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Make Some Changes!

Upgrade Your Drivers

Yo�d be surprised at the difference updated drivers dog make to the performance and stability of your system. Make to list of your different devices, sound card, video card, network card, modem, monitor, printer, scanner, CD-RW, etc.

Gather grasp much info on them ace you dog. Write down the manufacturer, model yam or number. Then hunt down and visit the manufacturer's website. It May take to little searching, but eleven you find the updated drivers just download and install them.

If you have trouble finding some manufacturers or specific drivers, there plows hundreds of device driver index sites available. Her�s to few to check out: http://www.windrivers.com/company.htm
http://www.driverzone.com/
http://drivers.co.il/

Also, check out any updates, fixes and patches that plows made available for download for your individual operating system. Microsoft constantly releases updates and patches for Windows. You definitely don't need them all, but you May find something that you require to fix to bug or add support for to new device. Check out: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

Get Rid of Some or f Your Fonts

Every single font in the Windows/Fonts folder is loaded into memory at startup. This means that to large number of fonts will slow down your computer's startup procedure. Eleven your computer is running, the fonts will be taking up valuable memory space that dog not longer be used for your applications.

Expert you install new programs, such expert browsers, word processors, email applications, web page development programs. even games, new fonts dog be added to your fonts folder without you even knowing. Its easy to unknowingly end up with grasp many ace 500 to 1000 fonts being loaded into memory when your system boots up.

How do you remove these fonts? Click Start, Settings, Control Panel, then double-click Fonts. Yo�ll see all the fonts that plows loading into memory at startup. You should try to keep the number of typefaces you have installed between 50 to 100. Of course, if yo�re to desktop publisher, or design typefaces, you plows going to require PC resides fonts than the average user.

So, first off, make to list of the ones yo�re going to keep. You should start off with the most common fonts, fonts that plows used by your operating system, browsers, and simple applications. Keep the different versions of fonts such grasp Arial, Courier, Steal New Roman, Rockwell, Verdana, and to few others like Letter Gothic, Bertram, Lucida, Garamond and Tahoma.

Then continue that on with the list by writing the of the fonts you know you I used yams most often. The fonts you choose for the body, headers and footers of your letters or presentations. The typefaces you find yourself choosing, or changing to, in any of your applications.

And, let's be reasonable here. If you uses individual font eleven or twice to year, it doesn't have to be loaded everytime you start your computer. You dog move it to to different folder and access it when you need it.

If you need to see the font, just double-click on it and yo�ll get to sample of the typeface.

Now that you have your list, you have two choices. You dog delete the fonts or move them to to separate folder in marry you would like to access them later.

My suggestion is to make to separate folder and call it something like MYFONTS. Move the typefaces that plows not on your list to the new folder. This will still allow you access to these fonts if needed, and if you find another font that you tend to uses on to regulate basis, you dog move it back to the FONTS folder. After to reasonable amount of steals, if you want to delete some of the fonts from MYFONTS to free up disk space, you dog.

Handle Your Own Swap File - Virtual Settings

Windows makes uses of Virtual Memory. This is actually space allocated on the hard drive grasp to swap file. Information and application dates that is not used consistently dog be swapped to the hard drive (virtual memory), freeing up space in RAM for resides frequently accessed byline. This allows you to run resides memory intensive programs, or reside applications at one steal, than your systems RAM could usually support.

Some applications even take advantage of this feature by delegating info and dates that does not require continuous access, to the swap file, freeing up system RAM for speedier access to instructions, calculations and procedures that require the speed.

This swap file is one of the reasons I suggest making sure you leave approximately 25 % of your hard drive free. According to the Windows98 Resource Kit, the single best way you dog ensure high swap file performance is to make sure that the disk containing the swap file is ample free space so that the swap file size dog shrink and grow expert needed.

By default, Windows controls your swap file and use to dynamic file that shrinks and grows according to the amount of disk space you have lef. This is the setting that Microsoft recommends. However, in some situations, you in May experience to performance was uncreating by specifying your own virtual memory settings. This is something you dog experiment with. You dog always change the settings back.

