The Ask Leo! Guide to Routine Maintenance Simple steps to make your computer last longer and run faster.

By Leo A. Notenboom

An Ask Leo! ebook

ISBN: 978-1-937018-10-8 (pdf) Copyright © 2013

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 2 http://askleo.com Contents The Ask Leo! Manifesto ...... 7 Be sure to register your book! ...... 8 Introduction – 12 months or 12,000 miles ...... 9 Back Up ...... 10 Creating a System Repair Disk ...... 11 Creating a System Repair disc ...... 11 A System Repair disc might not be all you think ...... 12 A System Repair disc is not a System Installation disc ...... 13 A System Installation disc IS a System Repair disc ...... 13 You may also be interested in: ...... 14 resources ...... 14 Creating a Password Reset Disk ...... 16 What the password reset disk can and cannot do ...... 16 Creating the password reset disk...... 16 Keeping the reset disk secure ...... 22 Using the reset disk ...... 22 Why Not Just Save The Password? ...... 23 Do you really need a password reset disk? ...... 24 Read more ...... 24 More resources ...... 24 Installing Software Safely and with Minimal Impact ...... 25 Avoid it if you can ...... 25 Do your testing elsewhere ...... 25 Choose the Custom option – always ...... 26 Un-check options you don’t need ...... 26 Opt out of unrelated options ...... 27 when Windows starts isn’t always needed ...... 28 Summary ...... 28 Read more ...... 28 More resources ...... 29 Managing Windows Update ...... 30 Just turn it on ...... 30 Visiting Windows Update manually ...... 31 Hiding updates ...... 32 Un-hiding updates ...... 33 Letting Windows Update update ...... 34

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 3 http://askleo.com Is this really necessary? ...... 35 Read more ...... 35 More resources ...... 35 Using Windows Disk Cleanup ...... 36 Launching the utility ...... 36 Cleaning up user files...... 37 Cleaning system files ...... 38 CCleaner comparison ...... 40 Read more ...... 40 More resources ...... 40 Uninstalling Software You Don’t Need ...... 41 Before we start: back up ...... 41 Uninstalling applications ...... 41 What if it’s not in Control Panel? ...... 42 Managing Windows features ...... 43 What can I safely uninstall? ...... 44 More resources ...... 44 Where’s my disk space going? ...... 45 TreeSize Free ...... 45 The TreeSize scan ...... 46 A typical machine ...... 46 Aside: Disk space is not memory...... 47 Digging deeper ...... 48 TreeSize on user files ...... 49 Your machine ...... 50 Read more ...... 50 More resources ...... 50 Checking and repairing a disk with CHKDSK ...... 51 CHKDSK on a non-system drive ...... 51 CHKDSK on a system drive ...... 53 Getting the results of a scheduled CHKDSK ...... 54 CHKDSK via command line ...... 56 So what does CHKDSK check? ...... 57 Scanning for bad sectors ...... 58 When to CHKDSK ...... 58 What CHKDSK won’t do ...... 58 Read more ...... 59

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 4 http://askleo.com More resources ...... 59 Defragging ...... 60 Fragmentation ...... 60 Why you needn’t worry about defragging ...... 60 Defragging manually ...... 64 Defragging from the command line ...... 65 Another alternative: Defraggler ...... 66 Defragging is never perfect ...... 67 Debunking defragging myths ...... 68 Read more ...... 68 More resources ...... 68 CCleaner - Windows Cleaning Tool ...... 69 First, about that name ...... 69 File cleaner ...... 69 Ramifications of cleaning files ...... 72 Registry Cleaner...... 72 Additional tools ...... 73 Running CCleaner automatically ...... 74 Next steps ...... 74 Read more ...... 74 More resources ...... 74 Scheduling CCleaner ...... 76 Backup first ...... 76 Run CCleaner and choose settings ...... 76 Schedule the cleaning ...... 79 The implications of automated cleaning ...... 85 Read more ...... 85 More resources ...... 85 Cleaning the Registry ...... 86 It’s rarely needed...... 86 Running a registry cleaner is a risk ...... 86 When to run a registry cleaner ...... 86 Safe registry cleaning ...... 87 Which registry cleaner should you use? ...... 87 Read more ...... 87 More resources ...... 87 Monitoring your system with Resource Monitor ...... 88

