How to maintain a healthy Windows System

[racer1337]

MY god... look at the size of that list, all that to keep an OS running at Par?

[Skarn]

Nice guide, keep up the good work.

[Dazza]

Heres something that I have found works for me: Whenever your PC starts getting sluggish, youve installed countless programs and uninstalled them but theres trails of crap all over the place, your system is infected, and youve had enough...

Format.

Honestly, if you own Windows, you must learn the art of formatting. Make sure you have one partition where you just put your system files and nohing else (well, maybe your program files - just the stuff you can reinstall) and put everyting else such as your documents and personal files (games, savegames etc) on another. That way, when you too feel the windows slug creepng up on you, just make sure theres no crap on your files partition, make sure theres no valuable stuff on the system partition worth saving, and format.

Simple.

Apart from that, I think that guid doesnt miss out on much.

Except perhaps the advanced user's tweaking routine (disabling / tweaking system stuff, slipstreamed installations, special programs etc)

Good stuff!

[Rahul]

nice , to the point & helpful

[Nighthawk-F117]

Heres something that I have found works for me: Whenever your PC starts getting sluggish, youve installed countless programs and uninstalled them but theres trails of crap all over the place, your system is infected, and youve had enough...

Format.

Honestly, if you own Windows, you must learn the art of formatting. Make sure you have one partition where you just put your system files and nohing else (well, maybe your program files - just the stuff you can reinstall) and put everyting else such as your documents and personal files (games, savegames etc) on another. That way, when you too feel the windows slug creepng up on you, just make sure theres no crap on your files partition, make sure theres no valuable stuff on the system partition worth saving, and format.

Simple.

Apart from that, I think that guid doesnt miss out on much.

Except perhaps the advanced user's tweaking routine (disabling / tweaking system stuff, slipstreamed installations, special programs etc)

Good stuff!

585677693[/snapback]

I was toying with including formatting. I might do, I figured that if you don't know how to stop adware,you probably can't reformat.

[benyahuda0]

Nice guide. These things are helpful for almost everyone. The only people ya can't help are the ones who never do anything but blame M$ and the ones who just know everything already.

Someone mentioned CrapCleaner, it deserves 5 stars and it's freeware.

Ad-Aware and Avast should be in everyones toolbox. They are freeware.

Registry Mechanic with Tune-up Utilities and RegSupremePro, I use them in that order so that what one misses the next finds. Registry Mechanic is freeware but the other two are shareware, fully functional for their trial period though. They are my choice for cleaning-compacting my registry because I don't know what all those registry entries mean or do. I have had it once that RegSupremePro turned up 760 invalid keys and/or values. There is no way that I could ever find out what each and every one meant or did. My options, forget it, try to figure out the maybe 10% that appear to be written in a language I can figure out, or close my eyes, hit clean and hope for the best. With many registry tools I have tried, that last option meant get ready to re-install. With the three I've mentioned I have never had a problem. What keys and values they turn up are actually wrong, and can be repaired or removed.

Perfect Disk was mentioned in an earlier post and of the defrag apps out there it is the best in my opinion. After Perfect Disk you'll never use M$ defrag again. I have tried every defrag app that I've seen and none measure up, some even make things worse. Norton and System Mechanic are two that just don't make it. After defragging with System Mechanic once I re-did it with perfect disk and was shocked at how much difference there was. And I like System Mechanic, there are some really useful utilities in that package that do work fine.

Keep it up Nighthawk-F117, Guides like this are important. At least I sure can use it.

[Raditz]

Excellent guide. (Y)

[Nighthawk-F117]

Nice guide. These things are helpful for almost everyone. The only people ya can't help are the ones who never do anything but blame M$ and the ones who just know everything already.

Someone mentioned CrapCleaner, it deserves 5 stars and it's freeware.

Ad-Aware and Avast should be in everyones toolbox. They are freeware.

