Cleaning Windows XP For Dummies (363 trang) by Allen Wyatt Contents at a Glance Introduction .1 Part I: The Basics of Cleaning Your System .7 Chapter 1: First Things First: Why You Should Clean 9 Chapter 2: Determining What to Clean and When .19 Part II: Programs and Data .33 Chapter 3: Identifying What You Have .35 Chapter 4: Making Your Programs Run Faster 49 Chapter 5: Getting Rid of Old Programs 63 Chapter 6: Data, Data Everywhere .77 Chapter 7: Organizing and Archiving Data 91 Part III: E-Mail and the Internet 103 Chapter 8: Tackling E-Mail Overload 105 Chapter 9: Organizing Your E-Mail .119 Chapter 10: Banishing Internet Villains .135 Chapter 11: Managing Internet Information 151 Part IV: The Operating System .165 Chapter 12: Cleaning Up the User Interface 167 Chapter 13: Streamlining Windows 183 Chapter 14: Speeding Up the File System 207 Chapter 15: Managing Windows Updates 219 Chapter 16: Getting a New System .231 Part V: Advanced Cleaning for the Truly Brave .243 Chapter 17: Memory and Storage .245 Chapter 18: Becoming Security Conscious .255 Chapter 19: Cleaning House in a Networked Environment .269 Chapter 20: Jumping Into the Registry 279 Chapter 21: Wiping the Slate Clean 295 Part VI: The Part of Tens .307 Chapter 22: Ten Troubleshooting Ideas 309 Chapter 23: Ten Software Cleaning Tools 313 Chapter 24: Ten Online Resources .315 Chapter 25: Ten Cool Things in XP Service Pack 2 317 Index .321 Table of Contents Introduction 1 How to Read This Book .1 Assumptions About You 2 A Word about Operating Systems and Service Pack 2 2 How This Book Is Organized .3 Part I: The Basics of Cleaning Your System 3 Part II: Programs and Data 4 Part III: E-Mail and the Internet .4 Part IV: The Operating System .4 Part V: Advanced Cleaning for the Truly Brave 4 Part VI: The Part of Tens .5 Customs and Practices 5 Icons Used in This Book 5 Where to Go from Here 6 Part I: The Basics of Cleaning Your System .7 Chapter 1: First Things First: Why You Should Clean .9 Telltale Signs of an Unclean Computer 10 The view from the desktop isn’t pretty .10 Traversing the Start menu jungle is an adventure .11 Your PC is slower than molasses 12 You have files older than your dog 13 Your system tray looks like a parking lot 14 Cleaning Up: The Pros and Cons 14 The pros .15 The cons 16 Balancing pros and cons .16 Keeping Your House Tidy 17 Chapter 2: Determining What to Clean and When .19 How to Eat an Elephant .19 Precautions for Safety’s Sake 21 Finding the Right Tools .23 Finding Windows tools 23 Finding third-party tools .25 Creating a Cleaning Schedule .26 Now. Do it now — right now 26 Once a week should do it 27 It’s the end of the month already! 28 Time for the annual clean-a-fest .29 Time for an Overhaul? .30 Is New Hardware the Answer? 31 Part II: Programs and Data 33 Chapter 3: Identifying What You Have .35 Creating a Program Inventory 35 The think-tank approach .36 The laid-back approach .37 Finding Out What Programs Are Installed 38 Inspecting your desktop 38 Scrutinizing the Start menu 40 Checking the Control Panel .40 Peering in program folders .41 Discovering What Programs Run When 43 Starting up for all users .43 Starting up for just you 44 Figuring Out What Is Running Right Now 45 Making a Game Plan .48 Chapter 4: Making Your Programs Run Faster 49 Common Sense for Programs .49 Turn off whiz-bang features 50 Watch out for networking “gotchas” 50 Never upgrade unless you have to .51 Speeding up specific software 52 Speeding Up Access to Large Data Files 56 Change your hardware 56 Reconfigure your data .57 Reconfigure your program 57 Are We Compatible? .58 Playing Games 60 Pushing the Envelope: Multimedia Editing Programs .62 Chapter 5: Getting Rid of Old Programs 63 Identifying Candidates for Removal .63 Unused programs you installed 64 Preinstalled software .64 Stuff you find in the Program Files folder 65 Four Ways to Remove Unwanted Programs .66 An application’s uninstall command .66 The Add or Remove Programs applet in the Control Panel 67 Third-party software 69 The brute-force method 69 Eliminating Remnants of Failed Programs 74 Chapter 6: Data, Data Everywhere 77 Finding