Basic Computer Maintenance
Cleaning House
The following 6 actions should be done at least once a month. However, heavy internet usage dictates that they be done once a week. By not doing these actions, you will see your computer performing slower and slower until it may finally lock up. It will eventually not execute programs correctly (events out of order, colors wrong, sounds broken, etc) and on some computers the mouse will disappear. All you can do then is press reset, but it will disappear again shortly. So, take a deep breath and let's get into your machine!
HONEY, will you take the trash out pleeeeease?
First let's find the trash. Click START/FIND/FILES OR FOLDERS. Type in *tmp then ENTER. These temporary files are created by Windows and are SUPPPOSED (minor Windows flaw) to be closed out when you shut down your computer. Sometimes Windows forgets some. Enough of those leftovers are called TRASH! Delete them.
Second, remember the letter to Mr/Ms Wonderful that you wrote months ago before you found out they were not worthy of your time? Throw it out and all the other "old stuff" into the recycle bin by deleting them. Especially true for old pictures.
Third, empty the recycle bin! Every time you empty the kitchen trash can, empty the recycle bin for me, ok? It's icon looks like a trash can for a reason!
Keep minimum stuff (bytes) on your CLIPBOARD. clipboard stuff is stored on your RAM memory. You were probably like me and too cheap to get lots of RAM so don't slow down your system by using up RAM to hold something you don't need. When something is put in the clipboard, Windows wipes it clean first. So why not put something tiny on the clipboard to keep the RAM freed up for faster computing? Let's do it now: Put onto the desktop and text document like the one you are reading now. Highlight a small word.... like... "Cait". Do this by holding down the "Ctrl" key and run the mouse over..."Cait". You just cleaned off the clipboard and put "Cait" on it. "Cait" is a lot smaller than the last item you copied/cut or whatever some program decided to put there for quick use. RAM is precious...protect it always.
Clean out the INTERNET folder. Each time you visit a web site and click through it's pages, each page's web address is stored in the HISTORY folder and the TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES folder. Two hours on the web and my folder is so full my mouse freezes. Delete them away! Click START/SETTINGS/CONTROL PANEL. Double click on the INTERNET icon. The folder you are looking at has 6 tabs. We will deal with the GENERAL (Windows 98) or NAVAGATION (Windows 95) and ADVANCED tabs.
Click GENERAL or NAVAGATION. See HISTORY on the bottom half? Set the days to 1 or 0 if you use the Web a lot, set to 5 if you don't. Now Click the VIEW HISTORY. You can count them or look at the total at the bottom left. Anyone else on your "puter" can see where you have been! But, too many files will clog up your machine. Click EDIT/SELECT ALL, now click FILE/DELETE. Close the GENERAL or NAVAGATION window.
Click ADVANCED. If you are still on Windows 95 look for the TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES in the middle. Click "View Files" - click EDIT/SELECT ALL, now click EDIT/DELETE. Close the TEMPORARY INTERNET WINDOW. If you are running Windows 98, scroll down to SECURITY and make sure then "Empty Temporary Internet Files" folder is checked. While you are on this ADVANCED page, put a check mark next to "Warn Before Accepting Cookies" - I'll tell ya about cookies later. Close the Internet Properties Window the close the Control Panel window. Now we gotta do two built-in Windows 95-98 maintenance programs.
SCAN DISK basically scans the disk for errors.
Click START/PROGRAMS/ACCESSORIES/SYSTEM/TOOLS/SCANDISK. Make sure there is or put a dot next to "Thorough" and a check next to "Automatically fix errors". Click start and go do the weeks laundry cause it usually takes a while. When it's done, close the window. Piece of cake, huh?
DEFRAG
Imagine a bag of M&M's on a platter, then you eat all the red ones. I come over and eat all the yellow ones. See all those random empty spaces on the platter? That's what your hard drive looks like if you don't DEFRAG once in a while. It takes the hard drive longer to find information if it's scattered around like the M&Ms. Let's push them all together. Click START/PROGRAMS/ACCESSORIES/SYSTEM TOOLS/DISK DEFRAGMENTER. On the tiny window that appears, click "Ok". On the next tiny window, click "Start". Zooooom, off it goes! Think I was silly about the M&M crap? Click "SHOW DETAILS" (told ya)!!
Cookies
Cookies are a mini tattle tale program that a web site wants to put on your hard drive. Cookies look at the web addresses in your Internet History folder and tell the web site what other web sites you have visited. Is it for marketing or spying or to find out what your interests are so you can be sent even more junk mail (spam) who knows? If you have never heard of cookies, then you probably think I'm nuts like the M&M story. Ok, follow me for a reality check. Click START/PROGRAMS/WINDOWS/EXPLORER. Think of what you see as a book that's folder open. Whatever you highlight (by clicking on the word) on the left, it's contents will be shown on the right. On the left page, click the "+" next to the word WINDOWS. OMG!! Is there really a folder called COOKIES? Click on the work COOKIES to highlight it. The right page will show its contents. If you didn't know anything about COOKIES before and you didn't have a check next to "Warn before accepting cookies" on the ADVANCED tab in Internet properties (and I can't find that tab in Windows 98), I'll bet you have a lot of damn COOKIES on the right page. They're all squealing like 7th grade girls gossiping. Let's flush them out. Click EDIT/SELECT ALL, click EDIT/DELETE. What? You say they didn't go away? HA HA, you learned to late and you've got a taste of "SUPER COOKIE". 256 and 2048 are Super Booger Cookies, look bad, taste bad and they are all yours.
TIP FROM PAPPY: - To Get Rid of Cookies
#1- Click on My Computer ( on your desktop)
#2- Go to C- Drive ( Click on that )
#3-Then look for (WINDOWS FOLDER ) Click on that
#4- Then Look for ( COOKIES ) Click on that
#5-You'll see the 1st. Cookie ( INDEX DATA ) Can't be removed ! But all the Rest Can be REMOVED.
#6- Highlite Cookies, 25 @ a time, Right Click your Mouse, and
then Hit (Delete).....and Just keep doing it Over and Over to all the Cookies are deleted !.....Try it ! you'll Love it.
Last but not least, let us not forget those little temp devils in our MS-DOS. This is where all these temporary files wind up if we are not careful.
To delete these, we must do the following:
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Shut all open programs down..
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Click to Windows...start...
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Click on Shut Down...
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Make sure the little black dot is in front of : "Re-Start in MS-DOS...
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Click on Enter...
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You should now be in MS-Dos mode...
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Look down left side of your screen for Windows prompt...
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Type in deltree tempor~1
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Click on enter...
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You will be asked if you want to delete all temp files... y/n
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Click on y...
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Click on Enter...
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You should now be deleting all temporary files in MS-DOS..
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If you have never done this before, you may find this may take a while, so sit back and relax...
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When it is done deleting, it will show you the Windows prompt again...
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At this point, all that remains is to hit ... Control, Alt, Delete at the same time to reboot..
Good Luck... Keep that "puter" happy!!!
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