Pc Cleaner

Pages Introduction

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Chapter 1 : Cleaning your own pc is easy

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Chapter 2 : Cleaning your computer inside and out

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Chapter 3 : Securing your system

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Chapter 4 : Keeping your PC Updated and Running Smoothly

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Conclusion

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Introduction

Whether you’re here to learn how to “clean up” a cluttered or infected hard drive, or physically clean your computer’s parts, read on for an easy, step-by-step guide. In easy words, this tutorial will tell you how to clean software as well as hardware component of your system. It is a known fact that regular maintenance of your system can significantly boost your computer speed. For hardware cleaning you need physical efforts while for cleaning system files is a software job and reputable system utilities softwares. This tutorial will be divided in 4 parts.

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Cleaning Your Own PC is Easy

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This is for when your computer seems to take forever to boot, or when it hangs, freezes, and otherwise exhibits frustrating behavior. More than anything, it’s just for when your computer seems to have lost its pep.

What this series isn’t is a hardcore advanced guide to Windows tweaking and tuning. There will no mention of the Windows Registry, services, or overclocking. So, if you don’t know what any of those things are, don’t worry, we’re not going to cover them.

What we are going to cover are the most basic techniques and tools to help even the most hapless of technophobes and self-described computer illiterates. We know there’s a millionand-one guides already out there but How-To Geek School wants to be different by teaching, rather than telling, you what to do. We don’t want to overwhelm you with every single possible solution, because in the end, you just need a regular routine and a few simple steps to follow.

Therefore, we take you through only the things you need to know to practice good computer husbandry.

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Use the Tools that Windows Gives You

Drive Optimizer

The fact is, aside from depriving you of your hard-earned money, these programs don’t do anything you can’t already do yourself for free. Windows comes with an array of tools baked in that can assist you with a bevy of PC maintenance tasks.

For everything else, there are free utilities you can download.

Some of these tools include:

When it comes to keeping your system running well, hard drive optimization is important. Windows includes a great tool to keep your drives in tip-top condition.

Disk Cleanup “Disk Cleanup” has been around in one form or another since Windows 9x because it’s one of the easiest and fastest ways to clean up your hard disks without installing third-party software.

Task Manager The “Task Manager” has always been the geek’s go-to tool for diagnosing and alleviating system slowdowns. Windows 8.x continues this tradition with an attractive “Task Manager” makeover and improved diagnostic tools.

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File History We hear this so often that it seems to have lost most of its meaning. Luckily, Windows 8.x includes simple tools such as “File History” and “System Image” so you can protect yourself from catastrophic data loss!

Take advantage of Free Software You can usually find one really good free program. We introduce you to a couple of high quality free programs in this series.

System Cleaners The cleanup tools that come with Windows work well, don’t get us wrong, but if you’re really pressed for space, then sometimes you need to dig a little deeper. CCleaner is a free program that you can download and install, which will root out all those space hogs and safely delete them.

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Often, such as in the case of Google Drive (15 GB) and Microsoft OneDrive (7 GB), this free space is enough to back up your important documents and photos. And if not, you can always buy more. We discuss cloud services in great detail in Lesson 5.

This series’ target areas So, knowing that these tools are freely available, we tell you how to use them to maximum effect and define four areas or keys to keeping your PC running smoothly. We will also cover all of the other built-in tools that we haven’t specifically mentioned here.

Computer cleanup First, you want to clean up your PC by removing unwanted or unused applications, and pruning your computer’s startup routine.

Modern computers are magnets for crap. We’re not even talking about all the crap intended to cause harm, we also mean the droves of files and applications that we install over time or that get installed in addition to other applications. There are also those little programs that start whenever you boot your computer. Ever looked at the tray on a Windows system and wondered what all those icons are for? We call that stuff “tray lint” because it collects and sticks there and decreases your computer’s efficacy. This stuff usually serves no purpose than to give you access to things you could just as easily use a shortcut for.

All this combines to slow your computer down. In fact, you may not even know how fast your computer really is. If you buy a new name-brand model, for example, it may already come installed with a ton of software. Judging by the nicknames we give this software – bloatware or crapware – it’s of limited to no value. As such, we cover computer cleanup to a large extent including removing software you simply don’t need or want any more.

Disk Maintenance We also take you through hard drive maintenance, whether or not you should defragment, and the difference between hard disk drives and solid state drives. We’ll take a look at disk maintenance as it exists today’s Windows systems, and how you can help prolong the life of your storage medium.

Dusting It’s not simply enough that you perform internal maintenance.

You should definitely crack open the case and dust. There’s not a whole lot of technical prowess you need for this, other than understanding how to open your com-

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puter, you don’t need to know what is what or necessarily remove any components. Most likely, it’s a matter of clearing dust and hair out of air intakes and exhaust ports, as well as fans and heatsinks. Don’t worry, we’ll guide you to the resources you need to make quick easy work of that.

Security After you get your computer cleaned up and running better, it’s time to turn your attention to security. Hopefully, you already have something installed that will protect your system from infections but if you don’t, then it’s high time to get started. Still, you have to use something. There are simply too many threats out there to ignore. So we tell you which virus scanner we think will work best for you. We also recommend you install a secondary piece of software to supplement your full time scanner.

Browser Issues Browsers are another source of danger to your system’s security. We’re not simply talking about the stuff you download, we mean plugins and extensions as well. Browser extensions are particularly insecure, and your plugins can expose vulnerabilities that open you risk. So it’s very important that you audit your extensions, which includes updating good extensions, disabling unused extensions, and removing malicious extensions. We’ll show you how to do that as well as how to check your plugins, disable them and make sure they’re up-to-date.

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Passwords Having a great password is definitely one of those things you might not think is necessary to PC maintenance, but without a password, let alone a strong one, you might as well leave the front door of your house standing open. And we all know how quickly your house would last if you left the front door open.

This goes for any device, be it your phone or tablet, not simply your computer. Taking the time and making the effort to create a strong but easily memorable password can go a long way toward ultimately maintaining your system and preventing disaster.

Keeping your PC Updated and Running Smoothly PC performance, or rather the lack thereof, is often the biggest complaint we hear from users. Everyone has experienced the slow decline in their system’s speed over time. This can most often be attributed to increasing system overhead versus finite resources. Think of it this way, you buy a car with more than enough horsepower and it goes fast when you first buy it, but let’s say you skip an oil change, your air filter is dirty, and you buy low quality gasoline. Today is also the day you need to go to the store and buy 10 bags of concrete mix, which just barely fits in the trunk. It’s also summer time, and it’s really hot, so you need to run the air conditioner, especially after loading all the concrete into your car.

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So now your automobile is loaded down with a quarter ton of concrete, you’re running the AC compressor, and operating on dirty oil, air filter, and bad gas. What this means is your car isn’t going to run at peak efficiency and perform optimally. Like cars, computers need to be cared for and worked on. If you install bad software onto it, that’s going to slow it down, similarly, if you have a lot of stuff running at once that too will severely impact performance, as will a lot of stuff in your startup routine. Keeping your computer properly maintained is a lot like giving your car a tune up. It will feel faster, run more efficiently, and longer.