Temporary Files .78 Locating and deleting files from temporary folders 79 Finding and eliminating specific files .81 Tracking Down Orphan Data 82 Doing a Disk Cleanup .83 Finding and Eliminating Duplicate Data 86 What to Do with Multimedia Files 88 Empty the Recycle Bin Often 89 Chapter 7: Organizing and Archiving Data .91 Organizing Your Data .91 Adding and partitioning hard drives .92 Creating a folder structure 93 Watching your depth 94 Moving, renaming, and deleting folders 94 Clearing Out Your Root Directory 96 What About the Default Folders? .97 Archiving and Backing Up Data 99 Archiving what you don’t need .99 Backing up what you still need .101 Storing backups and archives .102 Part III: E-Mail and the Internet .103 Chapter 8: Tackling E-Mail Overload .105 Using Different Accounts to Manage and Reduce E-Mail 106 Managing incoming mail 106 Reducing unwanted mail .107 Psychology 101: Don’t Answer That Phone . er, E-Mail .108 Why You Get Spam .109 Harvesting addresses 110 Guessing addresses 110 Purchasing addresses 112 Tactics for Limiting Spam 113 Implementing Spam Filters .114 Types of filters 114 Types of filter technology .116 Combating Spam with a Challenge/Response System 117 Chapter 9: Organizing Your E-Mail .119 Using Folders Effectively .120 Smart Move: Using Mail Rules 121 Creating a rule .121 Rearranging the rules 125 Deleting a rule .126 Deleting E-Mail Regularly 126 Determine a cutoff point for e-mails 127 Empty the Deleted Items folder 127 Empty the junk mail folder 127 Watching Out for Attachments .129 Archiving Valuable E-Mail 130 Enabling built-in archives 130 Using the Mailbox Cleanup tool in Outlook 132 Rolling your own archive process 132 Chapter 10: Banishing Internet Villains .135 Uh-Oh! Do I Have a Virus? .136 Finding viruses on your computer .136 Blocking viruses .137 Sizing Up Spyware 138 Identifying spyware 139 Getting to know spyware .140 Eliminating spyware .142 Blocking Pop-Ups .145 Employing pop-up blockers 145 Blocking Flash ads 146 Non-Pop-Up Pop-Ups .148 Resisting the Lure of Trinkets 150 Chapter 11: Managing Internet Information .151 Are Cookies a Reason for Worry? .151 Blocking cookies .152 Managing your cookies 154 Deleting all cookies 154 Negotiating Newsgroups .156 Organizing Web Favorites .157 Taming Web Cache Files 158 Cleaning the cache .159 Finding the cache .160 Changing the cache size 162 Part IV: The Operating System .165 Chapter 12: Cleaning Up the User Interface .167 Master of the Desktop .167 Displaying the traditional desktop icons 168 Renaming and deleting icons 170 Running the Desktop Cleanup Wizard .171 A word on themes and screensavers .173 Ordering the Menu System .173 Picking a Start menu layout 174 Customizing the Start menu 174 Moving items in the All Programs list 176 Creating your own program groups .176 Effectively Using the Taskbar .177 Birds of a feather . 177 Cleaning the notification area .179 Cleaning Up the Control Panel .181 Chapter 13: Streamlining Windows 183 Installing Just What You Need 183 Setting Performance Options .185 Understanding visual effects 186 Advanced performance options .187 Using the Microsoft System Configuration Utility .188 Modifying the startup process .190 Modifying startup files .191 Modifying what is started 192 Working with the Latest Drivers .193 Checking a driver’s signature .193 Checking for updated device drivers .196 Removing device drivers .196 Going on a .DLL Diet 197 Shut Down Unused Services .198 Services in the Computer Manager 199 Services in msconfig 201 Putting System Restore to Work .201 Configuring System Restore 202 Setting a restore point .203 Reverting to history .204 Chapter 14: Speeding Up the File System .207 Which File System to Use? 208 The FAT file system 208 The NTFS file system .208 Making your choice 209 Changing File Systems .209 Seeing what file system you use .210 Converting to NTFS 210 Converting to FAT .211 Defragmenting Your Drive .212 Checking for Errors 215 Using Windows’ disk tools 215 Using chkdsk .216 To Compress or Not? .217 Chapter 15: Managing Windows Updates 219 Getting Updates the Way You Want .220 Manual updates 220 Automatic updates .222 Picking an update method 224 Which Updates Do You Really Need? 225 Getting Rid of Update Files .227 Chapter 16: Getting a New System .231 When Is Getting a New System Justified? 