Remember when your computer seemed like it could take on the world? Opening programs and documents was fast. Installations took no time at all. Things just worked…and fast.

However, as time has passed, you’re finding that it takes forever to boot, forever to launch programs, forever to find your documents…it’s at the point where you’re ready to see if a liberal application of holy water (or any water, if you think you’ll be able to get a new machine out of the deal) will do something to fix the problem. Hold the H2O, because there are some ways to keep your PC working better for longer, many of which are easy to do. Read this article to find out why you should care, and to get five ways to keep your PC in shape.

Special note: If you’ve thought about using ANY of those “Double My Speed” websites you may have seen on TV, DON’T! Despite having an ad budget, many, if not all, are fraudulent. The next time you see one of these, look up the company name and append “scam” on your favorite search engine to make sure they’re for real (hint: about zero of them are).

Alright, so besides the aforementioned (and seemingly obvious) benefits alluded to above, what benefits do you get by keeping your PC in good working order? First, let’s consider boot times. PCs that boot and shut down fast let you work faster. If it takes your computer 2 minutes to startup and shut down and you do each of those once a day, that’s 14 minutes spent per week. If your computer takes 7 minutes, it becomes 49 minutes per week — almost an hour wasted every week (and those 7 minutes can get looooong, especially when you just want to get into something quickly).

So one hour out of a week doesn’t seem too bad — now let’s consider actual usage. Say it takes you 10 seconds to launch a program you frequently use on a clean PC…and a minute on a ‘dirty’ (read: slow) one — and you launch this program five times a day. The former comes out to just shy of six minutes per week, and the latter comes out to thirty-five minutes a week…just for one program.

Not done yet though! Now you have to figure the per operation speed that a slowdown costs you. Let’s say a typical operation in an application on the clean PC is but a second, and on the dirty PC it’s five seconds. You perform perhaps 200 of these operations a day. Clean PC: A little over three minutes a week. Dirty PC: About 17 minutes a week.

All told, on a clean PC, you spend about 23 minutes over one week just waiting (and being useless), whereas with the dirty PC you might waste almost two hours (101 minutes) of time — and these are conservative numbers!

How can you keep that number lower? Here’s five ways.

Law #1: Install and run only what you need when it comes to programs. Probably the number one killer of PC speed is excess programs. If you have software you don’t need installed on your PC, get rid of it. This especially includes internet browser toolbars (you don’t need these), so-called ‘security scans’ (ditto), and any other programs that try to install when you install something else (aka: “drive-by installs”). When you’re installing a program, always turn off (uncheck) anything that asks you to install unrelated software, like browser toolbars, registry optimizers, and security checkers. If you really want something they want to install, do it on your own terms.

If you don’t need programs to run on startup, take ‘em out (Skype and instant messenger software, I’m looking at you). Running programs that conflict with each other (virus scanners and automatic backup programs, for example) is also a very bad idea.

Here’s what happens when you don’t: Your browser has more useless toolbars than browsable space. Your system tray has at least twenty three programs, many of which are conflicting with other programs, and end up killing your performance. Just starting up is an exercise in anger management (nevermind actual use). Multiple ‘security scans’ try to run at once, usually warning you about threats that aren’t really there (because they themselves are badware), annoying you to buy their “full featured” products (perhaps more badware, or just outright credit card theft) — and even after you do, you’re still as slow as before. Maddening!

What programs do you have on your computer that are completely useless or redundant? What programs are running at boot that you don’t necessarily need to run every time? Fix it.

Law #2: Keep virus and malware free. Pretty obvious, and you’ve heard it all before. Yes, they’re getting harder and harder to detect and remove. Worst of all, the favored software to keep you safe and clean tends to vary from year to year, meaning it needs to be a serious item to consider on an annual review of your IT resources.

Law #3: ‘Cleaners’: Not as effective as you might think. There’s an ever growing list of programs that claim to clean up your registry, disk, and everything else on your computer. The problem is that some of these are fake (see the above ‘security scan’ scenario), many claim performance gains they can’t possibly deliver on (registry cleaners are the worst at this), and also can do damage if you’re not careful. If they don’t contain a way to backup changes you make, don’t use them!

Law #4: Don’t skimp on your hardware. You can run minimal installations and trim what you run, but if you try to run even Windows XP on 128MB of RAM, forget it (and yes, I’ve seen this attempted). Perhaps not something you can do right now, but for your future purchases, buy good hardware. This doesn’t mean you have to buy bleeding-edge parts, but stay away from whatever the bottom end is. Most of all: If you’re a business user, buy business-class hardware.

As a follow-up, sure, that Core 2 Duo might be nice today, but six years in the future, it’s going to be an antique. Budget not only for your current machine, but for your future needs as well.

Law #5: Keep your desktop clean. I’ll state this right up front: This is a personal preference of mine. It There seems to be a strong correlation between those that stuff a whole lot of documents and shortcuts on the desktop, and how fast a PC runs. The more disorganized the desktop, the slower the PC. True, this isn’t necessarily causal, but it usually reflects the amount of time a user will put into keeping their PC working well. If you have IT support staff, at least you’ll make them think you’re not completely awful at using your PC.

It’s easy to do, as well. Make a shortcut to your main documents folder on your desktop if you don’t already have one, and use it to store your documents, not your desktop. Make a folder on your desktop and put all program shortcuts that insist on being made into it (“Desktop Shortcuts”, “Desktop Items”, or “QuickLaunch” make good names).

If you are comfortable enough to take the steps mentioned in this article, great! You should find that your PC keeps a spring in its step for far longer than the average user if you follow the above. For those that aren’t…if you’re not sure where to go to research anti-virus solutions, don’t know what to look for in a new PC, or you’re still mad enough to reach for the fire hose, get in touch with your company’s IT department if you have one. If not, then an outsourced IT solution might be for you.

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