Operating System Updates Anyone who uses a computer can attest to OS updates being a regular part of life. Microsoft is notorious for their Patch Tuesdays, which “occurs on the second Tuesday of each month in North America, on which Microsoft regularly releases security patches.”

Operating systems, OS X and Windows in particular, are pretty good about taking care of updates behind the scenes, but that’s not to say you can’t play a role in ensuring your system is always up-to-date. Regardless of whether you have Windows Update set to automatically download and install updates, or you want to be involved at each step of the process, you should know what Windows Update is and how to use it.

Java, Flash, and Reader Also very important are the unholy trinity of software add-ins:

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Oracle Java, Adobe Flash, and Adobe Reader. These three items are usually found on nearly every system, and represent serious risks to system security. We’ll tell you how to keep them updated so you don’t have to worry about them compromising your computer.

Drivers Drivers are the little bits of code hardware manufacturers write to get their devices and peripherals to work on a computer. Nowadays, driver maintenance is almost unheard of. Microsoft maintains a massive repository of drivers on Windows Update and nearly everything you use with Windows will typically be recognized and installed in a matter of minutes.

That said, you may not always automatically receive the latest driver updates along with your regular updates. We explain the difference between “Important” updates and “Recommended” updates, and how to ensure all your system drivers are the latest versions.

Protecting your data Finally, we explore the myriad ways you can protect your data from disaster. One might not think of backups as “PC Maintenance” but it most assuredly is. By protecting your data with regular backups, whether they’re offline, using an external hard drive, or online using a cloud-based service, you are securing your digital life from catastrophic loss.

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If you back up your stuff, and your computer fails, you can simply replace the part that broke or at worst, the computer itself. Think then how easy it is to get back to the place where you left off.

Now imagine or recall how it can be if you don’t back up your stuff – suddenly your poor computer and data management become a very stressful problem.

Thus, by making sure your stuff is backed up, you’re maintaining the integrity of the most important aspect of your PC – everything that is stored on it.

Backup Methods and Mediums Backing your data up can be accomplished through various methods and across many different mediums. We want to try to cover as many of them as possible including, of course, local backups such as to hard drives and DVDs, but also online or cloud backups, such as with Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive or even Dropbox.

In reality the steps to making and maintaining backups have become easier than ever, especially if you know exactly what to back up. Rather than making full system backups, you can save time and storage space by backing up only a few select locations such as your pictures, documents, and music.

We’ll show you how to do both.

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Cleaning your Computer Inside and Out

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Computer cleanup is the one thing you can do every day that will keep you flush with disk space and help you free up valuable system resources. Furthermore, actual physical cleanup, as in dusting, will allow your computer to literally breathe easier, and in turn prolong the life of your system.

In this lesson we’re going to start by focusing on some of the simplest actions you can apply for immediate results. These actions require no previous training or knowledge and, in fact, as a Windows user, you should or may already be familiar with many of these.

In the first section, we’ll delve into cleaning up your system including routing out all those pesky startup items, removing temporary files, and uninstalling old, unused applications. From there, we move on to disk maintenance. This task has gotten considerably easier in recent Windows versions but understanding your options is still important.

Finally, as we mentioned earlier, there’s dusting, as in literal removal of hair and dirt from your computer’s interior. We want to stress how much more effective a computer is at dissipating heat and cooling its internal components when they’re not coated in a thick coat of fur.

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Disabling startup items One of the best ways to unburden your computer and quickly free up resources, is to disable items that automatically launch when Windows boots. These startup items not only suck up system resources like little vampires, they also often cause your computer to boot longer. The old school way to deal with startup items is to use the “System Configuration” (“SysConfig”) utility on Windows 7. Launch a “Run” window by typing “WIN + R” and then “msconfig.”

In the preceding screenshot, there’s not a whole lot to pore over because it was taken on a virtual machine that has the bare minimum of programs installed. Regardless, to disable a startup program, uncheck the box next to it, and restart your system. Let’s look at our Windows 8.x setup to see a more useful example. If you try to use “Sysconfig” on Windows 8.x, it will simply redirect you to the “Task Manager,” which can be more easily accessed by going directly to it either from the Taskbar: On the “System Configuration” utility, select the “Startup” tab.

You do want to exercise some caution here. While you won’t break your system by disabling everything, you may disable some programs that are genuinely useful, like Dropbox.

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It’s worth noting that you can also use the CTRL + SHIFT + ESC shortcut key combination to bring up Task Manager without clicking anywhere.

When the “Task Manager” opens, select the “Startup” tab and behold the glory of your computer’s burdens. You can see your startup items, their status, and the impact they have on your system. You can sort them of course, by clicking the headers. In the following screenshot, we’ve sorted by “Startup impact.”

Or simply hit “WIN” and type “task” and it should appear as the top search result:

If you’re unsure what does what, you can right-click on any item and selet “Search online” to find out exactly what something is and what it does.

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According to Microsoft, impact is based on how much CPU and disk usage occurs at startup: High impact – Apps that use more than 1 second of CPU time or more than 3 MB of disk I/O at startup Medium impact – Apps that use 300 ms – 1000 ms of CPU time or 300 KB – 3 MB of disk I/O Low impact – Apps that use less than 300 ms of CPU time and less than 300 KB of disk I/O One second might not seem like a lot, but keep in mind, the above screenshot depicts a system that doesn’t have a ton of stuff installed. Imagine a system with many more things in the startup routine. If you have a dozen high impact startup items in addition to the other medium and low impact items, and they’re all requiring CPU time and disk I/O, startup time increases proportionately.

Microsoft breaks down startup apps and provides guidance on how to deal with several categories of startup apps, including utilities that sync your PC or for backup and recovery, updaters, notifiers, and more. It’s safe to say that in any event, you can disable most, if not all startup items and it will not adversely affect your system. That said, as we mentioned earlier, if you do disable everything, you may lose functionality that you otherwise wanted. In the above case, if we disabled “Dropbox” it would no longer start automatically and sync changes. We’d instead have to manually start it, so we might as well leave it enabled.

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Disk Cleanup The “Disk Cleanup” utility is a very simple tool that allows you quickly delete stuff like temporary and cache files so you can free up space on your hard drive(s).

In Windows 7 you can open it from Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools.

In Windows 8.x, you have several options. The easiest is to hit the “WIN” key and type “disk cleanup” and then choose “Free up disk space by deleting unnecessary files.”

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When “Disk Cleanup” begins, if you have more than one drive installed, you will need to choose the one you want to cleanup first. Here in our example, we choose the system drive (C:).

The “Disk Cleanup” tool will let you scroll through and see what is taking up space. You can read a brief description of what it is you’d be deleting. You can also view the files at any time by clicking on the “View Files” button, or if you have administrative access, you can click “Clean up system files” and the “Disk Cleanup” tool will restart in admin mode.

Note here in the following screenshot, we’ve restarted in administrative cleanup mode and “Disk Cleanup” has found another 500 MB of space it can free up (Windows Update files). This will give us 455 MB versus 90 MB in non-admin mode.

