Sluggish PC? Give it a workout

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In this story: Let My Resource Go Free the Disk Space Lose More Bloat RELATED STORIES, SITES

by Matt Lake

(IDG) -- If you're slowing down a bit, your doctor might tell you to pop a few vitamins, lay off the fats and sugars, and visit the gym more often. But pepping up your PC requires a very different regime.

This PC workout plan focuses on healthy exercises that free up bogged-down hard drives and memory resources. With regular workouts--and I'm talking only once every one or two months, not three times a week--you can trim layers of ugly fat from your PC's hard drive and RAM. Unlike a visit to the gym, it should take no more than 15 or 20 minutes, and you'll notice the difference immediately. What personal health spa could truthfully make a claim like that?

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What's slowing your PC down? It's not the long years of hard labor. The most likely culprit is software taking up precious RAM while it runs. Maybe you downloaded a killer MP3 jukebox that also chugs memory, or maybe your machine can't handle running many programs at once. Whatever the reason, a lack of RAM will slow down your system dramatically. The following resource diet plan can help you find the big memory hogs and kick 'em out of your system.

It's easy to find out how much memory you're using: Run the System Monitor, a set of gauges for your PC. Click Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Monitor to start the program. When you first use the System Monitor, you'll probably see only its default gauge, called Kernel Processor Usage, which shows how hard the CPU is working at any given moment, similar to what a tachometer does. You need to add the more important "gas gauge"--the one that shows how much physical memory, or RAM, is available for use. To do this, select Edit, Add Item, select the Memory Manager category, and then click Unused physical memory at the bottom of the Item list. (Physical memory is the total amount of RAM on the memory modules plugged into slots on your motherboard.)

Our test system displayed only a sliver of color at the bottom of the graph, meaning that, while we ran a word processor, one Web browser window, and an instant messaging program, only 2MB of our system's 64MB of RAM remained free. Once Windows uses up all the RAM or physical memory, it delves into much slower virtual memory on the hard drive.

Your readings will vary, depending on how much RAM you have and how many programs you run at once, but in our case something really needed to be done. Clearly, Windows was loading more programs at startup than it needed or could handle. To cut out the bloat in the operating system, we turned to another Windows 98 tool, the System Configuration Utility.

Windows uses several files and the Registry to determine which applications run at start-up. But you don't need to hunt across your hard drive for them; just use the built-in System Configuration Utility. The SCU runs down the programs that Windows launches at start-up, and gives you the ability to toggle on or off the automatic loading of any or all of those programs.

The quickest way to launch the System Configuration Utility is to click Start, Run, type MSCONFIG in the field, and then click the OK button. Click the Startup tab to see the list of programs--each with a checked-off box--that run when you fire up the PC.

The big question is, which ones can you safely turn off? Also, which ones give you the greatest benefit by being turned off?

The first place to look for programs to nix is the system tray, the row of tiny icons next to Windows' clock in the bottom-right of the Taskbar. When you first install Windows, you should have only one tray icon: the speaker, which lets you change audio volume. Over time, and as you install software, more icons move into the tray, consuming valuable RAM in the process. A tray full of icons is the most obvious sign of an overloaded system.

What can you nix from the tray? Any duplicate entries, which can cause system instabilities; anything from Real Networks (usually you'll see the RealPlayer StartCenter); any instant messaging software (unless you're an instant messaging junkie); and any jukebox or music software (Napster, for example, stays running in the tray even when you close the main application). Why hack away at these fun things? Because they suck up a lot of resources even when they're not actively running, and that slows down your work--ironically making it harder to finish quickly so you can get to the fun stuff.

Here's a technique you can use to turn off system tray programs:

1. Place the pointer over each tray icon; the Tooltip will help you determine what application each one represents. To shut them off, click or right-click each icon and select the option that turns it off--usually Exit. If the icon doesn't provide a menu, press Ctrl-Alt-Delete, select the name of the tray application, and click the End Task button.



