Top tips to be done about every 3 months:
1. From Control Panel, click the add/remove programmes icon and remove any program that you, Do not recognise. No longer need. Think might be malware
2. On the main C:/ drive in "My Computer", right click the drive and then select properties
3. From the "Tools" tab select disk clean-up, check all the boxes and click ok to proceed.
4. When all finished, while still in the disk Tools tab, select defragment. Now this can take a long time if it has never been done before (maybe up to 2 hours), also make sure no other programs are running at the same time (it is quickest run in safe mode).
5. Clear up unnecessary icons on the desktop. I know its nice to have short cuts to everything. But taking off the stuff you don't need and organising the stuff you really need does help, in a small way, to improve the system's performance (it takes less time to refresh the screen). Apart from anything else, its very therapeutic, like tidying up your real desk!
6. We all like nice desktop backgrounds, but large, uncompressed picture files (especially taken on a newish camera) will take time to re-draw too, thus slowing the machine slightly.
7. Finally, it is a good idea to run a full mal-ware scan every 3 months.
There are other "special" tricks and tweaks that can be applied including registry edits, but these are risky and un-safe unless you really know what you're doing... As part of the Home PC-FIX Performance-Boost service I do all the above and use other special, clean-up tools to perform a more thorough job.
