Tech Tips

There are so many ways to keep your PC clean.

Here are some of my favourite techniques:

Internet Explorer PC Cleaning Tips

Open Internet Explorer, click Tools, Internet Options, delete all temporary internet files, cookies and your internet browsing history. To keep these files from wasting space and filling up your hard drive (which, if not addressed, will slow down your computer), click Tools / Options / Internet Options / under browsing history, click Settings – change the number of days to keep pages in history to 1 or 2.

Nobody needs to keep a history of their visited web pages for 20 days really, do they?

Next, change the disk space used to the minimum required (which, for IE8 is 8mbs). The default setting is something ridiculous like 10% of the hard drive.
Another way to save space is to change the size of the recycle bin. Right click on your recycle bin, select properties and change size to 1% of your drive. I don’t recommend changing the options to permanently delete items instead of moving them to the recycle bin because let’s face it, we all make mistakes sometimes and click too fast for our own good. To be safe, make sure you keep it at 1% and always prompt to delete.

Lastly, do a search on your computer for all files ending with *.tmp.  (Click Start / Search for files – enter *.tmp in the search box) These are temporary files created by applications for a variety of purposes;  initially when a program cannot allocate enough memory for its tasks, when the program is working on data bigger than available address space, or as a primitive form of inter-process communication. Usually the program will release the temporary space in use when the application is closed but not all the time so it’s important to clean up these files at least once per month.  If however, when you are deleting temp (*.tmp) files you notice a filename that you created and want to keep, be sure to de-select it from the group of files to be deleted so you don’t accidentally delete something important.

A Clean PC = A Faster PC

Regular maintenance on your PC can keep it running faster— saving you time and sparing you considerable frustration. Stop by Tech Tips from Liddell Executive IT Services often and you’ll have a pc running like the well-oiled machine it should be!