For those of us with Windows laptops, we’ve all experienced some sort of lag or decrease in performance.  With a few simple steps, you can take action and make your laptop run faster, improve laptop performance, and optimize overall runtime.

Perform a Windows Cleanup:

1. Go into My Computer
2. Right click on the C: drive
3. Select properties
4. Under the General tab, select the Disk Cleanup option.
5. Under Tools, select Error Checking and then Disk Defragment in turn.
6. Empty the recycle bin
7. Delete temp files off your computer by going to the Start menu
8. Selecting Search, All Files and Folders
9. Search for “.tmp” files
10. Delete all temp files your computer finds to clear up disk space

Protect your Computer:

By downloading a good virus scan/blocker and a good computer screen for other malicious programs, you can clean and protect your computer from viruses, malware, adware, Trojans, hackers, and a list of other malicious programs.

Clear Hard Drive Space:

An efficient and fairly low-cost way to clear up hard drive space, as opposed to buying a larger hard drive for your laptop, is to buy a USB drive (4G or higher is best).  Transfer any multimedia files (pictures, rarely used documents, music) onto the USB drive. Then delete the files from your computer, empty the recycle bin, and run a disk defragment.

All of these steps will help optimize your laptop and make it run faster.  On top of these tips, downloading and using a good registry cleaner will also help speed up your computer and help you avoid harmful laptop freezes/crashes caused by registry errors on your hard drive.

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You don’t have to read every post in this blog to realize that running a full virus and registry scan at least once a week is as imperative as taking a bath at least once a day (I really hope that you do). We’ve devoted almost every article in this blog to campaign for PC optimization and security, and you cannot attain either if you don’t check your PC regularly for viruses and other malware.

At first glance, it seems that there’s no excuse for us to skip or fail to run a full system scan. After all, it takes just one click to scan your whole PC for malware. However, a typical hard drive contains thousands of system and other data files. Depending upon the depth or thoroughness of the scan that you’ve set, the antivirus software would generally rummage through every item in your computer. This process would definitely be time-consuming.

In this era where time is more valuable than gold, many simply cannot afford to freeze their tasks just to make way for their antivirus and anti-spyware programs to do their job. While there is such a thing as multitasking, sharing PC resources with an antivirus could be a problem since a security suite that’s running a full system scan would be very jealous of anything that tries to get the CPU’s attention.

Deadlines and other tasks should not be made as seemingly reasonable excuses to skip a full system scan. Unless you’re working 24 hours a day, there will definitely be pockets of time where your PC’s CPU would feel useless or neglected. Make use of these periods to flex your antivirus and registry scanner’s muscles. Schedule scans during lunch breaks or even after office hours. Every PC task can be done automatically, so you don’t have to baby sit the whole process. Trust everything in your anti-malware programs or to your task scheduler. It will take care of everything.

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Are you constantly being annoyed by Autoplay? If you have no idea what I’m talking about, Autoplay is that window which appears whenever you insert a CD or plug in a flash drive. It presents you with options as to the available programs you may want to use in opening the files inside the media.

Some see this as very useful and convenient. For others, they are irritated whenever they are always prompted as to what they would want to do with the files inside the drive or disk. If you’re going to ask me though, I see Autoplay as something of both, with danger on the side.

For unsuspecting or careless users, Autoplay may just pave the way for malware inside the disk that they’ve inserted to be introduced into his system. Instead of exercising prudence by scanning the disk first, users are tempted to immediately open the files inside the media since Autoplay has already prompted them as to the available or compatible programs that could be used to open them.

Don’t just click around or continue typing when you’ve just introduced a media to your PC since you might accidentally click “OK” when Autoplay to pops out. If the files therein turn out to be infected, then you’ll be spending the next few hours scanning and ridding your hard drive of unwanted guests.

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