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 5 http://askleo.com Overview tab ...... 88 CPU tab ...... 89 Memory tab ...... 90 Disk tab ...... 91 Network tab ...... 91 Summary ...... 92 Read more ...... 93 More resources ...... 93 Get more: My Maintaining Windows 7 book ...... 94 Afterword ...... 95 Register your book!...... 96 About the author ...... 97 Feedback, questions, and contacting Leo ...... 97 Copyright & administrivia ...... 99 Sharing this document...... 99

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 6 http://askleo.com The Ask Leo! Manifesto

I believe that personally accessible technology is the foundation of humanity’s future. To that end, I teach people to understand and safely use personal computers and related technology so that they can do more, be more, grow more, and connect more than ever before and be an active participant in that future. I do that by answering questions, educating on important topics and trends, and sharing my overall passion and excitement for the possibilities. That is why Ask Leo! exists. I hope I can you.

Leo A. Notenboom http://askleo.com

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 7 http://askleo.com Be sure to register your book!

Your purchase of this book entitles you to additional bonuses, including companion videos and downloads of all formats that this book is published in: .pdf, .epub, and .mobi. You'll the information that you need to register near the end of the book. Be sure to check out the Additional Resources section the end of each chapter for links to your chapter- specific bonus material.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 8 http://askleo.com Introduction – 12 months or 12,000 miles

Computers are often compared to automobiles. Both need routine care and maintenance to run well and keep running well for as long as possible. Unlike automobiles, however, you won’t get a service reminder from your dealer when maintenance might be due. There’s no odometer to tell you when you’ve hit that equivalent of 12,000 miles that might call for a peek under the chassis. And yet, like your car, maintenance becomes more important the more that you use your computer. Ignore maintenance, and your computer may begin to perform poorly – or not at all. This book contains a collection of articles taken from Ask Leo! (augmented with videos available to registered book owners only) that outline the things that you can do periodically in Windows to keep the software running smoothly for as long as you own the machine. Some will be things to do differently. Some will just be things that you should simply do every so often. Some might be tools to pull out when it seems like something’s not working as well as it should. Some of it will even be automated – set it once and Windows will do the work thereafter. Sadly, like cars, computers don’t last forever – but with the right care, they can last a very long .

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 9 http://askleo.com Back Up

This wouldn’t be an Ask Leo! book if I didn’t mention backing up. In my opinion, backing up is so important that I wrote an entire book on it. In fact, I wrote two:  Backing Up 101 is an overview of several different types of backup approaches and presents pros and cons for each. Naturally, it leads up to what I honestly recommend everyone should do – run an image back up program and backup their computer nightly.  Maintaining Windows 7 – Backing Up is my book that walks through the process of doing exactly that – twice. Once, using Windows’ own backup program and again using Macrium Reflect, a commercial program. Maintaining Windows 7 – Backing Up covers setting up a backup step-by-step from program installation to disaster recovery and all of the steps in between. (While titled for Windows 7, most of the information is equally applicable to Windows 8.) The rest of this book assumes that you have a backup strategy of some sort in place and that it’s happening regularly. Some of the items that we’ll be looking at may involve some risk. A proper and recent backup is one way that you can guarantee that no matter what happens, you’ll always be able to from whatever it is that might have gone wrong. I’m not going to harp on it. I’m just going to assume it. Please make sure that you’re backing up regularly. It’s the only way to protect yourself from just about anything that can go wrong. Including maintenance. ● We’ll start our foray into maintenance with a couple of additional protections…

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 10 http://askleo.com Creating a System Repair Disk

Windows includes the ability to create what's called a System Repair disc. The created disk contains a set of tools that can be used to repair several different types of system failures or problems. Creating a repair disc is actually very easy, if you have the right equipment. Unfortunately, there's also a lot of confusion as to what a system repair disk is and isn’t. For example, it's not something that you can be assured will in fact repair your system. • Creating a Windows 7 System Repair disc

In the Windows 7 Control Panel, select Back up your computer :

In the resulting Backup and Restore window, click Create a system repair disc:

And we run into our first problem:

Windows can only create a System Repair disc if you actually have a or DVD burner on your machine. If you do not, Windows cannot be coerced into creating a disc some other way. The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 11 http://askleo.com If your machine has one, Windows will ask you which drive you want to use to burn the disk. Typically, there is only one - the drive that is your CD or DVD burner. Once you insert blank, writable media into the drive and click OK, Windows proceeds to burn the disc.

