How to speed up your Windows 7 pc

As complex and daunting as this might seem it is really not that hard to do. but let us first take a look at what makes your PC so slow in the first place. The biggest contributor to this ongoing hassle, is memory, or the lack thereof . Usually when our PCs slow down to where we want to pick it up and throw it out of the window (which will not solve your problem!) we take them to some or other computer shop where they ask you a lot of money to do what you can do yourself, if you only knew how.

1. But how you ask, well first you can go through your programs and delete the programs that you no longer need.

• Go to the start button on your desktop (usually bottom right of the screen).
• On the right look for "Control Panel" open it. The control panel will open up.
• Look for "Programs" or "Uninstall a Program". The uninstall programs  window will open.
• Go through the list and look for programs that you no longer need or don't use 
• Select "Change/Uninstall" from the top of the window ( Be careful, once its deleted you cannot get it back!)

Follow these general rules to stay safe when deleting programs:
If you do not know the program DON'T delete it!
Only delete programs that YOU have installed yourself, and you know you won't need it any more!
You can also clean up some more space by doing the following

• Go to Windows Explorer also called My Computer.
• Right click on your default drive, usually "C"
• Click on "Properties" at the bottom of the drop-down window
• This will open up the properties panel for that drive. Select the "Disk Cleanup" button on the general tab (it should open up in this tab when you open the properties)
• The "Disk Cleanup" window will open. Make sure all the check boxes are ticked and click on "Clean up system files"
• It will ask if you are sure that you want to delete all of these files, click on "Delete all".

2. After you have done this you must clean up your system registry, for this you will need a external program. I always use CCleaner from Piriform, you can find it here: http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/standard  

• Download and install the cleaner
• Open CCleaner from the desktop shortcut automatically created.
• Once it has opened, cllick on "Registry" on the left hand panel
• Click on "Scan for issues",  the program will now scan for registry problems.
• If it has finished scanning you will see a whole list of errors and problems found in the right hand panel, don't worry what they are just click on "Fix selected issues..."
• A popup window will appear asking you if you want to backup your registry, this is only a precaution so that you can recover your registry as it is before you fixed it. If you select yes, you will be prompted to save a backup file on your hard drive.
• After this another popup window appears, this just gives you a  information on individual problems, but just click on "Fix all selected options"

3. Now that you have cleaned your registry you must do a full virus scan on your computer, this is done in your Anti-Virus programme, if you do not have one yet, I strongly reccomend you get one NOW!
You can get a free one here: http://free.avg.com/za-en/free-antivirus-download
Just download and install this antivirus on your computer and you are safe. Now that you have a antivirus you must open it and run a full scan on your computer, if problems are found your antivirus should fix the problem on its own.

4. Your computer should now be considerably faster but I still reccomend defraging your system, this should also speed up your computer. Open the properties panel of your default drive (See above). Go to the tools tab and click on "Defragment now...". Once the defrag window opens click on the drive you want to defrag (usually "C" drive) so that it is highlighted, next click on "Defragment now". your drive will now be defragmented.


Well your computer should now be considerably faster. The above are things that you should not only do when your computer  is slow, but it is good housekeeping to do this atleast once a month.