Computer Software Maintenance 101

Computer Software Maintenance 101

Keeping computers running smoothly can seem like a daunting task, but once you understand how easy it is, you'll have your computer running smoothly in no time.

Basics
A. Scandisk - Scanning the disk drive for errors helps eliminate disk read/write errors, these can sometimes be the cause of bsod or crashes.

In order to run a scan just:

1. Open file explorer and right click the disk > click properties > tools tab
2. Click error checking and authorize the UAC request
3. Make sure you have both check boxes clicked
4. When you click run diskcheck will run shortly then ask if you'd like to scan during the next restart.
5. Either restart the computer now or wait to do the scan later.

Note: Disk scans of hdd's 500gbs or over can take several hours, so its suggested that you restart the computer before going to bed and allow it to scan while you're asleep. Its recommended to use this every 6 months or so.

B. Disk Defrag - While reading from the hard drive the computer reads the data, then randomly throws the data back onto the disk at the first free sector. Because of this the data becomes scattered and causes wait times to be longer when accessing data because it has to find it when its fragmented.

1. Open file explorer and right click the disk > click properties > tools tab
2. Click Defragmentation
3. Click Defragment disk.

Note: This can take anywhere from a short while to a couple of hours, depending on whether or not you've run this before. So once again you should run this overnight if necessary. You can also schedule this task to run on a schedule, i personally run mine on a Wednesday at 1 am.



C. Registry Errors - Registry errors can cause your computer to crash, freeze, bsod or cause many other problems. There are plenty of tools out there that are free that can help you keep your registry clean and optimized. My personal favorite is Ccleaner.

To use the registry cleaner:

1. open ccleaner and click the registry button to the left
2. click scan for issues.
3. When its done click fix selected issues
4. back up registry if you feel you need to, then click fix all selected issues.

D. Firewalls - Firewalls simply stop computers from connecting to your machine and stop suspicious programs from connecting to your computer. Unfortunately this is a far too complicated matter to go into here. And i will be reviewing and showing you how to set up and configure many different free firewalls in the future.

One firewall i would definitely recommend is Zonealarm. With zonealarm free edition you can get both virus scanning and a firewall for free. There are a few downsides however, I'm not sure if the free software comes with the browser plug-in and the free edition also does not allow you to manually open ports :(.

Advanced
E. Anti-virus/Anti-spyware. I personally like to have at least 2 scanners and at least one real-time scanner on my personal computer at all times.

Currently I use:
Microsoft Security Essentials
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-essentials-download

Mal-Ware Bytes
http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/

Spy-bot Search & Destroy
http://www.safer-networking.org/

Note: Discontinued use of spybot because i couldn't get the real-time scanning to turn off and it was interrupting my games and browsing by taking up too much cpu. Most likely a build/version issue because it had not done this in the past.

F. Updates - Besides using your Windows update, you need to manually check each browser AND ITS PLUGINS!!! for updates.

Firefox makes this quite easy because all you have to do is visit: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/plugincheck/

Other than that you'll want to start Adobe reader regularly and click help then check for updates.

Last but not least is this piece of handy software that helps check and update other pieces of software you've installed. And its calledSecunia Personal Software Inspector.
http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/

Just simply run and it will tell you which pieces of software are up to date and can easily download and install them for you.

Hopefully these tips and software can help you keep your computer running in tip top shape. But for you people who might still be confused about some of this stuff theres on piece of software that can help make everything a lot simpler.

System Mechanic- system mechanic can do a lot of what i've spoken about(defrag, scandisk, registry, a/v scanning and more) but not all. It can't update your programs for you like Secunia PSI can. Other than this one program all you would really need is a firewall, and a primary anti-virus scanner and you'd be good to go. Just don't forget to check up on your browser plug-ins, flash/shockwave I'm looking @ you.