My PC used to run much faster than it does now. Could someone give me some basic tips on how to give it a spring clean/service please.

I've uninstalled programs which I don't used and I've defraged the drive. This helped a little.

Liam N, January 2004

Several things.

clean up and defrag the registry. Every time an application is removed it leaves entries in the registry. Several programs are available. Personally I use Ashampoo Winoptimiser that has several modules to get rid of junk both on the hard drive and in the registry. though there are many others. In your browser make sure that internet traces, cookies etc are not taking up space. Check your startup programs and services for unneeded items.

Michael, August 2011

Also, if you're on win98, you can goto the run menu and type

msconfig

That will bring you to a menu where you can click on 'startup' and tell the computer what to and not to load on boot.

Neil, March 2004

Check your start-up menu. Sometimes there are too many programs running in start-up. If you have a lot of icons in your lower task bar, you most likely have too many items running in your start up. As always, if you remove or change a lot of items on your computer, it always helps to defrag.

Susan H., March 2004

Spyware and viruses can also slow down your computer. Make sure you have current anti-virus software -- make sure you regularly download updates and scan your files for viruses. If you do not have any anti-virus protection, go to trendmicro.com -- you can get a free virus scan to check for viruses. Ad-aware is also a free program as well as spybot search and destroy. Good luck.

Susan H., March 2004

Liam
You need to carry out some very basic housekeeping on your pc initially.
1) If you use the internet a lot you may need to delete your internet history folder and cookies. Each time you visit a website all the info i.e: images, text etc are stored onto your pc.
2) If you also install and remove programs quite offten then it might be a good idea to run a defragmentation of your harddrive. Over time files on your harddrive get broken up and this clutter considerably slow your pc down.
If you want me to tell you in more depth how to go about it feel free to email me and I shall tell you.

Paul H., February 2004