It has been another week of Mac Troubles and I once again urge Mac Users to check their system for updates and to keep updated at least weekly at the moment. If you don't have an antivirus installed, you may download a good FREE antivirus from here Mac Antivirus . But please get protected!.
Time for part 2 of your guide to cleaning out your PC and hopefully making it a lot faster for you.
If everything went well your programs list is missing all the extra programs that aren't required any more. Next step is to have a look in your documents folder and delete any thing that's not needed, the same with your pictures folder and your music folder. Make sure you have deleted all your old emails from your email account if they are stored on your computer (In Outlook Express, Or Outlook) and also make sure your deleted emails are deleted, and not just all sitting in the deleted folder.
Your downloads folder is also another place that is neglected, it may accumulate months of downloads that aren't needed any more. They may be programs that you downloaded, and have run the program and now the download is not required anymore or it may just be outdated. To find your downloads folder, for Vista or Win 7 just type downloads in the search box. In windows XP if you go into Computer from your start list, then select your C drive, then select Users, then your User account Name, you should then see a downloads folder, so for instance If my user name was Smith, it would go - Computer - C drive - Users - Smith -Downloads. Some systems also have another downloads folder just in the C drive, So that would be Computer - C drive - Downloads.
The next step is to Download a Program called CCleaner from here CCleaner . This is a great and very popular little program that cleans up your PC of all the random "left over" bits and pieces. Install the Program. Follow the prompts but make sure when you get to the box that has "Install Google Chrome, and Make Google Chrome my default browser" untick those two check boxes, then follow to the last screen , and uncheck "view release notes" then click finish.
CCleaner should then open up for you, you can pretty much leave all the default boxes checked on the left side of the screen that are checked. Maybe just have a close look at the Internet explorer section, or the section on which ever web browser you are running, and select what you would like CCleaner to clean up. There may be things like your History, Autocomplete Form History or saved passwords that you may want to keep for your convenience. You can check all the rest in that section if you wish to.
Click on the analyze button on the lower left of the screen and allow the program to go through and find all the files it wants to clean, It will present you a report of what it finds , and a total amount of the file size it will delete, you may then press on "Run Cleaner" on the lower right of the screen. Close out of it when finished.
I also like to go into the Windows Disc Cleaner and run it as well. These programs often pick up things that the other doesn't. So go to your start button, go up the list and click on accessories, then system tools, and then disc cleanup. Select OK in the next check box for C drive. The cleanup will scan your drive and present you with a results window, in this window is a button for "cleaning system files" click on this and disc cleaner will scan once again. Once more you will be presented with the results window, here I normally go through and tick all of the check boxes. It might not be a bad idea here to go through and check for any that are related to your Internet favourites or history etc, in case you wish to keep them. Then run Disc Cleanup.
So we are getting close to the end, next week I will give you an optional next step and then the final piece of the cleanup routine, for those of you on later systems, your computer may have already run the last piece automatically. But you should notice a speed up in your machines even after the steps we have completed already.
Time for part 2 of your guide to cleaning out your PC and hopefully making it a lot faster for you.
If everything went well your programs list is missing all the extra programs that aren't required any more. Next step is to have a look in your documents folder and delete any thing that's not needed, the same with your pictures folder and your music folder. Make sure you have deleted all your old emails from your email account if they are stored on your computer (In Outlook Express, Or Outlook) and also make sure your deleted emails are deleted, and not just all sitting in the deleted folder.
Your downloads folder is also another place that is neglected, it may accumulate months of downloads that aren't needed any more. They may be programs that you downloaded, and have run the program and now the download is not required anymore or it may just be outdated. To find your downloads folder, for Vista or Win 7 just type downloads in the search box. In windows XP if you go into Computer from your start list, then select your C drive, then select Users, then your User account Name, you should then see a downloads folder, so for instance If my user name was Smith, it would go - Computer - C drive - Users - Smith -Downloads. Some systems also have another downloads folder just in the C drive, So that would be Computer - C drive - Downloads.
The next step is to Download a Program called CCleaner from here CCleaner . This is a great and very popular little program that cleans up your PC of all the random "left over" bits and pieces. Install the Program. Follow the prompts but make sure when you get to the box that has "Install Google Chrome, and Make Google Chrome my default browser" untick those two check boxes, then follow to the last screen , and uncheck "view release notes" then click finish.
CCleaner should then open up for you, you can pretty much leave all the default boxes checked on the left side of the screen that are checked. Maybe just have a close look at the Internet explorer section, or the section on which ever web browser you are running, and select what you would like CCleaner to clean up. There may be things like your History, Autocomplete Form History or saved passwords that you may want to keep for your convenience. You can check all the rest in that section if you wish to.
Click on the analyze button on the lower left of the screen and allow the program to go through and find all the files it wants to clean, It will present you a report of what it finds , and a total amount of the file size it will delete, you may then press on "Run Cleaner" on the lower right of the screen. Close out of it when finished.
I also like to go into the Windows Disc Cleaner and run it as well. These programs often pick up things that the other doesn't. So go to your start button, go up the list and click on accessories, then system tools, and then disc cleanup. Select OK in the next check box for C drive. The cleanup will scan your drive and present you with a results window, in this window is a button for "cleaning system files" click on this and disc cleaner will scan once again. Once more you will be presented with the results window, here I normally go through and tick all of the check boxes. It might not be a bad idea here to go through and check for any that are related to your Internet favourites or history etc, in case you wish to keep them. Then run Disc Cleanup.
So we are getting close to the end, next week I will give you an optional next step and then the final piece of the cleanup routine, for those of you on later systems, your computer may have already run the last piece automatically. But you should notice a speed up in your machines even after the steps we have completed already.
7 comments:
Oh you make me laugh. Cleaning out my downloads folder? But that's where I keep all my stuff!!!
Hey Amy, Thats funny, No, I meant more so, like when you download a program, once you have installed it, you don't need the download anymore. Or out of date newsletters or forms.
Tony does that mean once I open downloads, anything thats in there I delete?
Thankyou
Hey Deby, No I wouldn't delete everything in there because there may also be documents of forms in there that you may still be using and are linked back to the download folder.
Pretty much things that have downloaded and then you have to run them, this means they install them selves onto your PC and the program itself is still left there.(sounds strange I know, but after they are installed the whole program is still left there)
An exception to this would be if it is a large Program, I would keep it then, so that you don't have to use up a large part of your download limit if you need it again. So anything over about 400MB-500MB I would leave there, of move into a folder or hard drive that you know to look in if you need programs again.
For other things just click on them and see what they are and if you still use them or need them.
Sorry Im not very tech savvy.Thankyou so much for your advice.Greatly appreciated x
Thanks Tony. My mac has been having issues over the last couple of weeks. Going to try a clean up now!
I have heard that the latest Apple update for your software checks for any of the current issues and removes them Zoe, so check that your IOS update is current.
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