Cleaning Up a Laptop

[dkryan]

I am running an i7 laptop (64-bit) with 8GB of RAM and Windows 7 Home Premium.

I have Norton I/S idling in the background and I run CC Cleaner and MBAM weekly. And though I should not admit it, I'm running the latest version of IE. Shame on me.

That aside, is there anything else I can do to "clean up" my laptop? Temp internet files are deleted, the recycle bin stays cleaned out, I defragged the hard drive, etc.

Fortunately, I'm not having any real problem to speak of nor do I want one. But, I do recall BITOGers offering advice in the past about "cleaning up" a computer that involved stuff I had no idea existed nor had I ever heard of it before.

Do any of your tech savvy folks perform optimizing actions beyond what I listed above?

And as an aside, I viewed the thread regarding internet connection speed. And with a download of 12.2 and an upload of 2.2, I'd obviously be a back marker at the Daytona 500.

 

[Quest]

LOL! what more do you want out of your already speedy fast computer?

Me? I'm running Win7 home with 4GB on a 6yrs old Toshiba Tecra M5. Slow? perhaps so. Gets the job done? Oh yeah, certainly.

Do I have to worry about clutters and such that would otherwise slow down my already slow laptop computer...nah! I don't think so.

Oh and BTW: I also run adobe dreamweaver CS3 on this laptop as web admin related work, photoshop, etc. doesn't slow this baby down enough to cause me any trouble.

What mission-critical stuff do you run on yours that would call on the need of "scrubbing" ? Or you just simply doing casual web surfing?

Q.

 

[dparm]

I don't think you need to run CCleaner and MBAM weekly. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

 

[Doog]

Originally Posted By: dparm
I don't think you need to run CCleaner and MBAM weekly. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."


I run CC daily.

 

[Oil Changer]

Click "Start". In the "Search programs and files" box at the bottom, type, "%temp%" w/o the quotes. Delete everything. One or two things may not delete. That is not a problem.

If you really want to clean things, save your important files and do a clean install.

 

[dkryan]

Originally Posted By: dparm
I don't think you need to run CCleaner and MBAM weekly. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."


dparm - that's why I run it weekly; I don't want it to get "broke."

 

[Oil Changer]

LOL! How true. I'd throw my computer out the window after two minutes with that speed.
CC cleaner is old school. Stop messing with your registry; W7 doesn't need that stuff. Buy the paid MBAM and let it do it's thing on it's own. Once a month is enough unless you regularly go to the most nefarious porn sites on the 'Net.

Originally Posted By: dkryan
And as an aside, I viewed the thread regarding internet connection speed. And with a download of 12.2 and an upload of 2.2, I'd obviously be a back marker at the Daytona 500.

 

[dparm]

Originally Posted By: Oil Changer
LOL! How true. I'd throw my computer out the window after two minutes with that speed.
CC cleaner is old school. Stop messing with your registry; W7 doesn't need that stuff. Buy the paid MBAM and let it do it's thing on it's own. Once a month is enough unless you regularly go to the most nefarious porn sites on the 'Net.

Originally Posted By: dkryan
And as an aside, I viewed the thread regarding internet connection speed. And with a download of 12.2 and an upload of 2.2, I'd obviously be a back marker at the Daytona 500.



Exactly! Registry cleaning is not really needed in W7 and W8/8.1. I run CCleaner MAYBE once a month, and that's just because it can find lots of random temp files better than I can. A few orphaned registry entries here and there don't really cause problems, nor will you notice a performance hit. I just let ESET NOD32 run in the background and do its thing. I don't need a supplemental product like MBAM.

It is far riskier to be running all these tune-up programs all the time than it is to just use the computer and not give it a second thought.

Again, don't fuss around with it if things are running fine. Think of it this way: if you waste 15 minutes a week on this "clean up", you're throwing away half of a day every year...and for what? Can you show me the computer is measurably faster and running better as a result? Did it improve your productivity by 12 hours a year? Even if CCleaner shaved 2 seconds off your boot time, and you reboot the machine every day, you only broke even for the year.

Heck, even if W7 got corrupt once a year and was unrecoverable, I bet you could get it reinstalled with all your apps in way less than the 12 hours.

 

[Drew99GT]

Go through startup items and your task manager and uninstall any programs that auto start and that you never use, like factory bloatware programs.

 

[dkryan]

Originally Posted By: Oil Changer
"................Buy the paid MBAM and let it do it's thing on it's own......"


What will the paid version of MBAM give me that the free version currently does not?

 

[Oil Changer]

I use Hitman but if I remember right, the payed MBAM gets you auto scan, update, and removal. Could be wrong. Something for you to look into and decide for yourself.

If you get faster Internet speed you won't worry about this other stuff as much.

 

[Cutehumor]

Dkryan, get a solid state hard drive for your laptop. it made a world of difference for my core 2 duo 4 gb ram HP laptop. talk about booting into windows 8.1 in two seconds

 

[Triple_Se7en]

Originally Posted By: Oil Changer
Click "Start". In the "Search programs and files" box at the bottom, type, "%temp%" w/o the quotes. Delete everything. One or two things may not delete. That is not a problem.

If you really want to clean things, save your important files and do a clean install.


It will not accept %temp% in Windows 8 search box.

 

[Oil Changer]

Yes it will. From the desktop, move your cursor to the lower right. When the window appears, click on the magnifying glass to bring up, "Search everywhere". Then type the %temp%.

Originally Posted By: Triple_Se7en
Originally Posted By: Oil Changer
Click "Start". In the "Search programs and files" box at the bottom, type, "%temp%" w/o the quotes. Delete everything. One or two things may not delete. That is not a problem.

If you really want to clean things, save your important files and do a clean install.


It will not accept %temp% in Windows 8 search box.