Make Some Changes

Make Some Changes!

Upgrade Your Drivers

You'd be surprised at the difference updated drivers can make to the performance and stability of your system. Make a list of your different devices, sound card, video card, network card, modem, monitor, printer, scanner, CD-RW, etc..

Gather as much info on them as you can. Write down the manufacturer, model name or number. Then hunt down and visit the manufacturer's website. It may take a little searching, but once you find the updated drivers just download and install them.

If you have trouble finding some manufacturers or specific drivers, there are hundreds of device driver index sites available. Here's a few to check out: http://www.windrivers.com/company.htm
http://www.driverzone.com/
http://drivers.co.il/

Also, check out any updates, fixes and patches that are made available for download for your particular operating system. Microsoft constantly releases updates and patches for Windows. You definitely don't need them all, but you may find something that you require to fix a bug or add support for a new device. Check out: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

Get Rid of Some o f Your Fonts

Every single font in the Windows/Fonts folder is loaded into memory at startup. This means that a large number of fonts will slow down your computer's startup procedure. Once your computer is running, the fonts will be taking up valuable memory space that can no longer be used for your applications.

As you install new programs, such as browsers, word processors, email applications, web page development programs, ..even games, new fonts can be added to your fonts folder without you even knowing. Its easy to unknowingly end up with as many as 500 to 1000 fonts being loaded into memory when your system boots up.

How do you remove these fonts? Click Start, Settings, Control Panel, then double-click Fonts. You'll see all the fonts that are loading into memory at startup. You should try to keep the number of typefaces you have installed between 50 to 100. Of course, if you're a desktop publisher, or design typefaces, you are going to require more fonts than the average PC user.

So, first off, make a list of the ones you're going to keep. You should start off with the most common fonts, fonts that are used by your operating system, browsers, and simple applications. Keep the different versions of fonts such as Arial, Courier, Times New Roman, Rockwell, Verdana, and a few others like Letter Gothic, Bertram, Lucida, Garamond and Tahoma.

Then continue on with the list by writing the names of the fonts you know you use most often. The fonts you choose for the body, headers and footers of your letters or presentations. The typefaces you find yourself choosing, or changing to, in any of your applications.

And, let's be reasonable here. If you use a particular font once or twice a year, it doesn't have to be loaded everytime you start your computer. You can move it to a different folder and access it when you need it.

If you need to see the font, just double-click on it and you'll get a sample of the typeface.

Now that you have your list, you have two choices. You can delete the fonts or move them to a separate folder in case you would like to access them later.

My suggestion is to make a separate folder and call it something like MYFONTS. Move the typefaces that are not on your list to the new folder. This will still allow you access to these fonts if needed, and if you find another font that you tend to use on a regular basis, you can move it back to the FONTS folder. After a reasonable amount of time, if you want to delete some of the fonts from MYFONTS to free up disk space, you can.

Handle Your Own Swap File - Virtual Settings

Windows makes use of Virtual Memory. This is actually space allocated on the hard drive as a swap file. Information and application data that is not used consistently can be swapped to the hard drive (virtual memory), freeing up space in RAM for more frequently accessed data. This allows you to run more memory intensive programs, or more applications at one time, than your systems RAM could usually support.

Some applications even take advantage of this feature by delegating info and data that does not require continuous access, to the swap file, freeing up system RAM for speedier access to instructions, calculations and procedures that require the speed.

This swap file is one of the reasons I suggest making sure you leave approximately 25% of your hard drive free. According to the Windows98 Resource Kit, the single best way you can ensure high swap file performance is to make sure that the disk containing the swap file has ample free space so that the swap file size can shrink and grow as needed.

By default, Windows controls your swap file and uses a dynamic file that shrinks and grows according to the amount of disk space you have left. This is the setting that Microsoft recommends. However, in some situations, you may experience a performance increase by specifying your own virtual memory settings. This is something you can experiment with. You can always change the settings back.

Right-click on My Computer, choose properties, then click on the Performance Tab and click the Virtual Settings button. Click the option button that says "Let me specify my own virtual memory settings". The setting you put in should be about 2.5 times the installed RAM. In other words, if you have 64Mb of RAM in your system, make the setting 160Mb. Make the minimum and maximum settings the same.

Note: One thing you do not want to do, is to disable your virtual memory completely. Do not check that particular box. You may not even be able to re-start your computer.

You can also change the drive that the swap file resides on. By default, the swap file will reside on the C: drive. If you have more than one physical drive installed, and one is faster, or one is not used as much, you may notice an increase in performance by having the swap file reside on that drive.

View Options - Show All Files

Hidden files are just that, hidden from view. Sometimes, when you are cleaning up old files, you may not find them because they may be hidden. Even some temp files and folders can have their hidden attributes set. Files are usually hidden to prevent accidental deletion, unauthorized access or improper user manipulation.

If you think you are capable of avoiding these mistakes on your own, then set your View Options to Show All Files. You will have more control over your files and folder system, and you'll probably gain an insight as to why some uninstallation programs can't completely remove a specific program.

Reduce the Size Of Your Recycle Bin

Each drive will have it's own Recycle Bin. The amount of hard drive space allocated to each Recycle Bin is static. What that means is that it doesn't change. Its set as a percentage of the drive itself. So if you have a 2.0 Gb hard drive, and the Recycle Bin is set at 5%, that means that 100Mb of drive space is allocated to the Recycle Bin and can't be used for anything else. Even if the Recycle Bin is empty.

5% should be adequate for most people. A lot of systems have it set at 10% and some at 15% or 20%. This is a lot of wasted drive space, and because files are constantly being added and deleted in this area, it can add to the percentage of fragmentation reported by Defrag.

Right-click the Recycle Bin and choose properties. You can move the slider back and forth to decide the amount of disk space you want to use for the Recycle Bin.

Delete Garbage Files

You should delete your Internet Cache files on a regular basis (once a week). Especially if you surf the Net a lot. These can be deleted right from your Browser, depending on the particular browser you are using.

In Internet Explorer 5.0+, simply click on 'Tools' on the Menu bar, then choose Internet Options and make sure the General tab is selected. Here you can clear the Internet Cache as well as your History.

In Netscape 4.5+, click on 'Edit', then choose 'Preferences', and click on the '+' sign beside 'Advanced'. Then choose 'Cache' and click the Clear Disk Cache button.

Although caching can speed up your browser for frequently visited sites, there comes a point where it can actually slow down the process as your computer has to search through all the cached information before deciding it has to download the information.

Sometimes, when you visit certain pages on the Internet, ActiveX controls and Java applets that are needed to view these pages properly, are automatically downloaded and stored in the Downloaded Program Files folder on your hard disk. You should delete these programs weekly. They are located in your C:\WINDOWS\DOWNLOADED PROGRAM FILES folder. Check to see if this folder exists on your system.

Offline Web Pages, are pages that have been downloaded and stored on your computer to be viewed at a later time without having to be connected to the Internet. Usually, these files are not going to exist on your hard drive unless you've made the choice. Be sure you know which directory they are stored in and delete them when they are no longer required.

There is still more files you can remove from you drive. You can also click on Start/Find/Files and Folders, then type in '*.TMP' (without the quotes), to find any temporary files that may have been left in your TEMP folder. Highlight them all in the lower pane, and delete them. If Windows says it can't delete some, don't worry too much about it. It probably means that they are in use at the time.

Do the same for '*.chk' and '*.$$$' files. Then you can do a search for '*.bak' files. Make sure the resulting files are not current or that you don't need them, and delete them.

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