Windows Tune-Up

Long boot times and sluggish performance often create the urge to upgrade a PC, but these common symptoms usually mean a Windows machine simply needs a tune-up. A complete tutorial is beyond the scope of this blog, but here is a summary of the first four actions I take when tuning a friend's PC.

Consider these “Best Practices” for Windows computing: you don't have to do this stuff, but your results will be much better if you do.

1) Control what runs

Spybot is known as a free anti-spyware tool, but I use it primarily to control what runs at boot. Be sure to enable both the optional "TeaTimer" and IE browser protection during installation. 

System Startup displays a simple list of all the semi-optional executables that run at boot. This is accessed by enabling the "Advanced" mode and selecting the "Startup" tab. Identify the function of each item via a web search of the executable name and "startup." You want as few items active as possible, yet still have all of your essential features run. The screen-shot from my NetApp laptop illustrates the large number of programs which have attempted to insert themselves in my boot sequence.

TeaTimer (aka, "Spybot SD Resident") puts you in complete control of any change to the Windows registry and keeps system startup clean. The pop-up dialogs can be a little intimidating at first, but the benefits are worth the effort.

2) Take out the trash

CCleaner will remove a stunning amount of garbage from your hard disk and registry. The early versions of this free program were overly-aggressive, but I have had no problems in more than a year and use it regularly on all my PCs.

This screen-shot illustrates the advanced settings that I generally use, but please pay close attention during installation so that you get the results you want. Re-run the registry cleaner several time until CCleaner finds no new defects. Initial scans may take >10-15 minutes, but subsequent scans complete in seconds.

 

3) Prevent malicious entry

The NoScript extension for Firefox dramatically improves browser security. The dialogs take a little effort, but NoScript will prevent virtually any nefarious activity without your express permission. You will likely be shocked at the number of sites vying for control of your browser. I certainly was!
Check out the number of tracking programs at a seemingly innocuous site in this screen-shot.

4) Use a good defragmentation tool

Hard disks are generally the slowest component in a modern office-oriented PC. A good defrag tool (my favorite is PerfectDisk) will help optimize performance, particularly at boot. Although Windows includes a rudimentary defrag tool, it is very poor. I don't have much personal experience with the background defrag capability in Vista, but apparently it is only marginally improved over XP's.

The first three tools are free, but if you find these useful please consider contributing to help support and improve their functionality.

Comments

[Anurag]

May be you wanna try this one, this is Adblock plugin for firefox and much less nagging then NoScript.

http://anuragtechblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/fed-up-of-web-advertisements-block-them.html

[Chris Bennett]

If you only want to blog ads, then Adblock should work fine.

I am much less interested in blocking ads than in preventing *any* scripts from running without my permission. This is what makes NoScript so powerful (and admittedly a bit annoying...).

[Kelly]

Having neither the time nor patience to figure out why my machine took 23 minutes to boot (time for a nap and a latte) Chris installed his recommendations on my machine (what a nice guy) and low-and-behold the cursing at my computer has been cut by a third! God bless techno-weenies!

Dude that's awesome!