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A computer runs slowly because it accumulates e-gunk. Think of e-gunk as the residue left by the activity of programs running within a computer. If you leave your brand new computer off for 3 months, the next time you switch if on it will not run appreciably slower than the last time you used it. There are two types of e-gunk, the necessary type and the dubious type. The necessary type of e-gunk is produced as a direct result of using your computer. Your operating system, email program, web browser, word processor, spreadsheet and RPG all produce e-gunk, yet if you did not use these programs you probably would not have justified purchasing a computer in the first place. The dubious e-gunk are those programs that comes about from using your computer to download and install programs out of curiosity or in order to be able to view certain content. For example, many TV stations allow you to download and watch TV programs on your computer only if you first install their player.

From my own experience the following are the actions that will help you improve your computer's performance if it is running below par:

* Defragment your hard disk. All programs create files of a temporary or permanent nature on your hard disk. In an ideal world, these files would reside as one single contiguous block, but in reality with so many tasks running concurrently, files from different processes are written in tiny sparse blocks. This results in a file being splattered all over the hard disk. The process of defragmentation unifies files into single continuous stretches of the hard disk making access to them a lot faster. Windows comes with such a program called Disk Defragmenter. You can even use the Windows' Task Scheduler program to automate the running of Disk Defragmenter at convenient times. You should not be using your computer when the defragment utility is running. An average computer user should defragment his hard disk once or twice a month, although you can run it more frequently.

* Remove fad and curiosity programs. Each program you install takes up space on your hard disk and will require a certain amount of processing resources thrown at it by the operating system. Some programs may install a background task that will eat up resources even though you are not actually using the program. Other programs try to integrate into your web browser or office suite and even though you never wanted a browser task bar you got one in the bargain after you installed the program. Uninstalling

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