Basic Tips for Computer Maintenance

It is quite surprising to see how many mistakes we make while maintaining our computers, and that too considering the fact that we cannot do much work-wise without them. Computer maintenance is something we can easily take care of ourselves, but we do not take half the care we should and that's the reason why we end up spending hundreds of dollars on calling professionals to check our PCs each year. This is the money we could very well have saved.

This article enlists ten vital maintenance tips that you must follow. This will increase the life of your hard disk and even make the computer prove more efficient to you. (The tips given below are for Windows operating systems.)

Most people think that restarting and resetting means one and the same thing, but they don't! Restarting is the process when the machine is made to shut down & then made to start again after the common rebooting process that it undergoes. Restarting can be done through several internal features of the OS, including the shut down option in the menu.

However, resetting is different. This is done by pressing a button present on the CPU. When you reset a machine, you are shutting it down forcefully and then starting it again. When resetting is done, the machine is not allowed to shut down in the normal way, but restarting allows that to happen.

Resetting must be done only when nothing else seems to work. For example, if the display has frozen, or if the computer 'hangs', and even Ctrl-Alt-Del does not work, then resetting can be done. For simple requirements like reconfiguring the system after installing new software, you must only go for restarting.

The computer must never be shut down by any other method except through the shut down option provided. Never must it be shut down by powering it off directly from the AC mains. This will cause irreparable damage to the hard disk.

It doesn't take much time to run a disk scan and a defragmenter on your computer. When you defragment your disk, you are freeing up all wasted space on your machine and that certainly increases its efficiency. Scanning shows you all the bad and corrupt files located on your machine.

If your computer takes a very long time to start up, it probably has a lot of start up programs running. Let the machine start completely, then from the start up programs menu, delete those which you don't need to load at start up. These programs will only slow down your computer drastically.

Anyone knowing an iota of computers will tell you how important an antivirus is, if you are using the Internet. Remember to run the antivirus scan regularly. You can even set it up to conduct a scan automatically.

You can say that firewalls are better than antivirus programs at protection. While antivirus programs are the cure, firewalls can be considered as the prevention. When you set up a firewall, you are restricting all kinds of unauthorized accesses to your computer. You must do this as soon as you get your Internet connection, and then keep the firewall definitions updated.

Spyware is a term used to describe several unauthorized applications that get installed on your computer when you browse the Internet, and then they make a connection between your machine and the host server.

These programs can relay private information from your machine to the host server. Spyware is a chief element of identity theft in today's times. Fortunately, there are several good antispyware programs that you can install to protect your computer from such threats.

Never fill your hard disk to full capacity. This will force your computer to run slow and can even cause damage to the disk. Keep at least 100 MB of free space. However, the hard disks available today have humongous capacities, so this problem will probably never arise.

For all peripheral devices, you must exercise care when making direct connections to your PC. Especially when you are removing them, don't just yank them out. Turn off the device through the corresponding software first, and remove them only when they say it's safe to remove the device.

Temp files are created when you are working on any application on your computer. These are not user-readable files, but they are records for the computer to use the applications easily, next time. A similar analogy is found in cached files when using the Internet. These files can accumulate to a large extent and can clog the machine, forcing it to run very slow. You must regularly visit the temp or cache folder and clean out these files.