Basic Windows Computer Maintenance

For Great Justice

When we were little I tried to teach O how to do the Marilyn Monroe 'updraft thingy', but would she listen?
Yeah. Sure. Right.
She always had to do things her own way.

"Look," I said, "you just gotta lean back and let it poof out. Like this. Yes, sucking on a pacifier does help."

"No. Leaning back like that will just reify the bullshit patriarchical paradigm. It offends my feminist ethos, almost as much as your hat.
Besides, I don't wanna. My panties will show."
And then she started crying... as usual.

She still doesn't listen to me. So I wrote this post for her. Because I'm always having to chastise her for not doing her computer maintenance. But I have news for her, this time--I'm not wearing any panties.

So, for the sake of O, let the wind blow up your skirt, throw your undies in the air, and lets pwn IT like a geek girl should.

All your Intertubes are belong to us.
You have no chance.
Make your time.

Windows Computer Maintenance
We'll start with cleaning up all of the temp files using Disk Cleanup then we'll speed up your computer using the Disk Defragmentation utility.

* Always do the disk cleanup before you defragment. There's no point in wasting a lot of time defragmenting files that need to be deleted anyway.

**If you download and use CCleaner then you can save yourself the time of running Disk Cleanup and just scroll down to the section on Disk Defragmentation.

DISK CLEANUP

Click Start
Slide the mouse over each of these to open a new menu.
All Programs
Accessories
System Tools

First you want to run the Disk Cleanup.


*This is the same thing you do to get to the defragmenter*

Click on Disk Cleanup.
It will open immediately and hunt down all of the garbage that is stored on the computer.


It's safe to delete them all, they're just temporary files, but if you're worried about it you can unclick the box next to anything you aren't sure about.


It won't delete any files that you need to run your computer though. Just duplicates of files and basically garbage. Like if you open a Word document and edit it- you hit save to keep the document with all of its changes, but there is still a copy of the old page left on the hard drive. It just goes to a folder to wait for the cleaner to dump it. You can also click on compress files.


It'll compress old files that you haven't used in a long time, but you can still open them if you need them.

DISK DEFRAGMENTATION
When you've done that you want to use the steps above to get to the Disk Defragmenter. It's just below the Disk Clean Up on the system tools menu.
Click on that and the defragmenter will open.


Click on Defragment. It will first analyze- the top window. And underneath it shows the progress of the defragment.



All red files are fragmented. It will move all of the files around in the bottom window and when a file is defragmented it will turn from red to blue.

You needn't do anything, just let it run, it will take a while if your files are really badly fragmented.

When it's done you'll get a box that says Defragment is complete. Just click close, unless you want to view the report first. But you can pretty much judge how much was done by comparing the top window (pre-defragment) and the bottom window (defragmented)

For detailed instructions on Windows Repair see these posts:
Use System Restore to Repair Windows XP
Repair Windows using System File Checker SFC


The next Geek Girl post will be on the best free virus and spyware removal programs.