HOWEVER FAST YOUR PC IS, OVER TIME ITS PERFORMANCE WILL DETERIORATE. LOYD
CASE
EXPLAINS HOW TO UNDO THE DAMAGE DONE BY EVERYDAY COMPUTING AND CLAW BACK
VALUABLE DISK SPACE AND PROCESSOR CYCLES
Your Windows PC is slowing down. Maybe it takes longer to boot up or shut
down.
Perhaps the hard drive is heard thrashing constantly in the background. Or
maybe
launching an application takes much longer than it once did.
Although Windows 7 is speedier than previous versions, it can still become
sluggish, particularly if you install a lot of applications.
Over the next few pages, we'll explain how to clean the junk from your
system
and remove the detritus that has built up over time. We'll specifically
discuss
boot-up times, hard-drive issues and the mysterious Windows Registry. We'll
also
explain how you can help stave off future problems, not least by getting out
of
habits that are likely to lead you to create unnecessary files in the first
place.
MYSTERIOUS PC SLOWDOWNS
Sometimes a PC will slow down without warning and the reason isn't always
obvious. Although the focus of this feature is on cleaning up and preventing
junk files, we'll start by touching briefly on a few hardware problems that
can
cause sudden slowdowns.
VANISHING MEMORY: If you are a PC builder or upgrader, the Bios can
sometimes
reset itself without your knowledge. This can happen if the motherboard's
power
supply fails - perhaps if you upgrade or replace it. Following a reset,
memory
speeds may revert to the default. You'll notice an issue only when running
memory-intensive programs.
Another possibility is that the amount of available RAM might shrink. On
recent
Intel P55- and X58-chipset motherboards, a heatsink that's too tightly
mounted
can bend memory circuit traces. A RAM module will then become invisible to
Windows, hampering performance most noticeably when applications and data
are
swapped to virtual memory on your hard drive.
OVERHEATING: Modern Intel and AMD processors will automatically power down
if
they get too hot. This can happen if excessive dust is weighing down your
CPU-
and case-cooling fans. Check the system temperature in the Bios or using the
utility provided with your motherboard.
IMMINENT HARD-DRIVE FAILURE: As hard drives begin to develop bad sectors,
they
try to copy data to safe sectors. This behaviour is rare under ordinary
circumstances, making constant disk use (thrashing) an effective warning
sign of
impending drive failure. If you suspect such activity, turn on the Smart
feature
in your PC's Bios, which will pull diagnostic information from the drive.
WINDOWS ENTROPY EXPLAINED
Now let's move on to Windows itself. Windows slowdown has three main causes:
the
Windows Registry gets bigger, dynamic link libraries (DLLs) and other junk
are
needlessly duplicated, and hard drives become fragmented. On machines that
have
a lot of programs installed, many services and applications can be running
in
the background without your knowledge. This can also contribute to system
slowdown.
These problems aren't mutually exclusive. The Registry can swell as you
install
more software, which in turn loads background tasks. Your hard drive will
also
fill up, making Windows' auto-defragging harder.
Windows Registry: Windows maintains configuration and program-installation
settings in a database called the Registry. As you install and uninstall
applications or make changes to Windows, the Registry grows larger. Our test
PC
has lots of programs installed, for example, and its Registry consumes 384MB
of
disk space.
As the Registry expands, applications and services that use it take longer
to
load. Searches conducted through the Registry by programs that may have
written
their data in multiple places also require more time.
The other culprit behind Registry bloat is incomplete uninstalls. Most of us
install or uninstall only a few programs per year, but gamers and power
users
will spend far more time tinkering. Incomplete uninstalls leave residue in
the
Registry, which adds to its size. Windows 7's program uninstaller is much
improved in this respect, but it isn't perfect.
As it turns out, however, Registry cleaners aren't really the answer. More
on
that later.
APPLICATION EXTRAS: When you install applications, sometimes they need
various
runtime modules to run.
Look at the screenshot pictured left. Here, there are multiple installed
copies
of the Microsoft Visual C++ redistributable, but you really need only the
latest
version. If you're running the 64bit version, you might need two copies -
one
for 32bit (labelled x86) and one for 64bit (x64).
This is just one example of the kind of junk that can get installed on a
system.
It's hard to stop and track down, however, and determining whether removing
it
might break something is often difficult.
UNNECESSARY BACKGROUND SERVICES: The more items you install, the more the
programs seem to install some kind of service in the background. Maybe that
service will speed up an application launch, or perhaps it's a Control Panel
applet for a gaming mouse. Either way, an awful lot of stuff will be
appearing
in the System Tray.
Get rid of anything found here that you don't need running all the time. In
our
own PC's System Tray, we found two items we didn't need: since we run
Impulse
Now only when buying or playing a Stardock game, we don't need it running
all
the time; nor do we need OneNote, which we rarely use.
