Windows 7 Cleanup

[vegascr]

When win7 first came out it was great and fast. Now 1-2years later my machine is slow and occasional locks up. Whats the best practice for cleaning up short of wiping hard drive?

 

[dawks]

I like running CCleaner.. removes a lot of cruft.. temporary files, old registry entries, etc. I also like to go through and remove old software, or software I don't use much. Often removing old versions then upgrading is helpful.

The company that makes CCleaner also makes a nice little Defrag too. Run Defraggler on the drive and see if that helps as well.

 

[corkyg]

CCleaner!

 

[Harvey]

CCleaner is good. I like Registry Mechanic a little better, possibly because the interface is a little cleaner. OTOH, Registry Mechanic isn't free, unless you find it free after rebate, which happens at Fry's Electronics maybe twice a year.

Registry Mechanic is from PC Tools, which is now owned by Symantec. They sell the same program as Norton Utilities. The difference is, if you need tech support, someone answers the phone at PC Tools' toll free number. :thumbsup:

 

[Venom20]

The company that makes CCleaner also makes a nice little Defrag too. Run Defraggler on the drive and see if that helps as well.

shouldn't need defraggler, win7 defrags automatically

 

[nemesismk2]

Try CCleaner which is very good

 

[JackMDS]

After Cleaning (as mentioned above).


Download this free program and run it configure it to show info like memory use and other variables that are appearing as default (can be found under the view menu / select columns).

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

You can you try to identify running processes and get rid of unnecessary programs/processes running in background.

You can also download and run this to make sure that there is Not "Junk" that keep connecting to the Internet (or other LAN computers) in the background.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897437


Otherwise you should know that you improve the current situation, but will never get back to the way it was in the beginning unless you reformat and reinstall the OS and the application needed.