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Cleaning and Speeding Up Your Computer

CCleanerI've been using computers since the very first Texas Instruments TI-99 I had.  It had a cassett "drive" for long term (ROM) storage. I'm afraid some of the newer technologies are beginning to pass me by, but there is something I want to share with the readers of TKC.

You may notice your computer's speed diminish over time.  Many things can cause this lack of vigor but one thing you can do is clean out what is called the "registry".  A good, FREE program I found that does this quite nicely is called CCLEANER.  It can be downloaded from it's official site by going here: http://www.ccleaner.com/

I typically clean the registry every month or so by running CCLEANER 2 or 3 times in a row until it shows no more loose registry entries.  Running a registry cleaner will also usually stop some errors that may be happening when you start up your computer.

Be careful with any other registry cleaner software.  There is one I actually paid for that appeared to have spyware on it.

 

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CCleaner in action

A co-worker had a problem with her home computer.  It would not boot to windows when she turned it on.  She took it to a big-box electronics store to be looked at.  They were going to charge her $35.00 just to analyze it & another $200.00 to recover & clean it up.  The kid at the store even told her she might just consider buying new computer.  All of these options were expensive for her.

Hearing about her problem, I advised she go home, boot her computer up in what is called "safe mode" -- safe mode only loads up the bare essentials, that way if there is a virus or some other error issue with your computer, you can sometimes still get your computer to work in safe mode.

Since she didn't already have CCleaner on her computerm she would need to boot up in what what is called safe mode with networking -- this way she'd be able to acces the Internet to download CCleaner.  You can usually boot in safe mode by holding down the F8 key as you re-start your computer.

Once she did this, she download CCleaner, ran the registry cleaner 3 times until there were no more errors.  She then re-booted her computer normally & TADA!!!  Everything worked perfectly.

CCleaner

I absolutely agree. I've been using CCleaner for the better part of this year and I have nothing but positive experiences with it. I heartily and unreservedly recommend CCleaner. It used to be known as "Crap Cleaner" and that is an accurate description of what it does to your computer. It cleans out the accumulated detritus associated with web browsing and day to day computer use. It is customizable as well.

One word of advice. When installing CCleaner there are several options given to you. I recommend that you uncheck the box marked for "install the yahoo toolbar.