Avoid those big-headache moments by taking time to care for your PC computer. After all, your computer is an indispensable asset of your business operations.
Every Day:
- Update virus and spyware. These can be found in your virus program settings to automatically update at a specific time.
- Reboot after a program crash. This clears out your cache and frees up memory.
- Back up. Have an offline automatic, continuous backup system in place like iDrive or Carbonite. See #9 in our previous post about backing up.
- If you use a lot of programs simultaneously, or memory-hog programs, and your computer runs sluggish as the day goes on, do a soft reboot to free up memory.
Every Week:
- Perform full virus and spyware/adware scan.
- Check for Windows updates.
Every Month:
- Update your programs (and drivers if needed).
- Run defrag program. Defraggler from Piriform works better and faster than the defrag program that comes with Windows.
- Optimize your computer. Clean out old registry entries, delete history, clear caches, disable unnecessary startup programs, clear logs and more with CCleaner, a free program by Piriform.
Every 3-6 Months:
- Clean out your PC tower. Use canned air duster to clean out dust and dust bunnies. Tip: To keep dust from going through the vent holes on the side of the case and in through the fan, stretch a piece of nylon on the outside over the openings and tape edges to the PC case.
Every Year:
- If your computer is slow and freezes up a lot, make a full backup and use the restore CD to start from a clean, original state.
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