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Note also, in admin mode you gain another tab named “More Options,” which gives us further ways to free up valuable disk space. Of particular note here is the “System Restore and Shadow Copies” option, which deletes all but the most recent “system restore” points. If you’ve been using your computer for a while and you’ve never cleaned out your restore points, this option can sometimes free up gigabytes of space without adversely affecting your computer – assuming everything is running smoothly at the moment so you don’t need to roll back any recent changes.

Note also, the “Programs and Features” clean up button. If you click this, it will open the “Programs and Features” control panel, which will let you uninstall unnecessary and unused applications, which we’re going to now talk about in the next section.

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Uninstalling Applications and Freeing up Disk Space

On Windows 8.x, you can access the “Programs and Features” control panel directly by right-clicking on the “Start” button and selecting it from the context menu.

Let’s say that you disable something in your startup items, but then you realize that you don’t really use that program. In that case, why not just uninstall it? That way, not only do you remove the startup item, but the whole useless application, thus freeing up disk space in the process.

On Windows 7 and Windows 8.x, removing an application is accomplished by opening the “Programs and Features” control panel. On Windows 7, open the Control Panel from the “Start” menu.

With the “Programs and Features” control panel open, you can click on the application you want to uninstall.

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When you click “Analyze” all the stuff on your system that can be deleted will be displayed. If you don’t want to delete something, then you can uncheck it. Otherwise click “Run Cleaner” to scour your system clean. In this example, when we clicked the cleaner, we were able to clear up about 4 gigabytes of drive space!

In the above example, we see that from the previous section that Google Drive has a high impact on startup, and since we use Dropbox as our primary cloud service, we can just remove Drive and use it when we need to through the web interface.

The approach you take to this is completely up to you. You may decide you want to just disable the startup program or remove the whole shebang. That said, there’s an even easier way to do all this.

Using CCleaner CCleaner is a free program from Piriform software that takes the work out of cleaning up your computer. Make sure that you download the “Slim” installer version that doesn’t contain any toolbars or other crapware. Yeah, it’s ironic that a software named “crap cleaner” actually distributes more crapware by default, but as long as you don’t download the wrong version you’ll be fine. And it is otherwise a good piece of software.

When you first execute CCleaner, it opens up to the “Cleaner” screen, which allows you to clean up your system such as browser cache files, recently used items, and also clear things related to specific “Applications” such as cache and log files.

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What we’re really interested here is the “Tools” functions, specifically “Uninstall” and “Startup.” On the “Uninstall” pane, you can bypass the “Programs and Features” control panel altogether and uninstall stuff here. Simply click the item you want to remove and click “Run Uninstaller” to begin the removal process.

Moving to the “Startup” tools, we see we have the same kind of options as in “Sysconfig” and the “Task Manager.” You can disable/enable anything by selecting the item or items (hold the “CTRL” button to select multiple items), then click “Disable.”

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While this method isn’t as informative as the Task Manager’s with its “Startup Impact,” it’s just as effective, and puts everything in one place.

SSD and HDD. An SSD or solid state drive, is sort of a container full of flash memory. Basically it’s RAM, but unlike RAM, the content in an SSD retain their contents after you turn off the power.

Hard drives by contrast, are comprised of quickly spinning platters, on which all the data in your computer is written. To find and retrieve the data, a hard drive has heads, which read the surface of these platters kind of like you might walk to the stacks in a library and retrieve a book or books from their shelves.

SSDs, because they’re so similar to RAM, are superior to old school spinning hard drives because they’re consistently faster at accessing and retrieving data. In other words, when you load an application from an SSD, you don’t need to wait for the head to find and read the data on spinning platters, it’s just there and the only delay you might experience is the time it takes for the SSD to read its contents and store it in the computer’s memory.

Do you need to defrag?

Disk maintenance Disk maintenance is kind of a misnomer. You don’t really need to “maintain” anything and in fact, your computer will likely do a lot of stuff automatically to keep you disks running optimally.

Nevertheless, we feel you should educate yourselves on how disk drives work, and what you can do to extend their life.

SSD vs. HDD Today, hard drives in computers come in two flavors: 30

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The thing about HDDs is that over time, the books you take off the shelf are replaced by other books, any books your want to return to the stacks are stuck wherever there is space. So instead of having all your data in contiguous chunks, it ends up spread about or “fragmented.” Over time, it becomes increasingly more time consuming to retrieve your data because the hard drive has to read part of it from one area on the platter(s) and another part of it somewhere else. Defragmenting software is meant to take all those books and put them back together on their sheves so the computer can find them again more efficiently. This works to great effect on traditional spinning platter 31

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drives, but not so much on solid state drives, and can actually decrease the lifespan of your SSD. You can only write to an SSD a finite number of times. Over the course of time, it will lose its ability to hold on to the data and go bad. When you defrag, it reads data scattered about your hard drive, stores it in RAM, and then deposits it where it needs to be. If necessary, it will read data that is stored in the wrong place and deposit in another empty space on the drive in order to put all the data back together.

Doing this, as you can imagine, means that the drive is read and written more than with normal use and as such, defragging effectively shortens the life of an SSD by unnecessarily writing data to the drive. In truth, you don’t even need to defrag an SSD because of the way they work.

All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Defragmenter

How to Defrag

Similarly, the fastest way to open the defragmenter in Windows 8.x is to hit the “WIN” button and type “defrag.”

Or simply click on the “Start” button and type “defrag” in the search box.

Defragmenting your drive is easy and the computer likely already does it for you around once a week. Still, if you use your computer a lot and do a lot of things where you’re copying many files to and from the hard drive, then you may see some fragmentation. And while we don’t think it will be enough to really slow your system down, you can still initiate a manual defrag anytime you want though to be honest, it’s not as much fun as the animated defragmenter on Windows 9x.

You can launch the defragmenter in Windows 7: All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Defragmenter 32

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Note, in Windows 8.x, the defragmenter has been renamed to “Optimize Drives” because you can’t defrag an SSD. Instead, the drive optimizer “trims” your SSD, which essentially means it tells the computer which parts of your drive no longer contain data and frees them for later use.

As you can see in the example below, we have several drives to choose from and the optimizer lists your drives’ media type so there’s no guessing which is an SSD and which isn’t.

If there are any drives you don’t want to optimize automatically, then you can deselect one or all the drives from their optimization schedules. If you do this however, remember you will need to perform optimizations manually.

Click the “Change settings” button to access further options. If you want to change the optimization schedule, you can have it run on daily, weekly, or monthly basis, or you can turn it off altogether. Remember though, you will need to optimize your drive manually if you do turn off the schedule.

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Checking Your Hard Drives Integrity While hard drive’s integrity and reliability isn’t an everyday PC maintenance thing, the fact is if you’ve never had a hard drive fail on you, then you’re very lucky. There’s no sure way to tell if a hard drive is about to fail, they’re like earthquakes – you might get some warning or usually it’s over before you understand what’s happened.

That said, hard drives use a technology called S.M.A.R.T. to test their reliability and give you an idea of whether they’re failing. You can’t access your hard drive’s S.M.A.R.T. data without third-party software but you can view its status.

