It’s that time of year that we all may have some extra time, between cyber-shopping trips, to do some quick and easy maintenance on our Windows XP machines.  These six simple steps can dramatically improve your computer’s operating speeds.  Depending on the frequency you do regular maintenance of this type the amount of time required to complete these steps will be shorter or longer than what I have stated.  I reccommend doing it on a monthly basis.

Step 1. Clean Up Your Outlook
Hint: Sort your Messages by From, Subject or Received before organizing/deleting messages.
     A. Move any items you need from Inbox, Sent Items & Deleted Items into Safety Folders
     B. Delete all but the last month’s worth in Sent Items Folder
Hint: A Shift+Delete will delete items permanently.
     C. Delete all but the last month’s worth in Deleted Items Folder

Step 2. Delete all but the last month’s worth in your Recycle Bin.

Step 3. Run Windows Update: Go to Start > Windows Update, or when in Internet Explorer got to Tools > Windows Update.  This process can takes several hours to complete if you have never Updated or just a few minutes.

Step 4. Run Disk Cleanup on your C: Drive: Go to Start > Programs > Accessories > Systems Tools > Disk Cleanup  This could take 15 minutes to do the calculating and up to an hour to do clean up depending on how often you run it.

Step 5. Run Disk Defragmenter on your C: Drive: Go to Start > Programs > Accessories > Systems Tools > Disk Defragmenter.  This could take up to an hour depending on how often you run it.

Step 6. Advanced: Remove Old/Unnecessary Programs: Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs

Written by Perry & Co. Vice President Jon Larrance.
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