Clean Up Your Computer
Do you have a slow computer? Are you able to make a cup of coffee before the computer starts up? Would you like to know how to speed up your computer so it will run at its optimal?
To help speed up your computer follow the following steps to:
- Clean out your Temp Folder
- Stop programs running in the background
- Remove any Malware
- Uninstall unwanted programs
Clean Out Temp Files
To start with,
Problem is that when you use many programs over time the folder just gets filled up. Each time you open a program it has to look in this folder first to see if it has already opened. So having it cleared out helps speed things up.
To clean out the temp file, press Windows+R on the keyboard.
When the run box pops up type %temp% and press enter. A file explorer box will pop up with a list of files.
Select all of these files and delete them. You probably find a few files that the computer says are running and will not let you delete. This is fine, just skip whatever files come up. You will usually end up with 1-10 files left over.
After doing this, close the box. Then empty
Stop Programs Running In the
Background
The next thing you want to do is stop all those pesky programs from running in the background on your computer. These are files that are running all the time and start with the computer.
To do this in Windows 8 and 10 press
A new screen will appear with tabs at the top. One of the tabs is Startup. Click on this, this is a list of all the programs that start with the computer.
Go through these and see what is listed. Select the programs that you do not use all the time, such as Spotify or One Drive. For each of these highlight them and then select Disable at the bottom.
Once you have all the programs that you don’t use disabled, restart your computer. When the computer starts it should run a bit faster because it no longer has to start all these programs when it first starts up.
Don’t worry, these programs will still work when you need to use them, they just won’t start with the computer.
Find and Remove Any Malware
Malware is the stuff that slows the computer down. These are little programs that get added to the computer over time that tend to slow it down.
The best removal program I have found is Malwarebytes. Go to Malwarebytes.org and download the personal product.
Once it is downloaded run the file. Select English and then press OK. Click Agree and then Install. Once it is installed click Finish.
Wait for a moment and when the program opens click the Blue Scan button. This
Uninstall Unwanted Programs
Do you have programs on your computer that you don’t use or aren’t sure how they got there?
Over time you will find that you no longer use some of the programs on your computer anymore. You also will find that you sometimes get programs downloaded on your computer you didn’t want. Some of these programs will be downloaded with other downloads you wanted but they loaded some others you didn’t realize were with them.
To uninstall these programs, press Windows + R on the keyboard.
Type control in the run box and press Enter.
Find and click on Uninstall A Program. This will bring up a list of all the programs installed on your computer.
Look through this list and see what is there. If there are any programs you no longer use click on them and then select uninstall at the top.
If you don’t know what the program is, go to the start menu and open it or search it online. Things to keep would be anything from Microsoft, Norton, Intel, AMD,
Once you have gone through these steps restart your computer one last time. You should notice an increase in speed in both startup and regular use. You can follow this guide as often as you would like but make sure you do this at least twice a year to help speed up your computer.
If you would like help with these steps please give me a
call 720.281.4990 or email me at carl@carlthecomputerguy.com.
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