Q: I just bought a new computer and I don't want to have to replace it soon or get any viruses on it. I purchased an anti-virus program but what do I do about the speed of my computer? I have the highest internet connection speed from comcast but I'm afraid I'm downloading too much on my computer that is making it go slower than wen I first bought it. Will watching videos from UTUBE and other videos on the internet take up space on my computer and make it go slower? Does downloading music and videos to my computer use up a lot of space? And does adding pictures to my photo gallery use a lot of space? What should I avoid doing on my computer to ensure that it lasts a long time with me?
A: Filling up your hard drive does not affect performance. Routine maintenance will keep your computer in good condition. There are several things you can do to increase the "speed" of your computer. 1) Clean up the disk. Uninstall unneeded programs (especially those that run at startup and/or put something in the system tray), run Disk Cleanup, and defragment the drive. This is a good first step that will almost always take a few seconds off boot time and application loads for any computer. 2) Stomp auto-starting programs. Click Start > Run and type "msconfig" at the prompt. Click the Startup tab and look at all that junk that loads when you launch your PC. Do you really need "Adobe Reader Speed Launch"? Probably not. Turn off anything else that looks useless, but be careful not to disable your anti-virus and important system components. 3) Run a full anti-virus and anti-spyware scan. I would recommend using AVG Free Anti-virus, Spybot - Search and Destroy spyware remover and SUPERAntiSpyware remover. These programs are all free. 4) Clean up the registry. CCleaner, available at http://www.ccleaner.com is free and worth running. It will also remove unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space.