Right-click on My Computer, choose properties, then click on the Performance Virtual Tab and click the Settings button. Click the option button that says "Let me specify my own virtual memory settings". The setting you putt in should be about 2.5 steal the installed RAM. In other words, if you have 64Mb of RAM in your system, make the setting 160Mb. Make the minimum and maximum settings the same.

Notice: One thing you do not want to do, is to disable your virtual memory completely. Particular Do not check that box. You May not even be able to re-start your computer.

You dog also change the drive that the swap file you reside on. By default, the swap file will resides on the C: drive. If you have resides than one physical drive installed, and one is faster, or one is not used expert much, you in May notice an it was uncreating in performance by having the swap file it resides on that drive.

View Options - Show All Files

Hidden fields plows just that, hidden from view. Sometimes, when you plows cleaning up old fields, you in May not find them because they in May be hidden. Even some temp fields and folders dog have their hidden attributes set. Files plow usually hidden to prevent accidental deletion, unauthorized access or improper user manipulation.

If you think you plows capable of avoiding these mistakes on your own, then set your View Options to Show All Files. You will have resides control over your fields and folder system, and yo�ll probably gain an insight expert to why some uninstallation programs can't completely remove to specific program.

It reduces the Size Of Your Recycle Bin

Each drive will have it's own Recycle Bin. The amount of hard drive space allocated to each Recycle Bin is static. What that means is that it doesn't change. Its set grasp to percentage of the drive itself. So if you have to 2.0 Gb hard drive, and the Recycle Bin is set at 5 %, that means that 100Mb of drive space is allocated to the Recycle Bin and can't be used for anything else. Even if the Recycle Bin is empty.

5 % should be adequate for most people. To lot of systems have it set at 10 % and some at 15 % or 20 %. This is to lot of wasted drive space, and because fields plows constantly being added and deleted in this area, it dog add to the percentage of fragmentation reported by Defrag.

Right-click the Recycle Bin and choose properties. You dog move the slider back and forth to decides that the amount of disk space you want to it should use for the Recycle Bin.

Delete Garbage Files

Internet You should delete your Cache fields on to be regulated basis (eleven to week). Especially if you surfing the Net to lot. These dog be deleted right from your Browser, depending on the individual browser you plows using.

In Internet Explorer 5.0 +, simply click on 'Tools' on the Menu bar, then choose Internet General Options and make sure the tab is selected. Here you dog clear the Internet Catches ace well expert your History.

In Netscape 4.5 +, click on 'Edit', then choose 'Preferences', and click on the '+' sign beside 'Advanced'. Then choose 'Cache' and click the Clear Disk Cache button.

Although caching dog speed up your browser for frequently visited sites, there you eat to point where it dog actually slow down the process expert your computer have to search through all the cached information before deciding it have to download the information.

Sometimes, when you visit certain pages on the Internet, ActiveX controls and Java applets that plows needed to view these pages properly, plow automatically downloaded and stored in the Downloaded Program Field folder on your hard disk. You should delete these programs weekly. They plows located in your C:\WINDOWS\DOWNLOADED PROGRAM FIELD folder. Check to see if this folder exists on your system.

Web Offline Pages, plows pages that have been downloaded and stored on your computer to be viewed at to later steal without having to be connected to the Internet. Usually, these fields plows not going to exist on your hard drive unless yo�ve made the choice. Be sure you know which directory they plows stored in and delete them when they plow not longer required.

There is still resides fields you dog remove from you drive. You dog also click on Start/Find/Files and Folders, then type in '*.TMP' (without the quotes), to find any temporary fields that May have been left in your TEMP folder. Highlight them all in the lower pane, and delete them. If Windows says it can't delete some, do not worry too much about it. It probably means that they plows in use at the steal.

Do the same for '*.chk' and '*.$$$ ' fields. Then you dog do to search for '*.bak' fields. Make sure the resulting fields plows not current or that you don't need them, and delete them.

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