Bits & Bytes

Computer Health 101

Published in The Aggie on November 21, 2006

Your PC is dying. The five-minute boot up times, the mysterious noises, the little fearful shudders when your cursor wanders too near the Photoshop icon—these computer quirks are not normal. But don’t hate, resuscitate! If you are running Windows XP, use the tips below to sweep out the clutter and grease up those cogs.

Empty your Startup folder. Certain programs grant themselves the privilege to start when Windows starts. This adds to the already lengthy system boot up time. To speed up the process, go to Start Menu>>All Programs>>Startup. If you do want certain programs to open automatically, you can simply drag their shortcuts into this folder.

Turn off fancy effects. Windows XP introduced many visual improvements, like fading effects and drop shadows. If you prefer performance to appearance, right-click on My Computer, go to Properties, choose the Advanced tab, click on Settings under Performance, and play around with the aesthetic options.

Defrag often. Over time, fragments of your files get scattered across your hard drive as your computer shifts data around which means it will take longer to look for these files. To reunite these errant pieces, run Disk Defragmenter under Start Menu>>All Programs>>Accessories>>System Tools.

Turn off hibernate. This feature takes a snapshot of your current desktop before you shut down, and, upon start up, restores all your open applications and documents. For this convenience, hibernate requires a large chunk of hard drive space. You can save several hundred megabytes by disabling hibernate under Power Options in Control Panel.

Turn off Indexing Service. To speed up searches, Windows indexes every file. If you don’t use the search function often, disabling this service will save your computer the extra effort. In My Computer, right-click the C: drive, choose Properties, and uncheck “Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching.” Note: if your file system is “FAT32” you will not have the “Allow Indexing Service…” option.

Run Disk Cleanup. Windows XP has a built-in disk cleanup program that clears out unnecessary and temporary files. You can also find this utility under Start Menu>>All Programs>>Accessories>>System Tools.

Update your anti-virus program regularly. Make sure your anti-virus software is current. Set it to check for viruses when you start your computer and have it continually scan while your computer is running. The campus offers free anti-virus software available on the Internet Tools CD (pick up a copy at IT Express) or download through the software site at http://software.ucdavis.edu.

If you need help with the procedures above, or if you have other computing questions, contact IT Express at 754-HELP, or ithelp@ucdavis.edu or visit their offices at 182 Shields Library. For major computer problems, the campus also offers by-appointment only computer repair for a reasonable fee at 757-8907.

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