Almost everyone uses a personal computer in either their home or office and they are a godsend when it comes to productivity. With deadlines and daily quotas it is no wonder that we all look forward to shutting down for the day. Nonetheless, there are certain maintenance activities that many of us neglect or avoid doing, either through ignorance or lack of awareness, that are key to keeping a system free of unnecessary files and data. Having a Clean and Lean PC simply means performing all these housekeeping functions on a regular basis.
If we start with applications and work our way upward toward the operating system itself it will give some structure to this discussion. Applications are the best place to start since they are the center of our processing activities. If you work to maintain a clean application environment you will find that the navigation around the application becomes easier and can be done more efficiently. Most of the new applications perform their own system, compatibility and security functions automatically and save all the records created by these operations. When these operations are completed by the application control program these carryon files become redundant and unnecessary. These are the kinds of files that not only clog your application but must be worked around. You should delete these kinds of files on a regular basis.
Another area of unnecessary and redundant record storage is device drivers. When we buy a new printer or upgrade to other levels of usage on other peripherals we often have unused device drivers that we must work around for various reasons. Printer drivers are a good example. Most three year-old PCs have one printer but an average of six or more printer drivers - some have dozens. These are redundant or unused and often serve only as something that could incorrectly be clicked when printing or powering up other peripherals. Again, a word to the wise, keep your system clear of old and unused drivers.
Utilities and other micro-applications that were either downloaded or self-installed for a single function that will never need to be performed again are another group of programs that should be deleted. Conversion utilities are a good example of these. Any program - especially one that you do not even recognize - that will never again be used again should be deleted.
The last category is in your internet browser. Every browser can be set to delete history, temp and cache records and files on a daily basis and these should be reviewed carefully. Keep what you need but do not keep anything that you know you never use.
Lastly, you should closely monitor and maintain your operating system files. Your primary target of needed attention in this area is the system registry, the database that Windows uses to run applications. You can find commercially available registry software that scans and deletes redundancies and errant codes and does other registry fix operations to accomplish the necessary Registry Repair.
Author Resource:
Author Resource:-> James Roberts is Senior Article Editor for What-Why-How researching and writing on numerous topics including how to use registry software and best ways to fix registry that work fast!
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