Simply open a command prompt by typing “WIN + R” and then from the “Run” window type “CMD” and hit “OK” or “Enter.”

From the “Command Prompt” type “wmic” and then hit “Enter”.

Then type “diskdrive get status” and hit “Enter.” Depending on how many devices you have installed, it will cycle through and check the S.M.A.R.T. status of each and return a result.

As the above screenshot indicates, we got results for nine drives (4 or which are removable disks) and there’s no telling them apart. Needless-to-say, if we did get a troubling result, we’d need to investigate further with special software. We suggest reading further on how to see if your hard drive is dying. If you have a hard drive that is starting to fail and you catch it in time, you can probably save most or all your data.

From the “Command Prompt” type “wmic” and then hit “Enter”.

Then type “diskdrive get status” and hit “Enter.” Depending on how many devices you have installed, it will cycle through and check the S.M.A.R.T. status of each and return a result.

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You may not do Windows, but you’ll still have to dust There are many reasons you should routinely clean, as in literally sweep out and dust your computer.

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There are a couple of really good reasons you should do this and they all have to do with heat. Heat is hard on electronics and when hair and dust collect on your computer’s internals, it essentially blankets your components and prevents heat from escaping. Just like your car, your house, and even yourself, your computer needs a good cleaning every once and a while to prevent overheating and dust build up. It’s easy to do and it only takes about 20 minutes, so today we’re going to cover how to effectively clean the inside of your desktop computer.

How often should I clean my computer?

Depending on your environment, you may need to clean your computer more often (or less often) than others. Computer placement is important to consider; keeping your computer on the floor allows for dust, hair, skin cells, and carpet particles to get inside easier. But if you keep your computer above the floor, like on your desk, particles are less prone to gaining access inside your computer. If you smoke near your computer, cigarette ashes and chemicals can build up inside your computer’s fans and other places. Ridding your computer of these things every 6 months can increase your computer’s performance.If you’re a pet owner, there is no denying the presence of shedded fur from your pet that gets on your floor. The inside of your computer is just as susceptible to fur clogging fans and other areas of your computer.

It’s also not uncommon to eat or drink next to your computer, but be aware that you should clean your computer and its peripherals more often if you do.

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computer is just as susceptible to fur clogging fans and other areas of your computer.

It’s also not uncommon to eat or drink next to your computer, but be aware that you should clean your computer and its peripherals more often if you do.

With all this being said, if you found yourself guilty of anything mentioned above, we recommend cleaning your computer every 3 to 6 months. As always, if your computer starts getting hotter than usual, open it up to check for any dust or hair buildup and then clean it.

Preparation Do not open your computer while it is running or with any cables attached to it. It is always safer to remove all peripherals such as USB cables, audio cables, video cables, and especially the power cable. Do not attempt to clean your computer with electricity flowing through its circuits. Be sure that the power cable is unplugged. Now move your computer to a well-ventilated area such as your backyard or garage. This is especially important to consider if your computer has built up a lot of dust that will blowing around. Breathing all that old, accumulated dust just can’t be good for you.

If you’re limited on space just be sure to keep a vacuum (not for cleaning the inside of the computer; more on that soon) nearby for a quick clean up afterwards. And if you’re worried about inhaling dust, you can always stop at your local hardware stop to pick up a cheap dust mask for less than $5.

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Tools

Just like most cases, all it takes is unscrewing two screws, sliding the side-panel outward, and our computer was opened.

Before you begin opening your computer’s case, you’ll need to gather your cleaning tools. We highly recommend not using a vacuum. This can create a static buildup and could potentially fry important electrical components on your motherboard, video card, and other places. It’s just a bad idea, so spare yourself the agony and pick up a compressed air can.

There are a few tools you will need to clean your computer: Hardware set that includes screw drivers Can of compressed air Cleaning cloth Zip ties (optional) Scissors (optional) Cotton swabs (optional) Thermal paste (optional) Pencil or pen (optional)

Once inside your computer, you may have to disconnect any cables that connect to your side panel.

We suggests using a small paint brush to sweep away dust where compressed air just can’t reach. Some of these tools are optional, so don’t stress out if you don’t have them. We only had a few ourselves, and still managed to do a great job.

Now that you’re in a well-ventilated area with all your tools gathered, we can start the preparation process by opening up your computer’s case. All computer cases are different. If you’ve never opened yours before and are having trouble opening it, consult your computer’s manual or try searching online for guides specifically about your opening your model.

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We recommend not removing your CPU because thermal paste that is used to transfer heat from the top of the processor to the fan needs to be replaced every time the fan is removed.

If you are equipped with thermal paste and want to remove your CPU, just be sure to clean off the old thermal paste on your CPU with rubbing alcohol and a soft cloth. Then apply a fresh coat of thermal paste once you’re done cleaning your computer.

Most people shouldn’t need to remove their CPU and CPU fan.

It just doesn’t make sense considering barely any dust makes its way into the CPU socket. Then again, if you’re cleaning your computer, why not go all the way? The choice is yours.

To make the cleaning process easier, it’s best to take out any components that can be easily removed. Most desktop computers allow you to remove RAM sticks, video cards, and hard drives.

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Cleaning To start the cleaning process, begin with the peripherals we just removed. Grab your can of compressed air and hold the trigger to release a burst of air onto an area with a lot of dust buildup. We’re cleaning an old video card that never got a lot of attention, so there was some dust clumps that were accumulating around the DVI ports. If you’re cleaning a video card with a fan, you can use a pen or pencil to place in between the blades to prevent it from spinning while blowing the compressed air.

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Next, we move inside the computer case. Let’s start with removing any dust particles that may have found their way inside the RAM slots. Take your compressed air can, aim it at a RAM slot, hold the trigger, and move it down the entire slot. Repeat this for every slot in your computer case.

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Now we’ll move onto the bigger equipment inside such as your CPU fan and power supply unit. Again, it’s recommended to use a pen or pencil when cleaning fans to prevent the blades from spinning. Use your compressed air can to blow out any loose dust particles.

You can also use a cotton swab to clean the fan by rubbing the swab against the blades to stick the dust particles. It’s a little tedious, but it makes for a nice, clean fan in the end.

The bottom of your case will undoubtedly have dust buildup.

You can begin with blowing the dust away with your compressed air. If there is still dust stuck to the case, you can use a damp cloth is not wet, but damp. Repeat this step for all the nooks of your case until there is minimal or no amounts of dust left.

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Decluttering Cables (Optional) This next step is optional and is recommended for custom built computers. Unlike professionally manufactured computers, custom built computers don’t arrive with nicely tucked away cabling that fits just right. So the best way to make your case more secure and organized is to use zip ties. You also don’t want your CPU fan or any other fans scraping away at cables if they’re not neatly tucked away.

To start you’ll need a pack of zip ties. It doesn’t matter what size they are as long as they can fit around all your cables. We’ll be using 4-inch zip ties.

Finally, don’t forget to also clean out any other fans, ports, or enclosures as described above.

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Begin by disconnecting all cables that will need to be tied. Be sure to write down how they were connected for reference later.

Repeat this step for as many cables as possible. You can then tuck them away to reduce their visibility and give your computer’s guts a cleaner look.

