There is nothing worse than a slow computer, especially when that computer used to be fast! I see it all too often, the one thing that people complain about the most with their computers is that there running slow.

The fact of the matter is that after a while your machine starts to slow down as you put more and more software on it. Extra processes are being ran in the background and extra memory is being used, the result? Your computer starts to get slower and slower, so what can you do? Well there are a few things, so lets take a look!

1: Remove old software: Its always a good idea to remove old software that you no longer need, this will free up disk drive space and also possibly remove extra running processes from the background.

2: Check your startup list and remove items from it: Click start > then run and type in ‘msconfig’ and click ok (This is applicable for Windows Xp, Vista and I believe Windows 7) Click on the startup tab at the top:

msconfig screenshot

Go through your items in here and uncheck the ones that you dont want to startup at the start. Dont worry too much if you choose the wrong ones, even if you disable them from startup you can still manually start them when windows loads. When you first load windows and you have loads of icons in your taskbar in the bottom right these are all loaded from the list above, so disabling these will make windows load faster and also run faster. I can put money on the fact that most people will not use half the items that startup with their computer, if this is the case then disable them!

3: Run a virus scan and malware scan: Malware and viruses have a tendency to slow down your system by hogging extra resources and running extra processes, so every week or so run a full scan and remove any rogue items. Malwarebytes anti-malware is a personal favourite of mine when it comes to removing spyware/malware.

4: Clean up your hard drive and give it a defrag: Its always worthwhile removing old files you no longer need and defragmenting your hard drive. If your hard drive has had a lot of writing to it then there is a good chances that it is fragmented and giving it a defrag can improve read peformance and therefore speed up your system.

5: Buy some more memory: Memory is cheap, very cheap and its the easiest and most effective way of speeding up your machine, even an extra 256mb can help.

6: Format: If all else fails then the old trusty format solution never fails. Back-up all your files you want to keep and pop your windows Cd in, restart your computer, boot from the cd and format your drive and reinstall windows. This will completely wipe your hard drive and put your computer back to its original state. Whilst this method is very effective it is also the most time consuming as you will have to reinstall all your software again!

So, there it is. Follow these simple tips and you can improve your computers performance when its running sluggish. Remember that ongoing maintenance is your best solution when it comes to keeping your system running quickly and efficiently.