Tidying Up Your PC: Tips For Small Business

Anyone who has worked on a pc for a while knows that it can get cluttered over time. Things start to slow down and that can affect how you and your staff do business. Hard drives don’t have unlimited capacity and the older your pc gets the more troublesome it can become. If you want to add some life back to your beloved desktop or laptop, here are four quick tips to de-clutter and, hopefully, improve your smart machine’s reaction time. Get rid of those junk and duplicate files: Fortunately, Windows provides a neat little tool for tidying up useless junk on your pc. The clean-up function can get rid of temporary files, files in your recycle bin, log files and thumbnails to name but a few. On your Start Menu simply go into the Control Panel, choose System and Security and select Free up Disk Space. Windows will check your drive and come up with suggestions of what to delete along with how much space you are freeing up. Lose those programs you no longer need: If there are programs on your pc that you don’t use then you can delete them easily by once again going into the Control Panel. Programs can often take up several hundred megabytes that contribute to slowing down your system. In Windows 8 you can use Search Charm by typing in uninstall and choosing uninstall to free up disk space and in Windows 7 you can simply head into the Control Panel and select the uninstall tab. Defragment once in a while: Defragmenting basically compact all your remaining data once you have done the cleaning steps above. This involves organising all data in as efficient a manner as possible. In essence, removing the gaps between data should, theoretically, make it easier and quicker for your computer to read. In Windows 7 you will find the Disk Defragmenter in the Start Menu, Accessories, and select System Tools. If you have Windows 8 you don’t have to worry as your pc will carry out a defragmentation automatically every couple of weeks. Increase your RAM: Older computers can benefit from having an extra amount of RAM or primary memory installed. These RAMs come in flat sticks that click into your hardware and can provide an instant boost to your computer’s performance. There’s no doubt that a regular clean-up of your trusty pc can improve its performance. If you want to avoid clogging up your hard drive with large numbers of files, you might also like to consider going for an option such as cloud storage which has the advantage that valuable documents are available whilst you are on the move and for use on multiple devices. Speak to your IT Support provider for further details.