2. Check the System Monitor to see how much memory this process frees. (You should still have System Monitor running from "How Much RAM Do You Lose?" above.)



3. If shutting down an application frees a lot of memory and doesn't cause problems, look at the listings in the System Configuration Utility's Startup tab for those same tray programs you deem unnecessary--for example, the RealPlayer StartCenter. Uncheck the box next to those programs. Never uncheck the TaskMonitor or SystemTray items in this list; Windows needs them to work properly.



4. Repeat this process until you've freed 20 percent or more of physical memory. In a system with 64MB, try to free at least 12MB; in one with 128MB, shoot for a minimum of 26MB.

The great thing about using the SCU is that all changes you make are reversible. If you later find that you want the RealPlayer StartCenter after all, just fire up the SCU and check the box again.

A couple of other common background applications you can knock off come from Microsoft Office. Findfast occasionally indexes every Office document on your hard drive. It's supposed to work only in idle time, but what it thinks of as idle time (when the hard disk isn't working) usually doesn't jibe with how you see idle time (when you're not using the PC at all). You can't help but notice Findfast doing its job: Suddenly your hard drive starts spinning wildly when you're just typing or reading. The other waste of space is the Office Startup applet (called OSA.exe), which helps Office apps start a tiny bit faster, but not so much that it's worth the RAM it consumes.

To kill these two resource-grabbers, hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete, select (one at a time) Findfast and OSA from the list, and then click the End Task button. Next, right-click the Start button and select Explore. Navigate to Programs, then to the StartUp folder, and delete the shortcuts to Findfast and OSA.

But this job is only the first step to a heart-healthy PC. You also need to get rid of those useless, space-wasting files on your hard drive.

You know how sleepy you feel after a big Thanksgiving turkey meal? Your PC can get that same feeling. A full or nearly full hard drive can dramatically slow Windows. In such situations, you have no choice: Trim the excess fat from the hard drive.

You can do that with surgical accuracy using a handy, built-in Windows 98 tool called Disk Cleanup. You could set it to run only when you get desperately short of disk space--but why wait until it's too late? If you delete as you go, you may never run short of disk space at all.

Disk Cleanup does some of the hard drive housework for you: It hunts down and clears out disposable files. To summon this magic housekeeper, open My Computer and right-click the icon for your main hard drive (usually labeled C:). Select the Properties option from the menu.

In the dialog box that pops up, you'll see a pie chart that shows how much disk space you have free. Next to it, you'll see a button labeled Disk Cleanup. Click that button to run the cleanup utility, and Windows will find all of your disposable files--such as cached temporary Internet files, deleted files in the Recycle Bin, and (if you upgraded to this version of Windows from an earlier one) dozens of megabytes of uninstall files. All of those can be deleted to free up disk space: Place a check mark next to each item you're prepared to delete, then click the OK button and let Disk Cleanup do its stuff.

Your hard drive may also be full of dusty, unused programs. PCs bought with installed software often have lots of programs you have no interest in. The trick is to track 'em down and get rid of 'em. Disk Cleanup provides quick access to the tools you need to remove bits of Windows or other programs--just click the More Options tab, and then click the Clean Up button for either Windows components or installed programs.

The Windows Setup option provides a list of categories and components with check boxes. To remove one, click its box to remove the check mark. If you want to selectively remove features, double-click a category and click to remove individual items. (Who needs all those screen savers?) When you click the Apply button, Windows uninstalls the software. If you later find that you need some of the Windows components, you can always reinstall them by clicking the check box next to the items you need.

As for programs, only you know what you don't use, and Windows 98 doesn't help much. Windows 2000 provides much better clues, grading how often you use the program, from rarely to frequently. We're willing to bet you'll find a couple that you don't ever use anymore.

Even after you nix the obvious candidates, you may still have hundreds of megabytes burdening your hard disk. Here are a few pointers for cutting even more digital lard. And at the end, I'll teach you a technique that will make your system run faster.

