Clean Up Your Computer

First of you want to get rid of any programs that you don’t want, to do this you want to go to add/remove programs in the control panel (programs and features in vista). There will be a list of all installed programs there, any you don’t want, just right click on them and click uninstall or remove.
To get to control panel there will be an icon in the start menu.

XP

Vista

After this you want to stop any programs that you don’t want to start up when you load into windows. This will also speed up boot times as there will be less programs to load. To do this go to the Start Menu and click Run, then type 'msconfig', go to the startup tab and you can select programs to disable/enable there. In Vista you go to the Start Menu and type in the
search bar 'msconfig' and do the same as above.

Next we want to give you computer a cleanup, for this you want to run CCleaner and cleanup through. Get these programs from our downloads section and install them both. Cleanup is simple to use, just open the program and click on clean; it will then run through and tell you how much space it has saved you.

Then you want to run CCleaner through and do the same again – but this time, as well as running the normal cleanup through there is a section that says Registry, you also want to run a scan through with that as well and fix all the issues. Please make sure that before giving the registry a clean you back it up. To view a full guide on how to backup the registry in all windows version, please refer to this official Microsoft guide. GUIDE HERE.

We would recommend that you run a full Spyware/Virus scan through as these can also effect the performance of your computer. To see guides on how to do this please go to our Virus/Spyware sections on the left.