Keeping your computer clean and fast

[Brandon W]

G'day everyone.

Today I will be teaching you how to keep your computer clean and free of all those naughty things on the net that you discover every day.

Through this tutorial I will be showing you 7 different programs that will help you keep your computer clean. You don't need to use them all.

OK let's start. The programs we will be using is
CCleaner
Glary Utilities
SHAREWARE RegCure
Spybot Search and Destroy
Defraggler
FREE ALTERNATIVERevo Uninstaller OR SHAREWARE Total Uninstall

As you can see from the above list. Most are free. I highly recommend getting RegCure if you can afford it, Total Uninstall is a better alternatice but you can settle with Revo

Now let's get cleaning;
For starters download the above programs. The process will start with getting rid of your unwanted programs for a reason. This is when you uninstall programs, they still leave things behind. Even though your uninstall program will get rid of these, it's just in case.

In this example I will be using Total Uninstall, there should be a guide for Revo somewhere.
Run Total Uninstall. A list of your installed programs is on the left hand side. You can also search these. Go through the installed programs and find the ones you don't normally use or find useful.

Click on the program and it will analyze the install. A list of details about the program will show up on the right. In the top left corner is a picture of a computer called Uninstall. Click on that.
There will be a drop down box called Uninstall profile. Make sure it is set to Uninstall analyzed application and that will get rid of anything left behind. Then click on launch.
It will then create a system restore point after that it will run the programs uninstaller. Once that is done a pop-up box will appear. Click on the uninstall button and it will remove all the things left behind by the normal uninstaller.

Now you have uninstalled the programs you don't wish. Let's move on to CCleaner.



Run CCleaner. This is a fairly basic program but really useful. Once opened, you will see four tabs on the left. Cleaner, Registry, Tools and Options.
Make sure you are on Cleaner. Now there are two tabs, Windows and Applications. Select the ones you want to delete then click on Run Cleaner.
The process will be quickly and it will show a log of what it has deleted. Now this section is done, move onto the Registry tab.
Yet again, select the tabs you wish to delete. Click on "Scan for Issuses", it will then scan your registry for the problems you have ticked. Once done, click on "Fix Selected issues".
Make sure you take the chance and back-up the registry, I suggest not changing the name since it will have the date and time in it. It will now fix your registry

Another thing we will check out on CCleaner is the start-up manager. Click on tools > Startup. This is plain and simple. Choose the programs you don't want to start-up and click on Delete. It will then stop it from loading on start-up



The next tool we will be using is Glary Utilities. This is similar to CCleaner but much more deep scanning. Run it. The first thing that should open is 1-Click Maintenence.
This is what we will be using. Just click on Scan for Issues, and it will do it's job for you Plain and simple.



We are neally finished but next is RegCure. Similar to Glary Utilities but searches in different areas. I don't have the program installed at the moment since I haven't payed. It is plain and simple to use and does a really good job!!



To clean some spyware off your computer we will use Spybot - Search & Destroy. Once you open it, there will be 3 buttons. one click and it will scan, that's right it's "Check for Problems". Once finished it will quarantine any files it has found.



Now the last step to clean it all up. It's a alternative to the Windows Defragger which is really bad IMO, it's Defraggler. Made by Piriform which is also made CCleaner.
Open Defraggler. Up at the top it will show you all your drives. Select the drive you wish to defrag and down the bottom of the program click on Defrag. This may take some time but you shouldn't really be using the computer while you do it.


All of this should be done at LEAST once a week. Mainly the Defragger. But repeating these steps every couple of days will help keep your computer clean and fast.
Another tip which will keep your computer clean is to do a weekly scan with an anti-virus. I use Avast since it is free and does the job really well. AVG is another good alternatve.





This tutorial was written by Brandon W
It is only to be posted on CC unless posted by Brandon W or Rexy93 on another forum
If you find this tutorial on another site not under those names please contact me ASAP

Regards,
Brandon

[Jordan]

Nice tutorial, +rep.

[amrosama]

Cool tutorial, very useful

[Xav]

I believe defragmenting has become useless in modern computers, thanks to high-tech hard disks we have.

[amrosama]

I also recommend tuneup utilities 2008

[Brandon W]

I use to use TuneUp Utilities but I decided not to use in this tutorial. Why is that Xav?

Thank-you Jordan.

[Jordan]

I believe defragmenting has become useless in modern computers, thanks to high-tech hard disks we have.

On solid state drives I would agree but 99% of the population can't afford these so I don't believe defragmenting is useless just yet.

[Brandon W]

How would the high-tech drives stop it from being defragged? I still do mine every week and it is really bad xD

Windows always use to say that I didn't require a defrag. I downloaded a defragger and it said about 65% of my files were fragmented.

[Speedular]

that was very useful thnkx

[Brandon W]

Your welcome mate. Remember to run this once a week