I'm sure you like--no, love-- FileWorld. But if you download freeware and shareware all the time, you're in for bloat trouble.

Even if you use the applications, their setup files don't need to be on your hard disk. Keep all your file downloads in one folder--just make one under My Documents or on the Desktop and call it Downloads. After a few months, you'll find a healthy collection there.

Since it's quicker to reinstall from a disk than to download all over again, you'll want to back up rather than just delete these setup programs. You can safely move them to a Zip disk or to a recordable CD and just clear them right off.

Open any folder that contains Microsoft Word documents, and you may find files with odd names that start with ~WRL and end in .TMP. You may find others that start with a couple of gibberish characters (~$) followed by a recognizable file name. Microsoft Office creates these temporary files in the same folder as the original document, just in case the application crashes or closes down abnormally. If you save your work and shut down the application correctly, Office should delete the files automatically. But if you have a lot of freezes while working in Office apps, you're likely to find these temporary files all over your hard drive--and sometimes it leaves those useless files behind.

You can safely delete these temporary files once you verify the original document is okay. Here's how to remove them:

1. Close any running Microsoft Office applications.



2. Select Start, Find, Files or folders, and type ~WRL*.TMP (and don't forget the asterisk).



3. Click the Find Now button. Click the Modified column once to sort the results by date, and select all the results except those stamped with the current date.



4. Press the Delete key to send the files to the Recycle Bin. Right-click the Recycle Bin and select Empty Recycle Bin to get rid of them for good.

Your Web browser also stores loads of Temporary Internet Files in its cache folder, all of which you wouldn't miss if they disappeared. If you use Internet Explorer 4 or 5, click Tools, Internet Options, click the Delete Files button, and then click OK. You use Netscape, you say? Click Edit, Preferences, expand the Advanced category, and select the Cache option. In the Cache pane that appears, click the Clear Disk Cache button. This can free from 8MB to over 100MB of space used by cached files, depending on the settings you use.

If program installations were people, they'd constantly be nagged by their housemates about the mess. They're slobs--they leave junk lying around everywhere on the hard drive.

In My Computer, look on your hard disk for a folder called something like _msstartup. If you're not currently installing a program at this very second, you can delete these files right now. Then use the Find tool to search for these file patterns one at a time:

~*.*
_*.*
*.??_
*.??~

Don't worry about these cryptic codes--just enter them as they are. Delete all the files that appear in the search results pane.

You'll soon discover that the biggest files in existence are poorly compressed digital video. Search for *.avi and *.mov files using Windows' Find tool. You'll be surprised to find about 2MB worth of such files devoted to animated help for Windows and Office. Watch them first, and then delete with extreme prejudice.

You don't have to be a philistine to throw out pictures you don't need. GIF and JPEG files are spread across your hard disk, and while these are well-compressed graphic formats, they still take up space. Use Find to search for *.bmp, *.gif, *.jpeg, *.jpg, *.pcx, and *.tif. Naturally, you'll want to view the results, but if you don't like the pictures, delete them and clear some disk space. Or move them to a Zip drive if you don't need them on your hard drive.

Just taking programs off your hard disk is only half the task. To bring your disk into full health, defragment it regularly. Disk storage is so haphazard that, on a partially filled disk with a few files deleted, any new large file you save could be spread out in six or ten different places, making it harder to load. Defragmenting your hard drive should always be the last step after you remove lots of files.

Defragmenting puts all the bits of your files in the same place, making future file opening and saving more efficient. To load the defragmenting tool, double-click My Computer and right-click your main hard disk (usually named C:). Select Properties, and then click the Tools tab. Click the Defragment Now button and go away for about an hour while the program does its job.

If you've done everything up to this point, you've just completed your PC's regular file maintenance routine. If you're doing these tasks for the first time, you're likely to notice a remarkable improvement in your PC's performance. Just like people, PCs need a bit of exercise now and again to stay limber and agile. If in a few months you notice your system taking a long time to complete tasks, don't curse its sagging buns, just run it through this same workout again.

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