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As many of you know, CellStream is a Microsoft partner.
We always welcome questions and comments about computing, using servers, email,
and what Microsoft has to offer from our customers and potential customers.
We dedicate this page to technical tips for computer and server users and
welcome contributions and feedback.
A blanket disclaimer: we provide all the
information below as informational. We take no responsibility for any
damage you may inadvertently cause by trying to do the things we discuss without
the appropriate technical guidance. Every computer is different. So
please take care to consult with a professional before altering content of your
computing system. Lastly we take no responsibility whatsoever for
information we do not author but may point you to below.
List of topics
How can I save disk
space?
What maintenance
should I run on my computer, if any?
Removing unused
Device Drivers
Faster
Booting by cleaning out the Windows Pre-Fetch folder
Troubleshooting
Device Drivers
Topics
There is no one "great" answer to this question.
Usually saving disk space also maximizes performance of your computing platform.
We fundamentally recommend: a) proper maintenance (see other tips below) and b)
the occasional 'spring cleaning' (as also discussed below) combined with the c)
use of a utility to clean your unused space (we like both Eraser or BCWipe).
Want more specifics, well we have found a great PDF file that has some great
suggestions in it. You can grab a copy of this file by
clicking here.
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What maintenance
should I run on my computer, if any?
Maintaining the system is always a good idea, and it
should be habitual. We break maintenance into three types: a) continual,
b) periodic, and c) occasional. We recommend you get into a routine by
inserting to-do's or calendar reminders to run maintenance until you do it
automatically. So let's look at a good maintenance plan:
- Continual Maintenance
- This refers usually to constant or daily
practices.
- Use a virus checking tool that is always active
(like McAffee or Norton or other). Make sure these applications
are in an automatic update mode so if new viruses are found, your tool
is automatically updated.
- Use a Spyware remover/blocker such as Microsoft's
AntiSpyware application. Make sure it is also always operating and
set to automatically update.
- Use an anti-spam tool or provider and don't even
open the spam. We like that our email server marks spam and then
we all have a rule set in outlook that deletes the spam before we even
read it. With the proper tools and laws in place today, you should
receive very little spam, and if you receive enough to complain about
it, you either aren't using the right tool or have not properly
configured your applications.
- Periodic Maintenance
- This refers to weekly or monthly activities.
We suggest which is which below, but readers should adopt best practices
based on their own usage of the computer.
- Perform backup's of your essential documents.
There is usually little need to back up applications, as you probably
have the CD's they came on. Just about everything else is found in
the My Documents area or as a function of the application itself having
a backup process (i.e. Quicken). We like to back up to our server,
and we love a utility that essentially synchronizes our PC's with our
backup directories called Beyond Compare. You can also use this
utility to synchronize two connected PC's. Very nice!
- Make sure your file system is error free and
tidy. We like doing this about two times a month, or monthly if
you do more web browsing than file creation. Windows provides the
best utilities for this. Before you do this, note that the process
can take up to an hour or slightly more depending on your disk size and
content, so plan accordingly. OK. They can be easily seen by
clicking Start>>My Computer. Then Right Click on your Hard Drive
icon (i.e. Local Disk C:). Select Properties. Click on the Tools
tab - then in the Error Checking area, select the Check Now box.
Select both boxes and then click Start. You will likely be
prompted to do this at the next reboot - select Yes. Now reboot
your system and the Windows CHKDSK will start doing its thing. DO
NOT INTERRUPT this 5 step process.
- Only after a CHKDSK process as described directly
above - we recommend a monthly defragmentation of your hard drive.
Again, Windows has this utility and defragment only if windows
recommends to do so. Defragmenting will make a big difference on
highly fragmented files systems. This tool can be easily seen by
clicking Start>>My Computer. Then Right Click on your Hard Drive
icon (i.e. Local Disk C:). Select Properties. Click on the Tools
tab - then in the Defragmentation area, select the Defragment Now box.
