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Computers, unlike other things such as wines and investments, do not get better with age. In fact, most computers will slow down over time, sometimes by a quite substantial amount. Fortunately, there are ways you can prevent this, or at least remedy it when you notice the sloth beginning to creep into your computer. One of the most common problems causing a computer to slow down over time is a fragmented hard drive.

All your data - all the programs, pictures, documents and all other files are stored on your computer's hard disk drive, or HDD. Over time however, the hard disk can become what is known as 'fragmented' - that is, the data on it gets spread out, and thus harder for the computer to find. As a result, the computer gets slower as it spends more time looking for the data it needs. Fortunately, this is one of the easiest problems to fix on a computer. Simply running a program called a Disk Defragmenter re-compacts all the files on the hard disk, putting them back into their proper places and helping to increase performance. Windows comes with a built in tool called, imaginatively, the Disk Defragmenter, which can be found in the 'Performance and Maintenance' section of the Control Panel.

There are also many freely downloadable disk defragmenters available over the Internet - my favorite is Auslogics' Disk Defrag tool. Another cause of a computer being slow is again related to the hard disk. Just how many programs have you got installed on your computer? Over time, the number of installed programs will tend to build up. That means that there is more data on the hard disk, more data for the computer to look through. Uninstalling programs is therefore one of the easiest ways to speed up your computer, and also to increase the amount of spare disk space you have available for other purposes. This will also increase the speed of other system tools such as Disk Defragmenting and Virus Scanning.

One good tool for uninstalling programs you no longer want is Revo Uninstaller. This not only removes the program, but it finds and gets rid of any things the program's own uninstaller has left behind, such as registry keys or empty folders and stray files. To follow up the uninstaller, one of the most helpful programs is called CCleaner (that's not a typo - there are two C's in the name), which is again a free download. This searches your computer for any left over or otherwise unneeded files that it then safely removes. Run both the modes (The program and the registry

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