First, everything on this page should be done at least once a month. However, it may be necessary to perform these steps more often if you have problems with your PC often. Power outages should be mitigated through the use of a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) as not shutting down your PC correctly is a major cause of filesystem corruption.

Filesystem Check
Key to any Operating System (OS) is the underlying filesystem. A filesystem is the structure of how files are arranged in the media (hard disk, flash drive, CD, even floppy!). If the filesystem becomes corrupted the OS may not know where to retrieve files from or files may be destroyed.

Every OS has a way to check the filesystem. I’m concentrating on Windows because the vast majority of American businesses use this as their desktop OS. If you’re using XP, you’ll need to login as an Administrator (because you’re not using that account for daily activities, are you?). Vista users should be prompted to enter the Administrator password when necessary. Other than that, the procedure is the same.

Open “My Computer.” Most computers will have one hard drive usually labeled as “C:”. Right-click on the C: drive and choose “Properties”. Select the “Tools” tab and click the “Check Now” button. If you’re using Vista, the OS will prompt you for the Administrator password. On the “Check Local Disk Options” dialog, make sure “Automatically fix file system errors” is checked. Do not check “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors” unless you suspect you have a hard drive problem and are willing to wait for the OS to scan every bit of the media – which can take a very long time. Windows will tell you that it can not check the drive at the current time and ask you if it may schedule the check the next time you start the computer. Obviously, you want to say yes. Then reboot the computer. Windows will check the drive on startup, usually giving you the option to abort the check by pressing a key – don’t.

The results of the check may scroll by quickly and they won’t mean a whole lot to most people. If you really want to see what Windows found, you can check in the Event Viewer. We get to the Event Viewer by clicking “My Computer” then “Control Panel” then “Administrative Tools” and finally “Event Viewer.” Once again, you will need to login as an Administrator under XP. Vista will not prompt you this time. Inside the Event Viewer, Choose “Application” (under Vista, choose “Windows Logs” first). We’re looking for the topmost entry with a source of “Winlogon” for XP, and “Wininit” for Vista. The contents of this entry is really outside the scope of this article and I couldn’t find a good resource to explain them, so maybe I’ll write a future article on them.

Clean Temporary Files

Thankfully, Windows has made it easier to cleanup unnecessary files on your drives. Under Windows XP and Vista the process is very similar. From “Start” choose “Accessories,” then “System Tools,” and “Disk Cleanup.” As usual, under XP, you need to run as an Administrator. Under Vista, you will be asked whether you want to clean up “My files only” or “Files from all users on this computer.” If you choose the latter, you’ll be prompted to enter the Administrator’s password. We’re only going to be concerned with the primary drive, choose “C:” from the drop down list if it is not already selected and click “OK.” The program will run for a minute or so, scanning for files that can safely be removed. Everything presented in the next list is safe to select, although “Compress Old Files” will cause those files to be accessed more slowly, which may cause performance issues, so I don’t recommend it. Click “OK” and reclaim some disk space.

Although Disk Cleanup does a fair job of cleaning up unnecessary files, I have found some files to be left behind. If you aren’t scared of looking into the internals of Windows, open “My Computer” and type “%TEMP%”, without the quotes, in the address bar, then press enter. You will be taken to your user account temporary files. Make sure you have no programs open when you delete these. Vista will give you the option to skip undeleteable files, whereas XP will fail the command. If it does, select the others and continue deleting.

Defragment

This is probably the easiest step of the exercise. Disk Defragmenter can be found under “Accessories”, “System Tools.” And you’re probably familiar with the fact that you need to run this as an Administrator or be prompted for a password. Once you’re in the application all you need to do is press “Defragment now” on Vista, or simply “Defragment” on XP. Vista will continue to defragment even if you close the application (unless you restart), whereas XP will not. Vista also gains the ability to schedule defragmentation, but I find most PCs are not on when it wants to run, and you shouldn’t defragment while you’re working.

I suggest that if this is your first time running the Disk Defragmenter, that you prepare to let it run all night. I also recommend not working while it is running as other applications you run will suffer a performance penalty and defragmentation will not be as complete as it could be. Successive runs should not take as long and PC performance should increase (though not necessarily enough to see). Either way, this is an important step in the health of your PC.

Conclusion

PC Maintenance is much much more than starting a few programs and pressing a few buttons. Its an important part of maintaining the value of your equipment purchase. If you are a home user, this guide will get you by well enough, but if you are a business user, make sure you seek the advice and assitance of a competant technology company in your area.

RUN AS AN ADMINISTRATOR

Back in the days of DOS (and up to Windows ME), if you used the Windows operating system, you ran with administrative privileges. Since the advent of Windows 2000, users have been given the choice to run their PCs with limited user accounts that are not allowed to change system files.

However, the average user today still performs his or her daily activity using an account with administrative privileges. This is the single biggest mistake people make using PCs today.

“So what. What’s the real danger?” you say.

Lets start with simple facts. (1.) A limited user account is exactly what it says it is – an account with no rights to change critical system files. This means that a limited user can’t change or delete files that would cause the PC to crash or otherwise become unusable. (2.) An administrative account can change system files, basically doing anything they want to do, including deleting or changing files that could cause the PC to become unstable. (3.) Any website you visit, any program you run, any file you open at all – has the same rights as you do.

“But, I don’t go to websites that would harm me and I’m not going to download anything harmful to my PC,” you say.

Wrong. According to Google, 1 in every 1000 websites is infected with malicious software. These aren’t sleazy websites either:

In the past year the Web sites of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” movie and the Miami Dolphins were hacked, and the MySpace profile of Alicia Keys was used to attack visitors.

The point is that the web isn’t safe and that cute little game you just downloaded is possibly feeding your credit card numbers to the web right now. I’m not trying to be dramatic, I’m trying to wake you up.

So what can you do? First, make the decision to commit to a process to keep you and your PC safe. If you won’t do that, nothing I say here will make a difference. Second, create a single administrative account with a password (accounts without passwords might as well be open doors, anyone can walk through), call it something that designates the impotance, such as Installer or Admin. Third, login with the administrative account and change the account type of all other accounts to limited. Fourth, only login to the administrative account to install software, updates or perform other administrative tasks (defragment, spyware scans, etc.). Finally, never, I mean NEVER, surf the Internet, read mail or do any daily work in the administrative account.

I can hear the whining already, “but, now I have to do a whole bunch of logging off/logging on just to install software.” Yes, you do and that’s part of the point, to make it more difficult for software to be changed on your PC. Remember, if you can’t do it on your account, neither can viruses, spyware and adware.

Lastly, this is not the end of the process. Simply changing account types won’t prevent a malicious website from putting something on your PC. Your user account can still be infected, but at least this way your PC will most likely be safe, and you have an administrative account to help clean it out if necessary.