232 What Should You Get? .233 High-end systems .233 Mid-range systems .234 Low-end systems 235 Portable systems 235 Preparing for the New System 236 Collecting pieces and parts .237 Collecting information .237 Reinstalling Programs 240 Transferring Data .241 Part V: Advanced Cleaning for the Truly Brave 243 Chapter 17: Memory and Storage 245 How Windows Uses Memory 245 Determining Whether You Need More Memory .246 Will Another Hard Drive Help? .249 Faster speed 249 Better performance 250 Choosing Between Internal or External Hard Drives .252 Easy backups 252 Easy data transfer 253 Alternative Storage Solutions .253 Chapter 18: Becoming Security Conscious 255 Battening Down the Hatches 256 Physical security 256 Data loss 257 Data recovery 257 Malicious programs 258 Insecure passwords .258 Staying Secure on the Internet .259 Using Internet zones 259 Harnessing SSL .261 Closing down security problems 262 Adding Firewalls .263 The Windows firewall .263 ZoneAlarm .266 Hardware firewalls 267 Checking Your Security with Service Pack 2 267 Chapter 19: Cleaning House in a Networked Environment 269 Getting Rid of Old User Accounts 270 Deleting network user accounts .270 Deleting local system user accounts .270 Moving Frequently Accessed Data .272 Removing Shared Printers 273 Limiting shared printer hours 273 Turning off shared printing .274 Removing Shared Folders .276 Cutting Your System off the Network 277 Chapter 20: Jumping Into the Registry 279 Groking the Registry Behemoth .280 Seeing the trees in the Registry forest .281 Buzzing through the Registry hives .281 Unlocking Registry keys 282 Appreciating Registry values 283 Editing the Registry .283 Backing up the Registry .285 Finding information 286 Editing values 288 Adding keys or values 289 Deleting Registry items 290 Using Registry Cleaning Software 290 Registry analyzers 291 Registry cleaners 291 Registry compactors 292 Restoring the Registry .292 Chapter 21: Wiping the Slate Clean 295 Doing a Windows XP Reinstall 295 Fixing from a fresh boot .296 Starting from within Windows 297 Using an OEM System Restore Disc .300 Wiping Out Your System .302 Preparing for the wipeout .302 Doing the deed 303 Picking up the pieces .304 Part VI: The Part of Tens 307 Chapter 22: Ten Troubleshooting Ideas .309 Check Your Startup Files .309 Install Windows Updates .309 Run a Spyware Removal Program 310 Remove Unused Programs 310 See What Processes Are Running .310 Run the Disk Cleanup Utility .311 Defragment Your Disk Drives 311 Check File Sizes 311 Check the Size of Your Registry .311 Start Your System in Safe Mode .312 Chapter 23: Ten Software Cleaning Tools .313 Chapter 24: Ten Online Resources .315 Chapter 25: Ten Cool Things in XP Service Pack 2 .317 Windows Firewall .317 Memory Protection 318 Network Administration 318 Windows Media Player 318 Automatic Updates 318 Outlook Express .319 Add or Remove Programs Filter .319 Security Center .319 Pop-Up Blocker .319 Internet Explorer Improvements 320 Index 321 Introduction Acomputer is nothing but a tool. It’s bigger than a hammer (well, most hammers), heavier than a screwdriver, and generally less noisy than a circular saw — but is nonetheless a tool. You can do more stuff with a computer than you can with a hammer and a screwdriver, but hammers and screwdrivers are simpler to use and easier to clean up. (Circular saws are another story; things can get messy really fast.) Your computer does get messy; have no doubt about it. Programs load and unload, files pop into existence and then slither off to unknown parts of your hard drive, and spyware tries to adhere itself to your operating system. Every day your system changes, as information is added and new demands are placed on old programs. All these things add to the unique clutter that comes to define and weigh down your system. You can redefine your system and free your system, all by identifying and removing the clutter. Cleaning Windows XP For Dummies shows you how.