Basic Maintenance
Basic maintenance for your computer is learned, if you are lucky, from experience or a course. When people have asked for my help, they often express surprise that in a few simple clicks, their computer performance issues are solved.
It does not always happen, but these below are pointers on where to start:
- Use your Desktop for shortcut icons only. Do not save files, graphics, or any other important data to your Desktop.
Why? Put simply, the more documents stored on the Desktop, the slower computer performance can become. This is because the Desktop uses "Active" memory, taking up more computer resources. - When your computer is first set up, ask to have your "My Documents" default location be placed outside of your user profile.
Why? If the profile becomes corrupted, you could loose all content in "My Documents". Changing the location of "My Documents" should be well thought out, but this is something I routinely do, to make sure that I am in control of my documents! - Learn where your User Profile is, and regularly back it up.
Why? The User Profile contains a great deal of critical information that your computer refers to, not to mention email and Internet settings and more. If you are taking your computer to be serviced, or if you suspect any type of serious problem with your computer, back up your User Profile (or all User Profiles on your computer) to a CD. We did this and it saved us hours of work when we moved to a new computer. - Regularly delete temporary files. If you upload, move, and delete a lot of files frequently, be sure to take advantage of the defragmention utility (Windows XP). Why? Again, to reduce the load on your computer.
OK, so I've told you what not to do - but what SHOULD you do? Click on the following basic maintenance links to learn how to properly use your Desktop, My Documents, and delete unwanted files, or perform other maintenance tasks.
