Home computer nightmare.

[RigidRaider]

I'm sure this is a common enough scenario. Three of us share the home computer, which runs Windows XP Home edition. The nipper spends hours on Club Penguin and looking at You Tube videos. It's getting slower and slower to boot up and more and more cantankerous, it won't run Orange webmail and a couple of other applications just hang. Today I'm going to give it a good early spring clean in the hope that I can remove whatever conflicts are causing the problems.

I plan to clear out the temporary internet files folder and history and everything I can think of, including removing and re-loading stuff like Quick Time, Real Player etc. Then run Ccleaner, which our IT bloke at work recommends. Then I might even remove Internet Explorer and re-load this. Then do a disc defragmentation. Also run an AVG virus check.

Question: Is there any particular order in which I should do these things?

Another question: If I do this on my own part of Home Edition, will it also do the other two users or do I need to treat them separately?

Final question: Anything else I should do?

Thanks!

 

[jj4091]

Personally, I would do disk clean up & then defrag (see all progs/accessories/system tools) it usually speeds mine up without the need to do anything else.

 

[dave.m]

You either cannot or should not remove Internet Explorer, just open it and click Tools -> Windows Update and it will uopdate to the v8 if you don't already have it.

1st thing to do is clear out all your temporary files, tool of choice is ATF Cleaner, it is free and you do not have to install it. Download and instructions here (Windows XP, 2K, 2003 & Vista ONLY)
* NOTE : If you would like to keep your saved passwords, click No at the prompt.

-- Click on ATF-Cleaner to run it
-- Where it says Select Files To Delete, Check the Select All Option
-- Click Empty Selected - > OK

If you use Firefox browser, do this also:

* Click Firefox at the top and choose Select All from the list.
* Click the Empty Selected button.


Download and install Ccleaner
CCLEANER Setup Instructions

Use Defraggler for defragmenting, it is much better and quicker than the Windows one.

dave

 

[madder]

I would also do a scan for any folders bigger than, X amount of GBs. For example, a friend of mine had a computer with a 120GB hard drive and the computer slowed down, I scanned for a folder containing at least 10GBs and apart from a folder containing lots of music for itunes, I found a folder that was recording and saving every conversation had on micrsoft messenger! Totally unknown to the user. It had over 60Gbs on it.

Another person had 2 hard drives, and it was slowing down because it was set to save all the itunes music to the master, smaller HDD and the Slave was virtually empty. I transferred the music over and set it up to go there in future and problem was solved that way too.