PC handbook: Lubricate the computer

You can safely remove applications using the Control Panel's Add or Remove Programs tool.However, if the program comes with the ability to uninstall itself, you should use this feature.Set whether the program still appears in the Add or Remove Programs window after you have done the above steps, or if you do not support the auto-uninstall feature, look for the program in the list in the section " Currently installing programs ".Then click the Remove or Change / Remove button and follow the instructions.Some security programs only have the "Change" option, requiring uninstallation to be done with the tool that comes with the program.

Next, click Show updates at the top of the window to see Windows fixes and the Office application added to your system.However, if you delete a fix here, Windows understands that you want to remove this fix rather than delete them.Note, removing the bug will be very dangerous!If you want to clean up the backup files, please refer to "Clean up the hard disk after upgrading Windows" (ID: A0503_126).

Occasionally, some programs still exist in the Add or Remove Programs list after they have been removed from the system. Others still "stubbornly" run some components and even the icons of some uninstalled programs may continue to appear in the system tray.

When you encounter this situation, click the Remove or Change / Remove button again. Windows XP (Service Pack 2 version) can recognize that this is the second time you try to uninstall this and will automatically fix the error. If nothing changes, switch Windows to Safe Mode: restart the computer, press and hold the key and select Safe Mode. Use the Remove / Change option in the Add or Remove Programs section again. And if it still fails, you need to edit the Windows Registry, see the instructions at (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314481). In addition, you can also use the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility software (find.pcworld.com/49964) to make the job easier and less risky.

Block the application to start automatically

Once you have deleted all applications that you are not using, the next step is to search for unnecessary applications that are operating in the background on the system.The main Windows auto-start processes are often full of mystery and play a very important role.For example, you can use key combinations - to open Windows Task Manager window and can see almost 10 names svchost.exe. Do not worry. In fact, svchost.exe is a "virtual" program that runs a different program and usually there are 5-6 applications that are always executed. If you read somewhere that the system will work faster if you turn off one of the Windows services, consider carefully before doing so. You must make sure that they are not really necessary because if any confusion occurs, the system may be "hung up". For more information on how to identify Windows programs and services in memory, refer to the "Spyware Identification in Windows" article (ID: A0507_128).

Alternatively, you can use the free Startup Control Panel utility (www.pcworld.com.vn, ID: 49984), which can display all applications that automatically start on your computer (except for some Application really needs to hide). After downloading and installing this utility, click on Start, Control Panel.Startup and choose one of the Startup cards. Uncheck the unnecessary programs to prevent them from automatically starting during Windows startup. Prohibited programs will appear in the Delete tab, so you can use them again easily if needed.

Finally, remember to restart the computer after working with Startup Control Panel to change the settings in Windows.

Optimized hard disk

The more free hard disk space available, the more efficient Windows will operate, for example when using a hard disk as virtual memory. You can refer to the article "Let PC run faster" on TGVT A 12/2001, p. 94 for solutions to tweak Windows memory parameters. Fortunately, hard disk cleanup is often done easily. For example, some people need the hard disk space that Windows uses for the Recycle Bin feature (default is 10% of hard disk capacity). To save, right-click the Recycle Bin icon, select Properties, drag the slider down to 3% or even lower, and then click OK.
Another application that takes up a lot of hard disk space is System Restore of Windows.To limit this waste, right-click the My Computer icon, select Properties, System Restore, drag the slider down to 3% (or lower) and click OK.

At this point, you can run Windows' Disk Cleanup utility: click Start, Run, type cleanmgr / sageset: 99 and press.Select each file type you want to search and click OK.Right-click on the C: hard drive in the My Computer window and select Properties, Disk Cleanup.You will see a list of files that you can delete.Please select the items you see no longer needed, click OK and then Yes.

However, you can also keep some items in that list. For example, the contents of the Temporary Internet folder will help speed up Internet Explorer by reducing the number of data downloads of a website you frequently visit. In addition, if you delete Office Setup files, some upgrade features of Office 2003 office suite will not work correctly.

Once you have "luminescence" completely the hard disk, restart the computer. On the Windows screen, right-click on the hard drive C: in the My Computer window and select Properties, Defragment Now. In the Defragmenter dialog box, click Analyze. If prompted to "defragment", click the Defragment button and wait. In fact, there are some disagreements about the ability to improve the performance of the system after defragmenting. However, many agree that periodic defragmentation will help retrieve data faster.

Clean the Registry

You will probably take a lot of time to "wrestle" the Registry keys, cache parameters and countless other details in the process of optimizing your system. However, you can take advantage of the utilities available to accomplish this task, such as Power Tools ($ 30, a trial version available for download at find.pcworld.com/49980) and System Mechanic from Iolo Technolohies ( $ 50, the trial version is available for download at find.pcworld.com/49982. Both of these utilities make it easy to wipe out "redundant" things in the Registry.

Limit users

Try to keep Windows "safe" by creating a limited user account. This account is usually applied to anyone who shares a computer with you but does not gain confidence about what they will install on the computer. First, log into the administrator account and click Start, Control Panel.User Accounts.Create a new account (if you don't see this option, the network administrator may have limited the system). yours). Enter a new user account name, click Next and check the Limited option under "Pick an account type" and click Create Account. To create a password for an account, click on the account and select Create a password. Then, type in the password (twice) and the password search hint (password hint), then click Create Password. Finally close the User Accounts dialog box once you're done.