HARD DRIVE ISSUES: A PC's file system will eventually become fragmented.
Windows
7 tries to minimise the damage by running the defragger in the background
while
the PC is idle. But if you frequently create and delete files, it's bound to
become fragmented.
Performance issues can also crop up if the hard drive gets more than 90
percent
full. Swapping data from main memory to the drive becomes very slow, which
can
reduce the entire system to a crawl. It may be time to clean up your drive -
or
buy a bigger one.
DIAGNOSTIC TOOLS
You'll need some tools to help you unearth the excess files and other
detritus
clogging up your system. Here are a few.
BENCHMARKS: Benchmarking software can help you determine system performance.
We
use WorldBench 6 ( worldbench.com) in our PC and laptop reviews; a similar
program is PCMark Vantage ( tinyurl.com/26mdcan). Run the software once when
you
first build or buy your system, then repeat it every few months. If the
results
decrease by more than about 10 percent, clean up your PC.
USEFUL WIDGETS: Windows comes with tiny applets known as gadgets that you
can
keep on your desktop. If you have too many gadgets running, however, they
can
slow down the system.
One useful gadget is the CPU Meter - not so much for its CPU-activity
reports,
but for its memory meter. If the percentage of memory used over time seems
to
increase substantially, you may have background tasks loading that you don't
need.
You might also want to grab some add-on system-monitoring gadgets from
Microsoft's site at tinyurl.com/msgadgets.
WINDOWS RESOURCE MONITOR: Gadgets are fun, but you'll probably find the
Windows
Resource Monitor more practical for diagnosing potential issues. It's a
substantial step up from CPU Meter and superior to the more commonly used
Task
Manager. Run Resource Monitor by clicking Start, Run, typing resmon and
pressing
Enter.
MONITOR MEMORY USAGE: For monitoring slowdown issues, take a look at
Resource
Monitor's Memory tab. This tracks memory usage and shows you, in a more
granular
fashion than Task Manager, how much memory a program or service is
consuming.
WINDOWS RELIABILITY MONITOR: All those memory-hogging and
performance-sapping
modules can make your system less stable, so check the Windows Reliability
Monitor, too. You may think your system is less stable than it once was, but
the
Reliability Monitor will give you the data to confirm that suspicion.
Do a reliability check: You can use the Action Center to check your PC's
reliability history. Launch the Reliability Monitor from Control Panel,
System
and Security, Action Center. Click Maintenance, then choose 'View
Reliability
History'.
Click on the columns representing dates to navigate the Reliability Monitor.
You
can also see the trendline, which may be flat or downward-sloping. A sudden,
sharp drop is worth checking out. If multiple programs are shown to be
unstable,
perhaps something you installed (or uninstalled) just before the stability
problems occurred is the culprit.
On our PC, the sharp drop around 16 September in the screenshot on the
opposite
page represents when we installed Internet Explorer 9.0 Beta. Pre-release
programs often have reliability problems.
System boot diagnostics: It's amazing how many applications, tools and
utilities
attempt to preload something or other during the boot-up process. Windows 7
has
fixed many slow-boot problems, but we've still seen supposedly high-end
desktop
systems take nearly 5 minutes to fully boot up.
One third-party program that's useful for assessing slow-boot problems is
Soluto. This is both a diagnostic program and a utility that can fix
slow-boot
issues. We cover it in more detail in Useful third-party choices.
MORE CLEAN-UP OPTIONS
You can manually clean out a lot of the junk on your system, too. Here's
how.
DISK CLEANUP: The past few versions of Windows have a built-in Disk Cleanup
utility, which you can launch by clicking Start, All Programs, Accessories,
System Tools, Disk Cleanup. When we used this tool on our PC, we discovered
16.3GB of temporary converted audio files.
You can manually clean out old system files, but delete such files with
care.
Note that Disk Cleanup lets you delete all but the most recent System
Restore
and Shadow Copy files on the More Options tab. We recommend avoiding this,
though: you never know when you might run into problems and need to use an
older
restore point.
DEFRAG YOUR DRIVE: Defragmenting your hard drive is useful after you've
performed a sweep with Disk Cleanup. System performance will slow down
during
the defrag process, since the defragger keeps the hard drives pretty busy.
The
Windows 7 defrag utility is somewhat smart about this, but your PC will
still be
less responsive during the process; it's best to run the utility when you
don't
need timely system access.
SYSTEM CONFIGURATION UTILITY: This tool is more commonly referred to as
Msconfig. You launch it by clicking Start, Run, typing msconfig and pressing
Enter. Using this tool, you can selectively enable and disable background
services, and specify services and applications to run at startup. But
Msconfig
doesn't give you any advice about which services can be safely disabled. We
find
hiding the Windows services makes the Services tab a little more manageable.
