Go further on and load everything at Windows startup that you want to be normally running every time you launch your computer — but no more! Excessive program launching at Windows startup has (minor) several bad side-effects. For example, it prolongs the startup process; in Windows 9x it predepletes System Resources, and in any Windows version it consumes RAM, CPU cycles, and other commodities; it increases the change of having incompatible programs conflict with each other; and it complicates troubleshooting since there are more things to rule out. This post help you for check your computer health and provide computer support and troubleshooting tips to maintain computer health. Here below listed some PC health checkup tips
- Don’t Disable System Restore! Part of good health is the ability to recovery quickly when you do get sick — bouncing back quickly as your old healthy self! If you are using Windows ME, XP, or Vista you have available to you the finest “bounce-back” tool Microsoft has ever developed, System Restore. Sure, it has a few things wrong with it (especially in Win ME; the tool was significantly improved in Win XP). But in many cases it’s still pretty close to a “please go fix what I just screwed up a minute ago” miracle worker. I solve dozens of terribly frustrating problems for people every week by recommending they employ System Restore to step back just before they made a blunder. I appreciate it greatly!
- Do not have a computer with a no-name motherboard or the cheapest video card you can find. Name brands do matter. One of my lessons in this: I used to be of the same voice as those who heavily disparaged the “Winmodem” style of modem — those which do not have fully self-contained logic, and rely heavily on Windows itself to provide much of the “guts.” It’s true that we saw people all the time with serious Windows problems and bad modem performance because of this. Then I unwittingly bought one (not knowing that this is the type of modem I was buying). To my surprise, it was the best modem I’d ever owned! I tried a couple of other Winmodems on loan and they were truly the worst modems I had ever used. What made the difference? The one I had bought was made by U.S. Robotics. When you buy the best, you get the best.
- A clean install as a starting point can do wonders for your system! That means that you install the operating system on a freshly wiped hard drive, rather than “updating” atop an existing version of an older operating system. Update installs are just fine in many cases, and “good enough” in others; but for the best install, start clean! This isn’t an invariable rule. A recently-released version of Windows often installs better as an upgrade atop a working (eaerlier) Windows system system simply because manufacturers are sometimes slow at getting all the necesssary hardware drivers released at first — and an upgrade will inherit older drivers that usually will keep on working. Similarly, recent Windows versions replace so much Windows code that an upgrade is darn near a clean installs anyway! (The clean install recommendation is especially a guiding rule if you’re having performance problems with Windows. It’s too big of an issue to discuss here, but you will find it discussed on other pages of this site.)
- In Windows 98 or ME, periodically run SCANREG /OPT /FIX from a DOS prompt or Run box prompt. I also like to run, about once a week, Norton WinDoctor (part of the commercial products Norton Utilities and Norton System Works) as an additional layer of keeping things in tidy shape. If you have Windows 95, considering compacting your Registry every few months using this method. Windows 2000 and XP only rarely seem to require this step and have no native tool for it; however, on rare occasions it is thought to be a good idea to compact a Windows 2000/XP Registry also, especially if there has been a lot of program installation and removal and Windows has started to become unstable. In that case, this method is recommended.
- Always uninstall programs with the Control Panel’s Add/Remove Programs applet when possible. (In Windows Vista, it is renamed Programs & Features.) If an installed program isn’t listed there, see if it has its own uninstall routine, and use that. For 32-bit programs (those made especially for Windows 95 or later), do not just delete the program off the hard drive. (If you’ve already done this, reinstall the program, and then remove it correctly through the Control Panel or its own uninstaller.)
- Get off of the Windows 95/98/ME platform, and onto the NT-based platform of Windows XP or Vista, as soon as you reasonably can. Provided that hardware is adequate to and compatible with the operating system, there’s simply no way to make Windows 9x as stable as its NT-based siblings unless you just aren’t running very much stuff. If long-term stability and reliability are what you want, Windows XP and Vista are where you will find it.
- Rely on Windows Update — but judiciously! Do install all critical updates. Almost always, these provide important security elements or truly critical system patches. Only rarely do they cause new problems (though it does sometimes happen). Do equip yourself to handle any problems they may cause, keep track of what patches you apply when so that, if new problems appear, you can roll back the patches as one step in troubleshooting. Do not let Windows Update give you new device drivers, as a rule. Usually they are way out-of-date compared to the hardware manufacturer’s web site, so you usually will not get the best result.
- Periodically run ScanDisk in Windows 95/98/ME or ChkDsk in Windows 2000 /XP— say, once a month. This isn’t as important in newer versions of Windows as in older versions, but I definitely recommend doing it periodically in Windows 95. Even as early as Windows 98, I began doing this less often — primarily when Windows required it (due to a bad shutdown), but different computers and different usage patterns may need this more often.
- For Windows 95, 98, and ME, set the typical role of your computer to be a network server, provided you have at least 32 MB of RAM. But your computer is not a network server, you say? No matter. All this does is control how Windows handles disk performance and certain memory buffers. The default settings for “Desktop Computer” were created for hardware as it existed in 1995 — and things have changed! (Almost nobody had 32 MB of RAM in 1995. A minimum of 8 MB was still being recommended!) This change may not improve things — but it can’t hurt. And on some computers, it improves performance noticeably. To make this change, right-click on My Computer, and select Properties | Performance | File System | Hard Disk.
- Leave well enough alone! Do not be so compulsive about keeping things clean that you go in and mess with the Registry on your own. Similarly, do not delete files that you neither recognize nor understand just to free up a little disk room. If you need hard drive room that badly, you are long overdue for a new hard drive! My rule of thumb: Acquire more hard drive space if less than 10% of the hard drive’s capacity is free. Furthermore, any major partition with less than the smaller of 200 MB or 10% of its size needs to be made larger, either by repartitioning or by adding a larger drive.
- Floss. Wear sunscreen.
This should give you a good start to keeping your computer system in a spry, perky, healthy condition!
