Maintenance is the key to smooth computing experience. That is running
a stable computer, that does not advertantly crach and hung up. Operating
systems previous to XP/ Vista were more enclined to suffer from former
listed troubles. Even XP/Vista, depending on the number of installed
applications can also have problems.
In any case, whatever maybe your windows operating system, the only
way to avoid trouble, is to practice maintenance on a regular basis.
Some people do that performing regular defragmentation.
However, that is not enough, as several applications' installls followed
by uninstalls leave wastes (drivers, Dynamic Link Libraries and temp
files, etc.,) on the hard disk, bloating the operating system's brain
(the Registry) - dispersing broken chunks of files all over the hard
disk, and finally slowing down the loading of the operating system
and or applications.
When you notice that the operating system
loading times is "abnormal" and that applications take
lengthier time to load, you know that your system needs urgent maintenance.
But, why wait for that to happen before taking action, while it is
better to prevent than to cure - exactly as for a human being.
To do that, one can purchase applications (such as System Mechanics)
that features a centralized dashboard with a long list of maintenance
tools, or simply use freeware (which has light fingerprint and very
low resources consumption) that do the same job and most of the times
perform faster.
- Most important maintenance operations
Before you start a maintenance session, it is
recommended to backup the Registry.
It is also the easiest
replacement for windows
system restore.
ERUNT backups all the requisite registry files for a complete restore
if you choose, integration
into Registry during the install process.
The backups are stored
in C:\WINDOWS\ERDNT\AutoBackup. But you can perform manual backup to
another folder of your choice, particularly before installing a new
programme or application. That would help to revert to the previous
configuratiion in case of trouble. It
is recommended to read ERUNT's FAQ on the site-link above
listed.
1 - Clean up the system
After the intial backup above exposed, the next step is to clean up
the system. That is to get rid of wastes produced by several
installs and uninstalls of applications and computing (temp files,
applications' downloads that had not been deleted after install, surfing
leftovers) which eat several megabytes and sometimes gigabytes
off the hard disk and bloat the hard disk - system and registry
alike.
There are plenty of third parties applications (search for Registry
Cleaner and you shall see) that do the cleaning
job, not to forget Microsoft embedded application available through
following sequence: START/ ACCESSORIES/ SYSTEM TOOLS/ disk cleanup.
We tested several Registry Cleaners applications, and found out that
the amount of "dirt" spotted to be cleaned is different
with regards which application is used.
Some list more dirt than others, while others are very cautious listing
the minimal to be wiped out. And you may found yourself in trouble
(if you have not made initial Registry backup as advocated at the begining
of this paper) after using a Registry Cleaner. That is the reason
why pundits even recommend not to touch the Registry at alll to avoid
problem.
Following that advice, however, one is just buying time to meet troubles
halfway. XP operating system maintains the registry better than previous
brands of 95/98/Me and 2000. But still, if one is a power user (12
to 14 hours daily computing for instance), the Registry becomes increasingly
bloated and after maximum two months of heavy XP-computing the system
slows down. The operating system takes times to loads as do applications.
The bloating time is shorter (in the range of one to two weeks for
previous operating systems.
Therefore, it is better to clean up the Registry from time to time.
We tried several Registry Cleaners, and found
out that Easy
Cleaner does
a perfect job balancing well waste/ dirt removal and system stability.
It is a small freeware program which searches the Windows registry
for entries that are pointing nowhere. EasyCleaner also lets
you delete all kinds of unnecessary files such as
temps and backups. You can search for
duplicate files and you can view some interesting
info about your disk space usage! You are also able to manage startup
programs (deciding on which programms load when you start
the computer),
remove invalid shortcuts and reach add/remove
software list. Click
here to get Easy Cleaner.
Keep in mind that when you do unistalll programmes,
some uninstallers may resist complete removal and keep on loading.
To clean up these, you need strong unistaller. Click here for more.
- After cleaning, compact:/
shrink the Registry
Registry compacting removes gaps, wasted
space from the Registry.
However, most of Registry
Cleaners do not perform compacting/shrinking once the cleaning session
(that removed corrupted keys and keys pointing nowhere) is over.
The maker of ERUNT (briefly exposed at the beginning of this article)
developped a tiny application named NTREGOPT that does the
compacting/ shrinking job fast and clean. You can get NTREGOPT
here. It
is included also in the zip package of ERUNT. Your computer
will perform better if you run NTREGOPT after running Easy Cleaner.
- Finish the maintenance session with defragmentation
Now you are ready to perform the last step of your regular maintenance
session. That is to defragment [1,
2, 3,4,
5] the
hard disk. Defragmentation can also be defined as the compression of
disk partitions to recover wasted space. Indeed, the cleaning up of
the disk, creates "holes" that
eat out disk space and further set apart chunks of files, programs
and applications that need to be "reunited" again in order
to load smoothly when solicited.
There are quantities of Defragmentation applications available over
the net. Windows operating systems have inhouse application
available through START/ACCESSORIES/SYSTEM TOOLS. However, that one
and many third parties brands do the job in a tedious way. Dragging
on and on for hours if the
hard disk is huge in the range of several gygabytes.
There is a small freeware defragmentation application named Speed
Defrrag that does the job quick and fast. You should try it
and compare its speediness with the performance of the one you are
using now, and the embedded windows brand. The maker
of Speed Defrag removed Speed Defrag from his website
and now promotes Puran Defrag which is no more a freeware. Visiting
majorgeeks.com, you may grabVersion 5.1 of
Speed Defrag.
That is the end of the regular maintenance session. Now
you have to make again a Registry backup, because your computer
configuration is no more the same. So
use again ERUNT as exposed at
the beginning of this delivery.
-
ACTIVE IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS? GET INFORMATION FROM THE INTERNATIONAL
LAW LIBRARY
In the international business
one needs to have accurate information about Law practices and regulation in
countries one is dealing with. Further, it is also an asset to know about ruling
leaders names and governments' ministries. There is one place to visit to get
all that and it is LAW & RESEARCH website that has links to
an amazing string of directories: International governments by regions; International
Imports & Exports; International Non-Governmental Organization; International
Taxation. Etc.
Click
here to visit the website
Bookmark
this page (link valid for Internet Explorer - for
other web browsers, please Click Bookmark on
the browser menu) and come back often to visit. Stay tune to
Products Sourcing From China.
Africabiz
Online's Copyright 1997-2008 by Dr.
Quenum & Associates ,
registered at Yahoo's Newsletters Directory as Africabiz and
at following RSS Feed Directories as http://businessafrica.net/africabiz/rss/rss1.xml
.
-