Now click on the Analyze button. The system will analyze your hard
disk and tell you whether to proceed with defragmentation. DO NOT
interrupt or multitask with this utility running. Let the computer
do the job, and as we said earlier, it will take time.
- About every week or so, we like to use the
Microsoft AntiSpyware tool and click on the Advanced Tools icon.
From here, select the Tracks Eraser icon by clicking on it. Select
Check All and then the Erase Tracks button. This tool essentially
wipes out all the history files, including Internet Explorer, and other
applications. You will find this speeds up your web browsing
and application launch! Plus it provides great privacy if other
use your system. If you don't have this tool you should get it
from Microsoft - it is free.
- Depending on how much web browsing you do, it is
always a good maintenance practice to get rid of temporary files that
Explorer and other web browsers keep. In Microsoft Explorer it is
easy. Right Click the explorer icon on your desktop and select
Properties. From the General Tab, click these in order (you may
have to wait a while between each selection....be patient).
First, delete cookies...then Delete Files (select delete all offline
content)...and lastly Clear History.
- More to come......
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Removing unused Device Drivers
When you install a device driver on a Windows XP
machine, the operating system loads that driver each time the computer boots
regardless of whether the device is present—unless you specifically
uninstall the driver. This means that drivers from devices that you have
long since removed from your system may be wasting valuable system
resources.Follow these steps to view and
remove these unnecessary device drivers:
- Press [Windows]+[Break] to bring up the System Properties dialog
box.
- Select the Advanced tab and click the Environment Variables button.
- Click the New button below the System Variables panel.
- In the New System Variable dialog box, type
devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices in the Variable Name text box and 1
in the Variable Value text box.
- Click OK to return to the System Properties dialog box and then
click OK again.
- Select the Hardware tab and click the Device Manager button.
- In Device Manager, go to View | Show Hidden Devices.
- Expand the various branches in the device tree and look for the
washed out icons, which indicate unused device drivers.
- To remove an unused device driver, right-click the icon and select
Uninstall.
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Faster
Booting by cleaning out Windows Pre-Fetch Folder
One of Microsoft's big selling points for
Windows XP was that it loads applications much faster than its predecessors.
To accomplish this feat, Windows XP uses what is called the "Prefetch
technique," in which the operating system gathers information about each
program that you launch and stores that information in the \Windows\Prefetch
folder. Then on subsequent restarts, Windows XP uses the information in the
Prefetch folder to essentially preload parts of those programs at boot time.
Thus, when you launch your application, it appears to load really fast.
However, the Prefetch folder can accumulate too
much information over time. This makes the operating system so busy loading
bits and pieces of lots of applications into memory that it ends up slowing
down the boot process. Fortunately, you can clean out the Prefetch folder at
any time. Follow these four steps:
- Access the Run dialog box by pressing [Windows]R.
- Type Prefetch in the Open text box and click OK.
- Press [Ctrl]A to select all the files.
- Press [Delete].
As you use your system, Windows XP will rebuild the contents of the
Prefetch folder.
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Troubleshooting Device Drivers
Device drivers: which ones
are running on your Windows Xp Professional System?? Here is how you
find out: you can find detailed information about specific
drivers being used in a Windows XP system by going to Device Manager,
selecting the device from the list, and drilling down to the device's
properties sheet. While this technique is fine when you're looking for
information on one specific device driver, it's not very efficient when
you're interested in information about a number of device drivers—it's just
too time consuming.
To ease the task of gathering information on a number of device drivers,
you can use a tool called Driver Query (Driverquery.exe). When you run this
tool, Driver Query provides you with a detailed list of all the device
drivers installed on a local system, or on any system on a network—and using
it is easy.
- Open a Command Prompt window. Start>Run>cmd
- Type Driverquery on the command line.
The results are displayed in a table format in the Command Prompt window.
If you want to perform more detailed analysis, you can direct the Driver
Query to save the results in a CSV file so you can open them in a
spreadsheet application such as Excel. To do so, type the following on the
command line:
Driverquery /v /fo csv > drivers.csv
Note: This tip applies only to Windows XP Professional.
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