When done, you now have a System Repair disc for your computer. A System Repair disc might not be all you think

Reboot your machine from the System Repair disc that you've just created. After confirming your preferred language, the repair disc will search your hard disk for any Windows installations and then present you with this dialog:

In most cases, you'll have the option to choose the single Windows installation found on your machine or to restore the hard disk using a previously created system image. Select the correct (or only) Windows installation and click Next.

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This is the list of things that a System Repair disc can do.  Startup Repair - If your computer is having problems booting due to issues with the hard disk's boot sector, master boot record, or other low-level items, this process can often fix them.  System Restore - If your computer is having problems running due to recent changes made or programs installed, System Restore may be able to restore parts of the system back to a working state.  System Image Recovery - You can use this option to the system currently on your hard disk with a complete system image backup taken previously using Windows own backup program. (Note that this only works with Windows’ own included backup program. If you use a different backup program, then you'll need to make sure to make a System Rescue disc for this purpose using that program.)  Windows Memory Diagnostic - If you suspect that your RAM may be causing problems, this diagnostic can determine if there are in fact issues.  Command Prompt - The Command Prompt is meant for advanced usage and allows access to several command line utilities that can be used to examine, diagnose, and possibly repair certain types of issues. That's it. A System Repair disc is not a System Installation disc

You cannot use a System Repair disc to reinstall Windows or install it from scratch on this or any other machine. A System Repair disc can only work on an existing installation or restore a backup image of an installation. If you actually need to reinstall Windows, a System Repair disc will not help. You'll either need to restore to an image backup of the system when it was working or boot from an actual System Installation disc. A System Installation disc IS a System Repair disc

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 13 http://askleo.com If you actually have the original installation media for your system, then you may not need to create a System Repair disc. When you boot from your System Installation disc, after choosing your language, you are given an option to Install Windows or you can click the link to Repair near the bottom of the screen:

Click that link and you'll be taken to the same set of tools that are available on the System Repair disc. Thus, if you have your original installation media, you can probably skip making a repair disc. If you don't have that original media, , making a System Repair disc before you actually need it can be very helpful later, if your system is in need of repair. You may also be interested in:

 What's the difference between system restore discs and system repair discs? Manufacturers don't like to ship full Window's installation media, so many of them offer a way for you to make your own restore or repair disc. But these restore discs might not be as useful as you think.  I don't have installation media for Windows. What if I need it? At some point, you're going to need your Windows installation CD/DVD. If you don't have it, you could be severely out of luck. I'll review alternatives.  Where can I download Windows 7? It appears that Windows 7 can be legitimately downloaded from authorized sites. If you have a legal product key, this could be your replacement media. More resources

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 14 http://askleo.com  Bonus Video: Creating a System Repair Disk  Reader comments and updates on Ask Leo!: How do I create a Windows 7 System Repair Disk, and What Can I Do With It?

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 15 http://askleo.com Creating a Password Reset Disk

Since the day that password protection was invented, users (and the people that help them) have been dealing with the “lost password problem.” You know how it goes; you or someone you know can’t log in to their account because they can’t recall their password. Take it from me, it happens. A lot. For a long time – at least since Windows XP and probably before – Windows has included the ability to create a password reset disk that you can use in cases where you’ve forgotten your Windows login password. There are a few prerequisites to using this tool. The most important one is you must create the disk before you actually need it. • What the password reset disk can and cannot do