Registry Mechanic with Tune-up Utilities and RegSupremePro, I use them in that order so that what one misses the next finds. Registry Mechanic is freeware but the other two are shareware, fully functional for their trial period though. They are my choice for cleaning-compacting my registry because I don't know what all those registry entries mean or do. I have had it once that RegSupremePro turned up 760 invalid keys and/or values. There is no way that I could ever find out what each and every one meant or did. My options, forget it, try to figure out the maybe 10% that appear to be written in a language I can figure out, or close my eyes, hit clean and hope for the best. With many registry tools I have tried, that last option meant get ready to re-install. With the three I've mentioned I have never had a problem. What keys and values they turn up are actually wrong, and can be repaired or removed.

Perfect Disk was mentioned in an earlier post and of the defrag apps out there it is the best in my opinion. After Perfect Disk you'll never use M$ defrag again. I have tried every defrag app that I've seen and none measure up, some even make things worse. Norton and System Mechanic are two that just don't make it. After defragging with System Mechanic once I re-did it with perfect disk and was shocked at how much difference there was. And I like System Mechanic, there are some really useful utilities in that package that do work fine.

Keep it up Nighthawk-F117, Guides like this are important. At least I sure can use it.

585702337[/snapback]

Posts like that are the ones that make the guide worthwhile. Thanks :)

[Geranium_Z__NL]

haha everyone says the same...

Have To Say It To...

Nice Guide Dude... :D

[raider360]

Very nice guide :yes:

5 Stars!

[FrankDaTank86]

Hey Nighthawk-F117,

Thanks for the Guide. It's very informative! and I'm going to bookmark it. I think that we should make this a post-it so users can have easy access to it!

Frank :D

[Nighthawk-F117]

Hey Nighthawk-F117,

Thanks for the Guide. It's very informative! and I'm going to bookmark it. I think that we should make this a post-it so users can have easy access to it!

Frank :D

585791649[/snapback]

Thanks :D

Forget what I said earlier. :)

[FrankDaTank86]

Thanks :D

Forget what I said earlier. :)

585791652[/snapback]

Your welcome :D

(Now forgetting what happened earlier ;))

[Nighthawk-F117]

Improvements anyone? I can't make it better until you criticise it.

[McLaren_F1]

Clean xp install?

[Nighthawk-F117]

Clean xp install?

585862454[/snapback]

This is more for slightly novice users, or just a centralised place for downloads. A clean XP install is a little too advanced for who I'm aiming for.

[Laughing Man]

I have a couple suggestions for the software list and a couple questions as well.

BlackViper's site is down (I presume for upgrading purposes). Though there's a couple other ones. You can also find BlackViper's sp2 configs in Google's cache.

Have you ever tried O&O Defrag? I think it's pretty good and allows you to defrag different ways (name, most accessed, normal, etc..). Though I'll give Perfect Disk 7 a try and see how it compares.

Another good free firewall is Kerio Personal Firewall. Though it has a slight learning curve. It won't shine brightly till you setup all the rules for it to follow. (if you don't every time a application is launched or something wants to access the internet the firewall will ask you if you wish to permit or deny it).

[mr_demilord]

Use a normal user account for everyday use, only use the administrator for installing an aplication or to change a system-wide setting.

and don't install codec packs,

do not install shareware/trialware programs, first search for opensource/freeware alternatives that also do the same and fits your needs. like photoshop vs the gimp...

If you like your current installation and everything is going smooth make an image of your installation with partimage http://www.partimage.org/

[Nighthawk-F117]

I've just added a massive update and reworded most of the thread.

I've rejiged the firewall and antivirus bit. Added service pack 2 info, ccleaner, hijack this. And much more. I worked most of this afternoon to do this, so please, gimme some feedback. :)

-Enjoy!

[yefeiyang]

so good ,ths

[ventrox]

really nice guide :D

[Nighthawk-F117]

really nice guide :D

585964528[/snapback]

Thanks :D

[y2ken]

Same HERE!!!!

OH and I love Tune Up utilities! I use it all the time!!!

585567215[/snapback]

I like/use Diskeeper Lite also but it kept popping up and asking me defrag when I didn't need/want and to upgrade to the pro version. You can stop this behavior by setting it to run only when you want it too by going to Control Panel>Administrative Tools> Services and then changing it from Auto to Manual. That way it will only run when you want it too by clicking on the Diskeeper program.

[Aqua Curve]

Great Guide :happy:

[o_87]

Good stuff ;)