Student Technology Helpdesk Computer Hardware Tricks and Tips (v1) 1. How Much Space is on your hard drive? To find out how much space you have on a Windows computer, here's the procedure: Double click on the "My Computer" icon on the Windows Desktop and right click on the C: drive icon and choose "Properties". A pie chart will appear showing you how much space is used and how much is available (See a picture). Neat trick, don't you think? 2. Empty your recycle bin When you delete a file on your Windows computer it goes into your recycle bin, but it doesn't go away until you clear the Recycle Bin manually. Right click on it and choose "Empty Recycle Bin". 3. Uninstall unneeded programs You can get rid of a lot of unneeded data by removing unused programs you may have installed but no longer use. Go into your Control Panel (click START button and then Settings then Control Panel or START then Control Panel). Then click Add/Remove Programs then click Add/Remove Windows Components. Go through the list of installed programs and click Remove for the programs you no longer need. You might be prompted to insert a CD for some programs to remove them. This is especially true of Microsoft Office programs. By the way, removing unwanted components in Microsoft Office (maybe you never use Excel!) can free up massive amounts of space. 5. For Internet Explorer Click on the Tools menu Then click on the Internet Options item. A dialog box will popup. Click "Delete Files" to get rid of cached images. A cached image is a picture from a web page automatically saved to the hard drive. Normally these are either gif or jpg files (something like girl.jpg or girl.gif), but they could also be png files as well, though these are relatively rare. To erase visited web addresses so that they don't appear in the address pull-down menu at the top of the browser, click the "Clear History" button. You should also remove your IE cookies files and clear your forms and passwords. 6. Defragment your hard drive You may want to defragment your hard drive to reorganize the way the data is stored to optimize the space you do have. To start the defragmenter, close all unnecessary programs and disable your spyware and anti-virus programs then click START then Programs then Accessories and then System Tools. You'll find Disk Defragmenter in that folder. Click on it to start it and let it run. In Windows Xp there is an Analyze button to test if your disk needs defragmenting. Or you can just click "Defragment" to start the process. Just a note: this process can take a while. Especially if it is your first time doing this. 7. Do lots of programs installed on my PC hurt its performance? Yes as they put info in the registry cluttering it, and sometimes they'll load sub-processes (mini programs) during the start up and into the system tray. You should do regularly do a house clean of any programs you have installed but no longer use. Click START>Control Panel> Add/Remove Programs to find and remove programs you don’t use. 8. What about Windows Update? Run Windows Update weekly and see if there are non critical drivers or other updates that are available. Visit http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com or click the Windows Update icon by clicking START> All Programs>Accessories then Windows Update. 9. What about spyware? Spyware can certain reduce the performance of your computer. So be sure to regularly scan for it. 10. What about driver updates? A driver is a piece of programming that helps Windows communicate with its parts. It is a good idea to periodically update you drivers for things like video cards, sound cards and the like. New drivers will often come available that fix critical bugs. However you will get critical system enhancements by updating the chipset drivers on your motherboard. A chipset is a group of chips that are attached to your motherboard and require their own drivers. Check with your computer maker’s web site to look for these. For example on the Dell support website at support.dell.com the company lists new chipset drivers for download. If you built your own computer, check your motherboard maker’s web site. Learn more about driver updates by reading our Driver Update FAQ 11. Are my automatic virus protection and updates on? 1. Go to: Start/Control Panel/Security Center and be sure Automatic Updates is turned 'ON' 2. Also in Control Panel/Security Check to see if the Automatic Firewall is turned 'ON' 3. Also in Control Panel/Security Check to see if the Virus Protection is turned 'ON' 12. Disk Cleanup Utility This is a program that can cleanup more useless data on your computer to improve your computers performance. Click START then Programs then Accessories and then System Tools then click Disk Cleanup. It will compile all of the files that you will have the option of deleting. Check the ones you want to delete or compress and it will take care of those files. 13. Backups A good idea would be to backup all of the files you would consider important just in case your computer would crash. An ideal backup device would be an external hard drive, but most likely you will use a re-writable CD. To run a backup make sure you have an available CD. Then click Start then Programs then Accessories and then System Tools then click Backup. A wizard will pop up and you click Next, make sure Backup files and settings radio button is selected and click Next, then click the button next to Let me choose what to back up, then click Next. Browse your computers files and select the ones you want to backup. After selecting all of the files you want click Next. On the next screen select what you want to backup your files to, such as your external hard drive or re-writable CD. Click next and it will proceed to backup the files you have selected to what you wanted them placed on. Keep this disk in a secure location and if the worst should happen to your computer you will have all your important files saved.