Regular Maintenance On Your PC is Key

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9207632/Top_tools_for_a_well_maintained_PC' target='_blank'>http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti...l_maintained_PC</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Most people -- even IT pros who spend their lives maintaining corporate computing infrastructure -- are so busy with life, families, work and the rest that they tend to leave periodic home PC maintenance tasks at the bottom of a long list of things that never get done. With that in mind, we've put together this concise guide to some of the most important and oft-delayed or forgotten maintenance tasks that Windows PC users can perform regularly to keep their computers -- and data -- healthy through the year."</em></p><p><img height="282" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1297210287.usr1.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" width="425" /></p><p>This article covers some of the things that - ideally - we're all doing to keep our PCs in tip-top shape. Off-site data backup, driver updates, system backups, and even registry cleaners - all have their place. Registry cleaners are certainly a somewhat dubious suggestion - I've never seen any data that objectively proves that any of those products can enhance PC performance. When I use <a href="http://www.piriform.com/" target="_blank">CCleaner</a>, I allow it to scan the system registry to get rid of the cruft, but I harbour no illusions that it will somehow make my PC faster.</p><p>What are some of your regularly-scheduled maintenance tasks that you do (or should be doing) that aren't on this list?</p>

[Brad Adrian]

One thing I use that's not really a "clean up your PC" feature is the Windows 7 ReadyBoost feature. It allows you to use USB drives as extensions of your RAM. It's simple, and I can effectively add 16GB for about $30. Not a bad price for additional RAM.

[Jason Dunn]

One thing I use that's not really a "clean up your PC" feature is the Windows 7 ReadyBoost feature. It allows you to use USB drives as extensions of your RAM. It's simple, and I can effectively add 16GB for about $30. Not a bad price for additional RAM.

I don't want to burst your bubble, but ReadyBoost is considered to be effective only on PCs that are lacking in RAM. Say, 512 MB or 1 GB. If you've got 2 GB or more of RAM, the system uses SuperFetch to pre-load apps into RAM which is must faster than ReadyBoost. So depending on how much RAM you have, you may not need to use ReadyBoost... :)

[Hooch Tan]

I don't want to burst your bubble, but ReadyBoost is considered to be effective only on PCs that are lacking in RAM. Say, 512 MB or 1 GB. If you've got 2 GB or more of RAM, the system uses SuperFetch to pre-load apps into RAM which is must faster than ReadyBoost. So depending on how much RAM you have, you may not need to use ReadyBoost... :)

I've actually seen some improvements with Windows 7 ReadyBoost on my Asus 1215N laptop. Of course, it is hobbled with a 5400rpm HDD, but in using a Class 10 SD card, I've noticed that some things are a bit peppier. It is hard to say since I haven't done any objective testing, and ReadyBoost also needs time for proper tuning and learning your behaviour. Still, since I had the card available and the SD slot on my netbook isn't doing anything else...