Follow these eight steps, and it will be hard for your computer to slow down. First, check how much "system resources" you have. Right-click on "My Computer," select "Properties," then "Performance," and see how much "system resources" you have. It should generally reach around 95%.
1. The fewer things on your computer desktop, the better. I only have "My Computer" and "Recycle Bin" on my desktop. Having too many items consumes system resources. Although it's more convenient to have them on the desktop, it comes at the cost of using system resources and sacrificing speed. The solution is to delete all shortcuts from the desktop since they are already in the "Start" menu and "Programs" bar. Move all other files that are not shortcuts to drive D or E, and do not place them on drive C. Drive C should only contain WINDOWS files and some programs that must be installed on C; everything else should be placed on drives D or E.
2. Right-click on "My Computer," select "Properties," then "Performance." Click on "File System" on the left, and there will be an option for "Primary use of this computer (T)." Pull down the arrow and change "Desktop" to "Network Server," then confirm. Next, choose "Virtual Memory" on the right, select "User-specified virtual memory settings (M)," and set both the maximum and minimum values to twice the amount of your computer's memory. For example, if you have 128 MB of memory, set it to "256." Confirm the changes, ignoring any prompts that appear. After confirmation, a restart will be required.
3. Open "My Computer," open drive C, and find the Windows folder. Open it and locate the "Temp" folder. Delete all the files inside (make sure to close other applications beforehand). Next to the "Temp" folder, there is a "Temporary Internet Files" folder. Open it and delete all its contents. Be very careful not to delete the "Temp" and "Temporary Internet Files" folders themselves—only delete everything inside them. Remember this! It’s best to perform such operations once a month.
4. On the bottom row of the computer screen, leave only the real-time monitoring icon of the antivirus software and the "Start" button on the far left. Remove everything else because they consume system resources, and many of them aren't even necessary. If needed, they can all be accessed through the "Start" menu. You can add shortcuts for the most commonly used software to the Start menu and add less frequently used ones to the Programs menu.
5. Set both the desktop wallpaper and the screen saver to "None."
6. Select "Start" — "Programs" — "Accessories" — "System Tools" — "Maintenance Wizard," choose "Change my maintenance settings or schedule," confirm, then select "Customize." In the next step, select "Customize" again, and a dialog box titled "Start Windows faster" will appear. Uncheck all the boxes inside because these are programs that start up when you boot your computer, and many of them aren't necessary. If needed, they can be started manually later and will run quickly. Then proceed to the next step, choose "No," continue to the next step, choose "No" again, and keep selecting "No" until the end, then "Finish." OK!
7. Select "Start" — "Programs" — "Accessories" — "System Tools" — "Disk Scan Program," check "Automatically fix errors," then "Start." This will quickly repair any issues. Repeat this process for all your hard drives: C, D, E, F. Once done, "Close" and exit.
8. Select "Start" — "Programs" — "Accessories" — "System Tools" — "Disk Defragmenter," choose "All Hard Drives" from the drop-down menu, then confirm. Then wait—it might take a while, so feel free to take a break, haha. If you've never run this program before and your hard drive is large, it might take over an hour (if you think it's too long, you can pause it and run it in several sessions later). This program should be run about once a month. After the second time, the running time will be significantly shorter.
After such maintenance, has your computer recovered to the speed it had when you first bought it? Perhaps even faster, haha! Then right-click on "My Computer," select "Properties," then "Performance," and check how much "system resources" you have. Have you reached 95%?
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