When you have a cable or set of cables grouped to your liking, wrap a zip tie around it and run the thin end through the fastener. Then tighten the zip tie by pulling the thin end until you can no longer tighten it. Grab your scissors and cut the excess.

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The Aftermath Plug your cables back into their correct sockets. Refer to your document from earlier if you don’t remember where each cable goes. Also remember to put back any removed peripherals, such as a video card or sticks of RAM, back into their appropriate sockets.

Your computer, inside and out, should be looking as good as new. We’ve rid our computer of dust, hair, skin particles, and much more. Your cables should be neatly managed and out of the way of fans and other sensitive equipment. If you were having heating issues before, you’ll begin to notice that it’s thing of the past. And don’t forget to clean your computer every 3 to 6 months to keep that performance up!

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Securing your System

3

So you’ve come this far in the series meaning you’ve got your system cleaned up and understand a great deal more about maintaining it. Or, you’re just tuning in, and that’s alright because securing your system is just a good a place to start as any!

So what do we mean when we say “securing” your system? Surely we don’t mean strapping it to a desk with a padlock. Well, that’s one way you can lock your computer down, but what we’re talking about is throwing up a potent defense that will halt most malware infections before they even get on your computer.

We refer also to the many browser extensions you might have installed, many of which may be spying on your surfing habits.

And, of course there’s securing your system against prying eyes with strong passwords.

Think of this lesson as the “motherly advice” part. Most of this stuff seems like common sense but it’s amazing how many users still fall for old tricks and engage in bad practices.

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Avoidance is your Best Defense

Dodgy websites

Before we get to the concrete steps, let’s talk about something more pragmatic: avoidance. While we can blame the underbelly of the Internet for many of our malware woes, the fact remains, the user is still most often responsible for introducing malware to their systems. In a perfect world, it wouldn’t matter and we could just install whatever we want with no fear of consequences. But for whatever reason, be it sadism or profit, so-called hackers seem bound determined to ruin our days.

But it’s not quite so doom and gloom. You do have some control over this and avoid “Death by Toolbar.”

How’s that site look? Does it look like the Internet equivalent of seedy dive bar? Fact is, most of the websites out there are just fine but every now and then, there’s that one that isn’t.

When you have any misgivings about installing a program from a suspicious source, don’t. Take some time and research it, see if anyone has complained about it or if has been reported it as malicious.

Distrust e-mail Stop if you’ve heard this one before: don’t open attachments or links from unknown or suspicious sources. While most people use webmail nowadays, which usually has virus scanning incorporated into it (for example, Gmail scans at the server level so malware is less likely to even reach you), if you have a business or regular ISP e-mail account, you still need to exercise care in case something slips past.

Insert with caution Let’s say someone gives you a thumbdrive with some important files they want to share. It’s fantastic now that we have little gigabyte+ drives that we can save hundreds of files to.But, just like CD-ROMs and floppy disks, removable media is inherently risky. Never simply open these files without at least first scanning them for malware.

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Pop ups Have you ever seen those little pop ups while web browsing that suddenly appear telling you have viruses on your system?

Or, that your system is too slow and needs fixing? These pop ups act like they’re trying to help you out, but what they really want you to do is help them get their malware or adware into your system. If those popups are in the web browser window, they probably aren’t real. Don’t fall for these scare tactics; close out that window and go about your business.

Sneaky bundling A lot of software comes bundled with other software that you are tricked into mistakenly installing with a bunch of redirection and fakery. You may be accepting the licensing agreement for that piece of software, or you may simply be agreeing to install a bundled toolbar that tracks your web surfing habits.

When you’re installing anything, you don’t necessarily need to read all the fine print (only a few people really do) but you should at least know what you’re agreeing to. Are you agreeing to the actual program you downloaded, or is it some “search helper” or tool

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bar that you can never seem to get rid of? Bottom line, read carefully.

It’s also worth noting that you should really consider whether or not you need that freeware application in the first place.

If you can’t think of a reason that you must have it, you should probably skip the installation process entirely.

What’s in a torrent ?

If you download anything off a peer-to-peer network, you’re always at risk of getting more than you didn’t pay for. When at all possible, scan anything your get from these sources or simply download from a more reputable source.

Using anti-virus Using an anti-virus program is step 1 in securing your system.

Anti-virus? Don’t we mean malware? Technically, yes, we can define malware as any piece of software intent on causing harm to your system and the data contained therein. This may include, but certainly isn’t limited to, viruses, Trojans, keyboard loggers, adware, rootkits, and more. But, we all still call it anti-virus.

Your anti-virus software should fulfill a few requirements It should update automatically with the most current AV definitions.

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It should reside in your system’s memory and continuously scan for threats.

It shouldn’t detrimentally affect your system’s performance.

Almost all the AV software on the market will do the first two items perfectly well. In case of the last one, some AV programs create very little system overhead while others are pig-like. There’s also the matter of effectiveness, not all programs are created equally and some catch more malware more consistently.

Disabling Windows Defender to install new anti-virus On Windows 7, you have to install anti-virus manually so any of the above-referenced software is a great place to start. All of the free versions will be more than adequate to protect your system against most threats. It’s important to keep in mind that new malware appears every day, so there’s always the chance that some “zero-day” threat will infect your system but that’s honestly the chance you take by being online in the first place.

On Windows 8.x, Windows Defender is installed and enabled by default. In order to avoid having conflicts with any new AV software you install, you should first disable Defender and then immediately install your new AV. To disable Windows Defender, open it from the Control Panel. Click on the “Administrator” option from the “Settings” tab.

Uncheck the box next to “Turn on this app” and click “Save changes.”

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A box will pop up warning you to check your anti-virus software in the “Action Center” control panel. You can simply dismiss this box and install your new software.

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Recommendation: Avast! Free Antivirus When it comes to recommending any one AV scanner, we still say do some reading and try a few things out. But, if you’re simply looking for something to install right now and forget about, then you will be well protected with “Avast! Free Antivirus.”

Avast! is a pretty comprehensive program and though it is free, it will try to upsell you to the pay version. It’s up to you whether you actually want to shell out money for extra bells and whistles. We advise against buying anything that has a free version and does the job. The Avast! interface is also pretty busy and you’ll probably find a lot more functionality than you’ll actually use. Also, it can be pretty resource-heavy so if your system slows down too much, then you might want to try different anti-virus.

But, “Avast! Free Antivirus” scores well in the most important category: actually identifying, catching, and eliminating threats. Time after time, it ranks at the top of lists across the Internet.

Use Malwarebytes for spyware Whatever anti-virus scanner you choose, you should always have some kind of back up, just in case something slips through.

trick, however, you can usually get by with one and back it up with Malwarebytes.

Malwarebytes has been the go-to anti-spyware app of choice for geeks for as long as we can remember. We like Malwarebytes because it’s good at what it does, rooting out spyware that your regular anti-virus program might have missed. You can purchase Malwarebytes, which will extend other benefits. It can also serve well as your primary malware software, however we like that you can install it as a standalone app and run it as needed. This allows you regular anti-virus software to function normally without any conflicts. The full version does offer some nice features like realtime protection and scan scheduling, but the free version is more than capable of serving your needs.

