by Jarritt Cumba

Created on: May 17, 2009   Last Updated: May 18, 2009

Maintenance Tips for Windows XP

In this short guide I will note various practices that are good for maintaining good computer health. This guide is written for Windows XP computers but for the most part is the same on Vista Computers with the exception of a few steps. I hope to write for just Vista PCs later. This is a guide for maintenance and should you have a real problem I always find it useful to look up or search your problem on a search engine such as Google.com or Yahoo.com. In most cases your problem has been faced by some one else and they have either gotten help or fixed it themselves and are happy to share with the world.

Basic Tips

These are basic tips that should be done and are fairly easy to do. To start out you should always have a good antivirus up and running at all times. If you have the money I would suggest buying one but for a free alternative I recommend Avast Home Free or AVG Free. I use Avast myself and personally love it. It does have to be registered for free every year.

Another good tip is to have a firewall up at all times. This is a good idea because it will help keep unwanted visitors and programs out of your computer. Windows firewall can be configured fairly easily and it can be found by going to Start>Control Pannel>Windows FireWall.

Now that we have covered the basics of security maintenance lets cover some performance tips. Always a good thing to note is to know how to use your computers Defrag. Defrag works by taking fragments of files found all over your hard drive and putting them back in order close together so that the computer can run the file faster. Over time if you download, install, and delete programs and files you will probably get fragmentation. Windows DeFrag can be found by going to Start>Accessories> System Tools> Disk Defragmenter. From here you can analyze and see if you need to defrag and if so you can click defrag to do so. As a side note if you have done a lot of downloading or installing you might want to use disk clean up found on the same menu before you use defragmenter to clear out some unused space. After is opens and scans your computer be sure to read the description at the bottom to see what you are deleting and make sure it is nothing you might use later as you will need it. Check the items you want to clean and click OK at bottom and confirm the actions with a click on the yes button or deny with the cancel. Using these two as a team you can defragment files and get your

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