Windows XP)
Open My Computer then right click the hard drive (usually C:) and then select Properties from the pop-up menu that appears. Click the Tools tab.

Click the Check Now button.

Make sure that the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors and Automatically fix file system errors options are selected.
Click Start button. The computer may reply that it needs "exclusive access" to the hard drive and that it can run this task on the next restart. If so, restart your computer after agreeing.

Be Patient. The computer may take up to an hour to do this procedure. If it takes a long time, this may indicate more than the usual number of errors on your hard drive.

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See our Computer Security page for more information.

Go to Removing a Virus page

This page updated on Jan 18, 2012