Scanning Your System with Malwarebytes The main scanner window has nine tabs, but we want to concentrate solely on the “Scanner” tab for our purposes. The “Scanner” tab gives you three options. You can perform a “quick scan” that simply checks your system for malicious software.

You can also do a “full scan,” which will allow you to select the drive or drive(s) you want to check.

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And finally, you can do a “flash scan,” which will check your memory and autorun (removable media such as flash drives). This last option is available only to users who buy the full program.

Click “OK” to see what the program found. Check off everything you want to remove (if it isn’t already selected) and click “remove selected” to clean your system.

Once finished, Malwarebytes will generate a log and save it in its program folder. This will allow you to later review your removal history, just in case you want to research the threats the program removed.

For most, the quick scan should be sufficient. As you can see in the following screenshot, it only took a few minutes to scan our system, and Malwarebytes found a total of five potential threats.

If necessary, you may need to restart your system to entirely complete the removal process.

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Browser extensions and plugins

But What About Plugins?

How much do you know about those browser extension and plugins you have installed? Well, as you may or may not be aware, many Google Chrome extensions are sold to malware distributors. Your browser extensions are basically spying on you, the gist of which is:

Further complicating matters are plugins. Everyone knows what plugins are. Plugins have been around for as long as graphical Internet browsers (think Netscape Navigator) have been in existence. A plugin is basically a little helper that allows you to perform actions such as streaming video (Silverlight, Flash) or viewing documents (Adobe Reader) in your web browser.

For the most part, plugins are normally harmless and not usually associated with malware as much as they are for security exploits. Notably, Adobe Flash and Oracle Java seem to run into more than their fair share of problems. The biggest problem with plugins isn’t so much their insecurities, it’s their inherent usefulness and how much of a pain it is to surf without them. For example, without Flash, you can’t watch YouTube videos, without Silverlight you can’t watch Netflix movies, and Java, while seemingly useless 99 percent of the time, somehow manages to be that one plugin you need for that one specific task that you can’t accomplish any other way.

The good thing is, despite the risks associated with plugins and extensions, you can easily handle any problems, present and potential, with a few easy steps.

Browser add-ons for Chrome, Firefox, and probably other browsers are tracking every single page you visit and sending that data back to a third-party company that pays them for your information.

Some of these add-ons are also injecting ads into the pages that you visit, and Google specifically allows this for some reason as long as it is “clearly disclosed.”

Millions of people are being tracked this way and they don’t have a clue.

Many extensions insert ads into pages you visit and track you as you surf the Internet.

Bad behavior is buried in tedious end user license agreements (EULA) and complicated privacy policies.

An extension can often change hands or update without your knowledge or permission Some extensions include tracking code that is disabled by default, which can then be enabled remotely after you install the extension.

The long and short of it is that it’s all too easy to surrender a great deal of personal and personally identifiable information with just a few careless clicks of the mouse.

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Auditing your Extension and Plugins There’s no easy way to tell if your extensions are spying or if your plugins are insecure. At last glance there are hundreds and hundreds of extensions available for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Internet Explorer.

If you use any or all of these three browsers, and it’s likely you do, then you should know how to handle add-ons for each.

Treat extensions and plugins like you would system applications, if you use an extension every day, or at least regularly, then you should keep it.

If you don’t use an extension, or you can’t remember why you installed it, or you don’t remember installing it, then you should by all means remove it or, at least, disable it. Of course, if you have any doubts, do a simple Google search on whether anyone has cited it as spyware. If the extension has reviews, then you should read those too.

Plugins, on the other hand, should be kept updated and/or disabled unless you need them. Obviously you’re going to want to leave your Flash plugin enabled, it would be a pain to always have to enable it every time you wanted to watch a YouTube video. But, you still want to make sure it is always up-to-date.

Google Chrome

Internet Explorer

We start with Google Chrome because it’s our favorite and chances are you either use it or Internet Explorer. In Chrome, you can quickly access your extensions by typing “chrome:// extensions” which will show the “Extensions” settings.

Internet Explorer doesn’t have as many add-ons but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know how to administer them. To open the add-ons settings in IE, click the small gear icon and select “Manage add-ons.”

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Similarly, type “chrome://plugins” to see the “Plug-ins” installed on your browser. Note, you can quickly enable/disable by clicking the link. If a plug-in needs to be updated, it will give you an “Update” option.

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Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox does have a lot of extensions and many of those can be suspicious too. To open the “Add-ons” settings, click on the orange Firefox button in the upper-left corner.

IE lumps extensions and plugins together. To disable anything, right-click on the item and select “Disable.”

The “Add-ons Manager” collects everything in one place. Click on the extensions tab to attend to those. As you can see, you simply need to click the appropriate button to disable or remove any extensions associated with your Firefox installation.

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Plugins are a bit different. Firefox lets you decide whether to allow a plugin to ask, always, or never activate. This means, you can either leave a plugin enabled, completely disabled, or you can decide when the time comes whether you want to use it.

At the top of the plugins screen is a gear icon that allows you to choose your update methods. Note, “Update Add-ons Automatically” is enabled by default.

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Passwords and securing your system Stop for a moment and think about that laptop computer or tablet you carry around wherever you go. Pause and reflect upon your computer, slung across your shoulder like a modern day shield. You carry around your digital lives, storing phone numbers, addresses, shopping habits, friends and family photos, e-mail, and many more pieces of information that, even as little as a decade ago, we would have never thought of as possible.

Those little devices we take for granted contain a treasure trove of information. If left unprotected, they pave the way for cyber-thieves to access our most valued personal data: bank and credit card accounts, social security numbers, where we live, who we interact with, etc. These devices are a portal into our private worlds. You wouldn’t walk around with your address and phone numbers emblazoned upon your shirt but, leave your laptop or tablet behind somewhere and you might as well have done just that.

Luckily, there’s a very simple and practical way you can safeguard your data. It doesn’t require a major investment of cash or time, just a little thought and creativity. A strong password can 69

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easily place a virtually impenetrable firewall between you and even the most determined digital burglars. Passwords represent the first, and often last, line of defense between you and your piece-of-mind. But the keyword here is “strong.”

The strength of your password makes all the difference between foiling even the most determined of crooks and simply wasting a little bit of their time before they guess or hack their way in. Think of a password as a moat surrounding your castle. Will your moat be a watery canal that someone can lazily float across or will you stock it with piranha, crocodiles, and submerged hazards?

How well you protect yourself is entirely up to you.

Creating Strong Passwords First things first, to create a good, strong password you want to avoid some very common mistakes.

Don’t use a dictionary word. One of the primary methods for cracking a password is a “dictionary attack.”

Don’t use commonly misspelled words, abbreviations, or words spelled backward.

Don’t use a sequence of numbers or letters such as 12345678 or QWERTY. Never use personal information such as your name, pet’s name, your birthday, or any other similar information that can be easily researched or socially engineered.

password.

A strong password should be a mixture of letters (upper and lower case), symbols, numbers, and punctuation.