INCREASE SPEED OF APPLICATIONS

Sooner or later, each application will accumulate "heaps" of unnecessary things like "junk" files, stale additional tools or other settings that interfere with the "combat" capabilities of friend.

Resuscitation for Microsoft Word

Whenever there is a problem such as "hanging up" for example, Microsoft Word word processing software saves temporary files in the hard disk, often with names like "DFC15F8.TMP". Using the Disk Cleanup utility can solve this problem, but you can also delete them. To get started, close all running programs. Then, click Start.Search and select All files and folders (if necessary), enter ~ * .tmp in the dialog box labeled "All or part of a file name", select Local Hard Drives (C :) below "Look in" section and click Search. When the search is complete, press the -A key combination to select all files and then press.

By default, Word saves the AutoRecover copy of files that are open every 10 minutes. When something goes wrong, Word provides the ability to restore open files right before. Occasionally, AutoRecover files exist on the hard disk for longer than necessary, to prevent possible risks. To ensure these "old" AutoRecover files do not occupy the hard disk, open Word software and select Tools.Options.File Locations. Double-click the AutoRecover files section, then right-click the folder name that appears (usually WordSTARTUP) and select Explorer. Next, go to the parent directory of the current directory and delete all files with the .asd extension.

"Outdated" add-ins can also slow down Word's processing speed. To solve the problem, select Tools, Templates and Add-ins, find unnecessary plugins in the "Global templates and add-ins" list and click Remove to remove them.

If the Remove button is "faded", close Word and open the Word Startup folder (usually located in the C: Documents and SettingsusernameApplication folder DataMicrosoftWordStartup, with username as your system login account name). Change the name of each unnecessary file so that they do not exist in .dot format (eg renaming the oldmarcos.dot file to oldmacros.dot.save). When restarting Word, these "useless" add-ins will no longer be activated.

Clean up Outlook

A highlight of the Microsoft Outlook email delivery and contact management utility is the ability to store everything in just one file with the extension .pst. However, the shortcomings here are almost impossible and it is difficult to "clean" this file.

Outlook 2003's .pst file is more reliable than Outlook 97, 2000, and 2002 files. If you upgrade to Outlook 2003 from an earlier version, you may still be using the .pst file. old.Updating to Outlook 2003 format can save you a lot of previous information.However, it is often time-consuming to do this.

To determine which type of .pst file you are using in Outlook 2003, right-click the Personal Folders item in the left pane under All Mail Folders, select Properties for Personal Folder, and click Advanced.If the Format dialog box appears with "Personal Folders File (97-2002)" information, then you are using the old version.To convert, close Outlook and search for file outlook.pst or mailbox.pst.These two files are usually stored in the C: Documents and SettingsusernameApplication folder DataMicrosoftOutlook, with username as your system login account name.

If the two files are not found, open Outlook and click File.Data File Management. Then, a dialog box listing information about the Archive and Personal Data folder will appear. Next, click Settings to view their links or select Open folders to display content in the Explorer utility window. (You need to close Outlook before doing the following steps.) Once you find the desired file, right-click on the file and select Rename to proceed with the renaming (ie outlook.old.pst).

When restarting Outlook, the program will notify you that the .pst file cannot be found and click OK. Outlook will suggest creating a new Personal Folders file and you need to select Open and then OK. When Outlook is finished, click File.Open.Outlook Data File, select the file outlook.old.pst above (or mailbox.old.pst) and click OK again.

When you click on the plus sign (+) in Personal Folders in the left pane, you will find all the old Outlook data. Click and drag the parts you want to keep from these folders to the Inbox, Contacts, Calendar, Sent Items folders or even the Deleted Items folder. You can leave the Personal Folders section open, or right-click on it and select Close to close it. Set the case if Outlook does not recognize the Contact list, you can refer to the manual at find.pcworld.com/49988 to fix it.

You can improve the performance of any Outlook version by compressing (archiving) old messages: clicking File.Archive and selecting a folder, specifying the date information in the drop-down menu "Archive items older than "and click OK. Also, you can visit the website find49989 to find out how to set up Outlook to automatically backup.

Next, run Outlook's Inbox Repair Tool to make sure the .pst file works fine. When you close Outlook, click Start.Search and select All files and folders (if necessary), type scanpst.exe and press. Double-click the file in the search results window and click Browse, locate the .pst file described above and select the file. Next, click Open.Start. If the Repair Tool dialog box finds an error, select Make backup of scanned file before repairing and clicking Repair. Finally, click OK when the job is complete.

Continue working, right-click the Personal Folders item, select Properties for Personal Folders, click the Advanced button under the General tab, and select Compact Now. When the job is finished, click OK twice.

Speed ​​up the browser

Cleaning up Internet history files, cookie information, and caching can be done very simply: click Tools.Internet Options and select Delete Cookies and Delete Files (under section Temporary Internet Files) or Clear History (in History section) in the General tab.

If your computer is equipped with a 150GB hard disk, it doesn't matter if Internet Explorer uses 3GB to store temporary files. On the contrary, you may have to accept a slightly slower browsing speed to save space on a 10GB hard disk.

To cut down on the waste of the hard disk, click Tools, Internet Options, select Settings on the General tab and adjust the slider to 20GB or 30GB for example (or you can increase this number to speed up when browsing the web. with dial up connection).Click OK twice to finish.

Kha Vy
PC World USA 1/2006