Thread: Clean your PC

Start with the area surrounding your PC. It should be clean and clutter-free. Once you've had a tidy up, unplug the keyboard and remove any dust from between its keys with a cotton bud or a can of compressed air. Wipe down your screen to remove any greasy marks.

Next, clean any dust from your PC chassis. Unplug the power cord and earth yourself by touching any metal part of the case. Start by vacuuming the fan vents from outside the case. You can also suck up the dust lying on the base and on the bottoms of empty drive bays, but don't go anywhere near the motherboard or components.

Now put the case back together. It may be a good idea to U relocate your PC - raising it off the floor by a few inches will reduce the amount of dust that gets sucked into the vents. Check whether there's enough space where the fan extracts and ensure there's a free flow of air. Excessive heat is your PC's worst enemy.

Organise the cables connected to your PC. Coil or bundle Ii.I up any loose cables and secure them with a cable tie to improve the airflow around your PC. If you've got several devices that you plug into the USB ports of your machine, invest in a USB hub, which will also help you keep track of your devices.

Now we're ready to clean up the digital detritus. Start by preventing any non-essential programs launching at startup. Browse to My Computer, Local Disk (C, Documents and Settings, [your name], Start Menu, Programs, Startup. Delete the shortcuts to any programs that you don't want to launch at startup.

You can customize the Start menu, too. Open the Taskbar U and Start Menu properties folder in Control Panel, then click the Start Menu tab and choose Customize. This dialog box lets you specify whether you want small or large icons in the Start Menu, as well as how many program icons are displayed.

Next, uninstall any applications you don't use. Go to Start, Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs. Browse through the list of programs for any that are used 'rarely', If you no longer need the application, click the Change/Remove button and follow the onscreen instructions.



To stop any unnecessary application update services or scheduled tasks running in the bacground and slowing things down, access the Scheduled Tasks folder from Start, Control Panel. Simply right-click any of the tasks you don't need and select Delete to remove them from the list.

Declutter your desktop by right-clicking on a free area and choosing Arrange Icons By, Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard, This will gather any unused items in a folder on the desktop labelled Unused Desktop Items. We recommend that you then move this folder into My Documents.

Remove any duplicate files and folders using Clone Remover or Glary Utilities, Place loose files in My Music, My Pictures or My Documents, and consider creating sub-folders where helpful - such as organising your audio collection by album or artist name.

Download and install a free photo manager, such as Magix Photo Manager 8.0. This will help you keep a track of your digital photos. Some programs embed keywords, tags and ratings into images for faster and easier file searching.

Now clear out your inbox. Scan your mail and delete anything you don't need. Those that you want to keep should be archived into folders. If you've got any emails with large attachments, it's a good idea to save the attachment to your hard disk. Outlook allows saving the attachment separate from the message.

Consider installing an indexing application, such as Microsoft's Windows Desktop Search or Google Desktop search. These free apps keep tabs on the files on your system and provide an easy-to-use search function, allowing you to retrieve relevant files in moments.

Before you delete anything from your machine, it's important to back up the data. A USB flash drive is fine as a temporary measure, but you should archive to DVD or an external hard drive for permanent backups. You can then begin deleting files, safe in' the knowledge that if you make a mistake, all is not lost.