It should be at least eight characters. Short passwords are easier to crack.

You should use a different password for every website. A cyber-thief can hack into a website with the weakest security and then use your information on ones with stronger security.

Try to change your passwords at least once every three months.

If you suspect your password has been compromised, change it immediately!

While it is a good idea to substitute symbols for letters, most password hacking software will automatically account for many common conversions such as “and” for “&” and “to” for “2.”

Take advantage of all the characters on your keyboard, not just the ones you use every day.

Make things easier by using a password manager such as LastPass or KeePass. That way, you can have as many long, complex passwords as needed and you only need to remember one.

Keys to Strong Password Creation Knowing this, there are several keys to creating a strong 70

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Start with a simple sentence: Strong passwords are the best!

Next, remove the spaces between each word: Strongpasswordsarethebest!

Mix things up a bit by intentionally shortening or misspelling some words: Strawngpassw0rdsRtehBest Finally, you can make the password even stronger by adding some numbers: Strawngpassw0rdsRteh2014Best And really, that’s all there is to it. You can check the strength of your password by running it through a password checker, which can be easily found online. By always following these simple rules and then utilizing these methods to create strong passwords, you can ensure that your personal information will be relatively safe and sound from prying eyes.

Security Questions In recent years, many websites have started instituting security questions as a means of helping people remember or reset forgotten passwords. As first glance, this seems like a great idea.

Answer a few simple questions, like the name of your favorite pet or the town where you were born, and you’re given the option of then resetting your password.

Security questions are an effective way of saving companies money on support costs because users no longer have to call in to reset their passwords. And, they are also safer than trying to identify a user over the phone. The biggest problem with this method is that answers to these questions can often be discovered with a little research and social engineering.

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cial engineering.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer to the security question problem. “Good” security questions shouldn’t be easy to guess and the answers shouldn’t change. Your favorite book at the moment may be “War and Peace” but say you read “Crime and Punishment” and it becomes your new favorite. A good security question then would not be “What is your favorite book?” because the answer can change over time.

Security Questions: Dos and Don’ts Here are some handy tips you can use to overcome the inherent problems associated with security questions.

Invent bogus answers that only you will know. This helps prevent someone from using social engineering to gain access to your account.

Write down your question/answer combinations or better yet, use a password manager such as LastPass or KeePass to store them.

Don’t pick the same security questions for every account.

For example, don’t answer the mother’s maiden name question for your e-mail and your social networking account(s).

Don’t answer questions that involve personal information or can be easily guessed.

Answer questions such as you would when creating a strong password. Use special characters, numbers, and symbols instead of letters.

As risk-prone as they are, security questions currently represent the best available idea for easily resetting your password.

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Until someone comes up with a better solution, a user’s password security will only be as good as the questions that are asked, and the cleverness of the answers you provide.

Keeping your PC Updated and Running Smoothly

4

We’re going to talk about improving your PC’s performance beyond the basic steps we’ve already covered thus far. Chances are your computer runs perfectly well until you start stressing it, and then it will obviously slow down as it is given more demands.

Yet, there’s still those times when your system just bogs down and doesn’t seem like it wants to budge – like it’s stuck in mud and switching between apps seems to take an age. If your system feels slower, then it most likely is.

Many performance problems can simply be tracked down to too much overhead and too few resources. In other words, your computer can only handle so many simultaneously running processes before it starts to show signs of strain. This may manifest as long load or boot times, or applications may hang or stall, or the computer may exhibit signs of instability such as blue screens or sudden restarts.

This is the practical advice lesson and it will be here that we talk about improving your diagnostic skills with the all-powerful “Task Manage,r” which is far more useful than its simple name would imply.

Before we do that, however, we’re going to delve into something very important which is very often neglected by a vast number of PC users: updates.

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Keeping Things Properly Updated If your system isn’t regularly updated, it could be compromised and open to attack from hackers. Microsoft regularly issues patches and security updates and if your system isn’t set to download and automatically install them, or you’re not super diligent about checking for, downloading, and installing these updates, then you put your system at risk.

Perhaps even more important, however, are those other little programs that don’t always get star treatment: Oracle Java, Adobe Flash, and Adobe Reader. While we did cover these plugins in the previous chapter, we want to stress again how important it is that these types of programs, any program really, are kept up-to-date.

Windows update Windows provides a utility, aptly named, “Windows Update,” that allows you to keep your system patched and secure (to an extent) from any malicious attempts to gain access and seize control of your computer.

When you first create a master or administrator account on a new Windows install, you will be asked whether you want updates to download and install automatically, or if you want to do this manually. We highly recommend you allow Windows to take care of updating itself.

Nevertheless, if you think you want to handle this portion of PC maintenance, then you need to know how to use “Windows Update” so you never miss a critical update.

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Let’s stick to the desktop version. Once you’re familiar with that, the Metro version is pretty much the same thing.

When you first open “Windows Update” you will see its status, such as whether “you’re set to automatically install updates.”

In the following screenshot, we see we have 3 three optional updates available, but we also initiated a manual “check for updates” and we see we have one important update too.

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You can click on the links to see what these updates are. You should install whatever important updates are available, but you can be a bit pickier about optional updates.

Worry not, if you find you really need the “Bing Bar” or “Bing Desktop” or some other hidden update, you can use the “restore hidden updates” function.

In fact, you can even right-click on an update and hide it, so it no longer shows up in “Windows Update.”

All-in-all, “Windows Update” is a cinch to use, so if you decide to attend to your own updates, it’s usually a matter of remembering to install them. Luckily, you can set the level at which important updates occur with “Change settings.”

“Windows Update” not only handles important updates, but recommended updates, and updates for other Microsoft products like Office. You can disable these later two if you don’t want to receive them through “Windows Update”.

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Note at the bottom of the important updates section there’s a link “updates will be automatically installed during the maintenance window.” Click on this and you will be able to decide when Windows Update runs. By default, it’s set to run daily at 3 AM and will wake up your computer, if necessary.

If you don’t want “Automatic Maintenance” waking up your computer at 3 a.m., either uncheck the box next to “Allow scheduled maintenance to wake up my computer …” or change the time to when you know the computer will be on.

With regard to “Important updates,” you choose between one of four different configurations giving you the full array of control over your updating process. You honestly don’t want to turn off automatic updating completely, but you can choose whether it notifies you that updates exist and then give you the choice whether to download and install them, or download them and then install them.

Java, Flash, and Reader While Java, Flash, and Reader only represent a small drop in the bucket when it comes to applications, they’re often the most common entry points for many types of malware, especially Java, which is said to be responsible for HALF of all security exploits.

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Oracle Java

Alternatively, you can simply open the “Java (32-bit)” control panel from the Control Panel.

Oracle’s Java gets no love from us. By and large it just seems like an accident waiting to happen, but as we said previously, you may be able to do 99 out of 100 things on your computer, but there’s always that one that requires Java.

Java comes with an “Update Scheduler” that automatically runs at regular intervals thus checking for, downloading, and installing updates. You can see it here in our “Startup” tab on the “Task Manager.”

