Windows Troubleshooting, Optimizing, Free Applications and MorePosted by Gates French on May 11th, 2021 Some of the best ways to optimize Windows would be to just flat out turn off some the useless or unneeded services that run by default on every Windows base install. One such service is the Indexing service included in every install of Windows. it really is probably the most useless services found running in the background of Windows and that is saying quite a lot in the event that you ask me. What is does is it indexes files because they are saved to your hard drive when you search your drives the search could be completed faster. I find that very few people actually use this feature also to top it off I have tried multiple searches with and without this enabled and the difference is none or so small you will never view it if you do use that function. This service will however slow your machine down as each and every file will undoubtedly be indexed as you save it to the hard disk drive. Stopping this service is a very highly encouraged optimization. On how best to stop this service you will have to click the start menu button within the lower left part of your screen. Once you do that then click computer. You should enter Windows Explorer and be able to see your hard drive(s), any floppy and/or CD/DVD ROM drive(s) among others. Right click your hard disk drive ( you may have more than one and this must be done to each ) and click the properties option at the bottom of the pop up. With this pop up you will see a check box which has "Index this drive for faster searching". Uncheck this box and click apply. This may take a while, but is worth it. While you are with this page it is possible to run disk cleanup to greatly help with stuffed hard disks. This to can take quite a long time, but will help in long haul. Also when you have this pop-up box open you might like to click on the tab that says Tools at the top of it. On this new tab you have options to check on your disks for errors, which may be helpful at times, and also to defragment your hard disk drive(s). Defragmenting your hard disk drive(s) is a common, very basic optimization that many people either just forget about or never knew about. All Windows filesystems save files on the disk in clusters which are in sequential order. This is fine so long as you never delete a file, but that's not realistic. Easy solution to explain that is to take four files, lets give them names of A, B, and C for simplicity sake. File A takes up 3 spaces on the disk, B is close to it at 2 spaces and C occupies 5 spaces. If you delete file B and then save a new file such as for example D that would take up 3 spaces, Windows will delete B and fill in its spot with the initial 2 elements of D and place the third part after file C. This forces the computer to read the first 2 parts of D and then move over C to learn another part decreasing read times and hurting efficiency of any program using file D. This is called fragmentation and can turn into a huge problem during the period of years or even months. For this reason defragmenting your hard drive(s) is so vital that you system performance. This process will move all bits of a file and place them next one another so they can be read a lot more efficiently. Troubleshooting Windows can be as easy as using the built-in support and help feature in Windows or by using Google to find the error message you have to help you find what others did to correct the issue you are facing. Windows also offers a recovery console if you have the original install disk, you merely put it in and turn on the computer. Unless your BIOS has been altered it will either boot from the disk or ask you if desire to. Each issue has its way of being solved so a broad troubleshooting guide can not fit in this article. There are many programs on the market that offer a range of services. Many are free and some of those actually do what they say they'll. Some of the best for a few samples of each type are as follows: SpyWare removal: SpyBot search and destroy- includes passive protection built into browsers Ad-Aware-can be used in tandem with Spybot to catch more spy/malware Virus protectors and scanners: Avira-usually rated as a detailed second on free virus protectors and the one I use most often. AVG-is usually in 3rd place, but has made a strive forward and is closing the gap. Avast-has been the very best free virus protector for some time and is rated better than most and equal to the very best paid virus protectors out there. Office applications: Openoffice- can save files in Microsoft Office format if that is your thing so less worries on that side, but Sun Microsystems, which produces this free open source software, has been bought out by Oracle. This might endanger this project, I advise getting this software although it is still widely available. Messengers: Of course the most common of msn, yahoo, etc. etc. Pidgin-Can be used to connect to all the most famous messenger system around in one program. Lastly to be discussed here is the os's besides Windows. Most Windows converts have went to Apple's Operating System which is based off of the same unix kernal that bsd and linux are. I have seen many say Mac has more in keeping with the BSD OSs than with the linux ones as of late. If you haven't tried these operating-system I can give you some guidance here. Be sure to read some literature on each before you attempt to use these as this will save you many headaches, also look at each ones forums and read what problems new users of every one are having as an idea of what you may be facing. Apple has been closing the gap on being able to run the same programs wanted to Windows users and much of their software database is actually superior to Windows. Windows Os Troubleshooting can't speak much on BSD as I have not had lots of time to invest with it, but I can make a few suggestions on the linux side.Like it? Share it! More by this author |