Two Great Freeware Disk Utilities: AusLogics Disk Defrag, CCleaner
Not long ago, I found that there are loads of useful freeware utilities out there. I know that many Windows users are content with the default utilities found in the "System and Maintenance' menu of Windows Explorer...that is, if they take it upon themselves to perform upkeep.
In the interest of learning to do things for myself, I stumbled across a couple of awesome software utilities for Windows hard disk maintenance. And both of them are free to download. Now, since we are tech novices here, I'm going to give you my advice: Before you actually download, install, and use these or any other utilities...educate yourself on what it does, how to use it. The sites linked below have lots of useful information you'll want to look at, and you'll also want to remember that friendly search bar in your browser.
First up, CCleaner. It has been said that the name used to be "Crap Cleaner," but that the C now represents the C drive on a computer (the most common letter designation for the hard drive).
Since I'm not a hardcore techie, and you're probably not either, I'll put it in understandable terms. It cleans your hard disk; removing the temporary files that build up every time you download and/or install software, move files, change files...almost anytime you do anything. As you can imagine, all those temporary files (most of which are unnecessary) begin slowing down your performance because they're lurking all over the hard drive. Besides removing those temporary files, CCleaner also has an uninstall tool, a startup menu tool (to make your machine start a little faster), and a Registry Integrity Tool (I'm still learning about this one). It's recommended that CCleaner be used regularly. That can mean once a day, once a week, whatever...of course, the longer between cleanings, the more you'll notice the sluggishness creeping back into your computer's performance.
Great, now you've gotten rid of all that crap. Follow it up with Auslogics Disk Defragmenter. Why? Because even temporary files leave holes when they get deleted. And don't forget about all the things you've consciously and purposely deleted recently. Those applications you've uninstalled and the spaces left when you move files, blah, blah, blah. This particular disk utility works a bit better than the default available on Windows. All you really have to do is open it up and turn it on. It's a nice and easy follow up to CCleaner.
I'll say it again: Educate yourself. In using these utilities or any other, a little research goes a long way. If you don't know what something is, look it up.
Coming Soon: Amazon Kindle 2 is here, Checking out Media Monkey, Chris Pirillo and Geeks.com