Once open, select the “Update” tab to see your available update options. In the following example, the updater is set to notify the user before downloading any updates. This can be changed to automatically download updates, and to then notify us before installing.

Updating Java manually is a cinch. Simply open your “Start” menu (it will be in “All Program” in Windows 7) and click “check for updates” in the Java menu.

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If you want to turn off automatic updates (highly not recommend), then uncheck the box next to “Check for Updates Automatically.”

What is recommend is clicking the “Advanced” button and altering your update schedule. In the following screenshot, we see that Java is set to check for updates every month on Monday at 5 a.m. It seems unlikely, no matter how bad a Monday it is, that we’ll be up at 5 a.m. so we can change this to something else, possibly more frequently, at a more productive time of day.

If there are updates available, it will prompt you to update. If there aren’t, then you’re good to go.

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash Player is arguably the most widely used browser plugin out there. So much so that it is largely indispensable, which makes it a very attractive target for exploits. We described how to manage extensions and plugins in the previous lesson so we’re not going to dwell further on that. For the most part, browsers, particularly Google Chrome are pretty good about automatically updating plugins.

Finally, to execute a manual update, click the “Update Now” button at the bottom of the Java Control Panel.

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That said, if want to download the “Adobe Flash Player system plug-in” (for use with other programs such as video processing) then you will be presented with the following options.

There’s really not a lot to think about here, you should most definitely “Allow Adobe to install updates.” Once installed, you can administer to the system Flash Player from the Control Panel.

To execute a manual update check, click the “Check Now” button. You will be whisked to Adobe’s Flash Player page and if an update is needed, you can download and install it from there.

Adobe Reader The Flash Player control panel is similar to the Java control panel only the update settings are on the “Advanced” tab. Click the “Change Update Settings” button and you will be able choose one of the other two options. Note, you must have administrator rights to do this.

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Finally, last, but obviously not least, is Adobe Reader. Reader, like Flash, is another (almost) indispensable utility. There are Reader alternatives out there and you’re certainly free to explore your options, but for many a user, Adobe’s offering is one of the 87

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first things that they install. By default, Adobe places the “Adobe Reader and Acrobat Manager” into your system’s startup routine. This will automatically check for program updates whenever Windows starts. You can disable this of course, but then you will need to check for program updates manually.

To check for program updates manually, open the Reader application and from the “Help” menu select “Check for Updates… .”

If any updates are found, you will be able to install them, otherwise you’re good to go.

As we mentioned, there are Reader alternatives out there. At one time Foxit Reader was one of our favorites, but it’s since become bloated with crap. If you don’t want to use Adobe Reader, then you might want to try Sumatra PDF, which is free, lightweight, and not Adobe.

Drivers Drivers are the little bits of intermediary software that allow your hardware to work with Windows. Without drivers you wouldn’t be able to connect to the Internet or send things to your printer. When Windows 95 first debuted, drivers were so88

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drivers were something of a mess and in order to fully keep on top or your system, you’d have to manually install drivers from each manufacturer, and for any new hardware you added.

This situation didn’t actually start to improve until Windows XP, and didn’t become a no-brainer until Windows 7. Today, there’s almost nothing you need to do with Windows 8.x. In fact, we’d be surprised if you ever have to install a driver yourself again.

Furthermore, if drivers do need updating, they’ll appear in “Windows Update” under “Optional” updates.

That said, if you have a computer you want to play games on, we recommend installing the graphic card manufacturer’s recommended drivers. You’re almost certainly going to have a graphics chipset supplied by Intel, Nvidia, or AMD. The latter two release drivers for their chipsets on a regular basis so you can visit their downloads pages for more details. If you’re not sure whether you want to do this or you simply don’t care about gaming, then chances are you should just use the driver that “Windows Update” installs and you will be fine.

The “Task Manager” in Windows 7 is probably familiar to a lot of you. It’s relatively unchanged between Windows versions.

Getting to Know the Task Manager The “Task Manager” should be your first stop when nailing down performance hiccups. To access the Task Manager, you can hit CTRL+ALT+DEL and choose “Task Manager” or rightclick on the taskbar and choose it from the menu.

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The “Task Manager” in Windows 8.x has received quite a makeover but retains its essential functionality. For the purposes of this section, we’re going to concentrate on this “Task Manager” version. You should be able to achieve the same goals using the Windows 7 version, it will just look different.

The “Processes” tab lists every running process on your system.

This is very useful for diagnosing hung apps and excess system overhead.

The new-look “Task Manager” defaults to a very simple streamlined interface. There’s not a whole lot we can do with it other than end non-responsive applications however, if you click “more details” then the sheer power of the “Task Manager” is revealed.

If an application “hangs” it means it stops responding, this can be a temporary situation while the computer works to free up resources, or it can mean that the application needs to be ended. In the following example we’ve purposely stressed our system with a bunch of resource-intensive tasks to show you what this looks like. Note, the application with “not responding” in red next to it.

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If this happens to you and it feels like your system is dragging, you may need to free up resources by quitting stuck applications. You can try closing a problem application by trying to properly exit, but if an application is really misbehaving, then from the “Task Manager” click on the problem app and then the “end task” button in the bottom-right corner.

Note, if you end an application abruptly, you will possibly lose any unsaved work so use this power with great care. When at all possible, try closing other unused, running applications to try to free up system resources and/or wait for the hung application to respond.

Pinning Down Performance Bottlenecks Applications don’t always need to become non-responsive for your system to slow to a crawl. At times like this, it’s great to use the “Task Manager” to check where you might have performance bottlenecks. Looking at the “Performance” tab, we see a freshly restarted system under minimal load. Across all our metrics, we see that our system is having no performance problems.

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Check out what happens, however, when we place our system under extreme load. In this example, we’ve fired up a virtual machine, which causes RAM and CPU usage to spike and destabilize our system.

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And there’s also a sharp spike in disk I/O, which can cause our system to stutter and lurch along as well.

See here we are utilizing 100% of our CPU.

Sometimes if you stress your system to the max, a warning box will pop up telling you that your memory is low, and you need to close programs to free up resources.

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The dialog box has a button “close programs,” and it will list various applications that it will end. Note, you may actually be using some or all these programs so simply clicking that button may have undesirable results.

Obviously, there’s a more refined way to diagnose system slowdowns. In our “Task Manager” we can order applications and services by clicking on the appropriate header (“CPU” in the screenshot). Here the “VMware Workstation VMX” process has our processor tied up pretty well and overall it is pegged at 99 percent. There’s basically no room for any other process. we’ve ordered everything according to “memory” to give you an idea of which things can help you free up RAM in a pinch.

In this case, we can close Google Chrome, Dropbox, and MusicBee and recover quite a bit of memory.

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The “Task Manager” is invaluable to any Windows user but it’s important to remember that it is only a diagnostic tool so knowing how to apply the information it conveys and make intelligent maintenance decisions can alleviate a lot of common system slowdown woes.

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Conclusion

That’s all there is to it. Windows doesn’t need quite as much maintenance as it did in the old days, but there will always be a few things you can do from time to time to keep it clean and fast. We hope you enjoyed it and now feel confident and comfortable maintaining your system.

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