Use the Startup tab to specify which applications run at startup, but be
careful: if you disable everything willy-nilly, some of your applications
may
not work. Still, items such as the QuickTime helper app and the Adobe
Acrobat
helper can be safely disabled.
REGISTRY EDITOR: Use the Windows Registry Editor with caution. You could
easily
permanently delete keys from the Registry and render your system unusable. A
less serious risk is that you could make applications unusable, then have to
reinstall them. We've also heard tales of woe from readers who have found a
partial Registry edit makes it impossible to uninstall or reinstall an
application, but the program won't run. If you're going to edit the Registry
yourself, be sure to back it up first.
Edit your system's Registry at your own risk. You can access it by clicking
Start, Run, typing regedit and pressing Enter. The typical Registry contains
many thousands of entries, often with arcane names such as Hkey_
Local_Machine\Software\{9F5FBC24-EFE2-4f90-B498-EC0FB7D47D15}. Understanding
what to delete can be fraught with peril.
If you're trying to root out Registry entries for an incompletely
uninstalled
piece of software, the editor does allow you to search. If you do this, be
very
specific with the search string. The application name is much better than,
say,
the company name. Searching for 'Outlook' will probably yield safer results
than
'Microsoft', for example.
USEFUL THIRD-PARTY CHOICES
Plenty of useful third-party tools are available, but be wary of anything
called
a 'Registry-cleaning' tool. Although some Registry-related tools are useful,
the
Windows Registry is an insanely complex database and no Registry cleaner can
know every Registry key that an application may touch. We've had to help
users
who have run Registry cleaners that have rendered their applications
unusable
and unable to reinstall.
Soluto: Soluto's main claim to fame is that it can shorten the time Windows
takes to boot, sometimes by a substantial amount. You can download Soluto
for
free from soluto.com.
If you have a lot of startup programs, Soluto can help. The utility contains
a
database of known boot-up applications and gives you advice on whether
they're
safe to remove from the boot-up process. It can also defer certain items
that
you may want to run at startup but can afford to run a little after the
desktop
becomes responsive.
Soluto will show you how much time you can save when booting up. The program
depends on users to help develop the database of items that are safe to
delay or
pause. One malicious person's vote won't count for much, so it's not as if
you'll see Soluto recommend that you pause an essential Windows service. By
the
same token, if you have as many items loading as we often do, you'll see a
lot
of entries for which Soluto doesn't have any advice to give.
REVO UNINSTALLER PRO: This handy utility is a little more complex than
Soluto.
Revo Uninstaller Pro ( revouninstaller.com) tries to be a more complete
uninstaller. It generally works pretty well for that purpose. It also has an
autorun (startup) manager, but Soluto is probably better for that task.
Similarly, Revo Uninstaller can act as a backup manager, browser cleaner and
evidence remover.
Revo Uninstaller lets you purge every last trace of an old program. It
behaves
much the same way as the Windows uninstaller does - you just double-click on
what you need to remove. Revo gives you the option of a safe, moderate or
advanced uninstall. After the process, you can scan for leftover files or
Registry items specific to the application.
For uninstalling one or two programs, you can download a 30-day free trial.
If
you want to carry on using the utility after this period, the full 'Pro'
version
costs $39 (ukp24) for a single licence. Revo Uninstaller helped us with an
iTunes 10.0 installation problem, but we still experienced errors that
prevented
iTunes from completely installing. It removed all the Apple residue and a
complete iTunes install was possible after that.
MAINTAINING A CLEAN SYSTEM
Once you've cleaned out the junk, how do you keep your Windows system
relatively
clean? Here are several pointers.
If an application has an advanced installation option, use it. Go ahead and
install the program in the default location suggested, but carefully read
each
option given. Sometimes an installer will give you the option of whether the
program should run at startup, as well as whether it should create a desktop
shortcut.
Many users blindly click the Next button every time the application's
installer
prompts them to do so. But often the window will have pre-selected options
that
install additional items, such as browser toolbars, quick-start utilities
and
other junk.
If a window pops up in your web browser asking you to install something,
make
sure you know what it is. It may just be a simple tool to help your
browsing, or
it may install something that runs at startup and saps your system
resources. In
the worst-case scenario, it will install malware.
Frequently use third-party tools such as Soluto, as well as Windows' own
Msconfig utility, to make sure useless junk isn't running at startup.
Clean up your drive frequently, removing temporary internet and installation
files.
It takes only a few minutes a week to keep your system relatively clean and,
if
you do that, you should be able to postpone the dreaded hard-drive reformat
and
Windows reinstall for a very long time.
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