Before we get started, let’s be clear about what this thing can do.  You must create a password reset disk before you need it.  A password reset disk can only reset the password of the account for which it was created.  A password reset disk can only reset your password; it cannot reveal or tell you what the password currently is. If you think that the password reset disk is some magical skeleton key that’ll let you reset the password to just any account at any time, then you’re wrong. It can, however, reset your password as long as you made the disk before you forgot the password. If you’ve ever experienced a lost password, or if you use a particularly complex and secure (i.e. hard to remember) password, you may want to create the disk before it’s too late. Creating the password reset disk

We start in Control Panel. Navigate to User Accounts. There, you’ll find a Create a password reset disk link:

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Click that and you may find yourself up against the first obstacle (as I was):

You do need to have a floppy disk (who has those any more?) or a USB drive inserted and ready. After you attach a USB drive (an inexpensive thumb-drive dedicated to this account’s recovery information should do), try again and you’ll get the Forgotten Password Wizard:

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Click Next and you’ll have the option to select which connected USB drive to use:

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Click Next again and you’ll need to confirm your password for security:

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This is done simply to prevent someone from being able to walk up to your logged in machine and create a password reset disk for your account. They could then later use that disk to reset your password and access your machine. Click Next and the disk is created.

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One final Next for the last page of the wizard:

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Before we even use the disk, however, we need to talk a little bit about security. Keeping the reset disk secure

The final screen of the wizard contains a very simple, understated instruction: this disk “Password Reset” and keep it in a safe place. Label it however you like (I’d include the account login name as well), but keep it in a safe place. That is incredibly important. Naturally, you’ll want to be able to find it should you ever actually need it – that part is easy. But think about it – anyone with this disk in their hands can reset your Windows password. In other words, having this disk is just as good as having your password. As we’ll see in a moment, it’s just a couple of steps to use it. So do more than keep it in a safe place. Keep it in a secure place where people who shouldn’t have access won’t be able to access it – accidentally or otherwise. Using the reset disk

You wake up one morning and for whatever reason, you simply cannot remember your Windows login password. But you do remember your password reset disk. Here’s how you use it.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 22 http://askleo.com After a failed login attempt, Windows will show you your password hint (if you created one) and a link to “Reset password…” if you’ve created a password reset disk.

Make sure that your password reset disk is inserted and click Reset password… Windows will once again ask you to select the drive containing the password reset disk and then display this dialog:

Why Not Just Save The Password?

If you need to save the password recovery disk securely, why not just write down the password and save that securely? Good point. But the recovery disk does one thing that a saved password does not: it works even if you’ve changed your password. If you rely on a written password saved somewhere, you'll need to remember to keep it updated each and every time you change your password. Perhaps that’s not a big deal, but depending on your situation, it could mean the difference between regaining access or not.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 23 http://askleo.com You can now enter a new password which will replace whatever that forgotten password may have been. Make sure to also include a password hint to help you (but not someone else) remember the password in the future. Click Next and you’ll be taken to the Windows login screen to login with your newly reset password. Do you really need a password reset disk?

Is all of that really necessary? Maybe. Maybe not. In all of the years that I’ve been using Windows, the first time that I created a password reset disk was in writing this article. My approach to passwords allows me to remember them easily while still keeping them secure. On the other hand, maybe you’ve previously run into forgotten password situations. Or perhaps you’re setting up a machine for a friend who’s not as comfortable with passwords, computers, and the like. Especially in the later case, a password reset disk can be a very quick and handy recovery tool. Read more

 I’ve lost the password to my Windows Administrator account, how do I get it back? It turns out that resetting an Windows account password is frighteningly easy, as long as you have access to the machine.  How do I determine, not reset, the Windows administrator password? You will not be able to determine the administrator password on your computer because it is encrypted. There is a possible hack to reset it.  How strong does my Windows password need to be? Your Windows password actually gives you less security than you might think, but there are scenarios where a strong Windows password is important. More resources

 Bonus video: Creating a Password Reset Disk  Updates and reader comments on Ask Leo!: How Do I Create a Windows 7 Password Reset Disk, and Why Would I Want To?

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 24 http://askleo.com Installing Software Safely and with Minimal Impact

I’d wager that the number one cause of system stability issues, disk space loss, unexpected behavior, and even malware is the software that we actually invite onto our machine. I’m not talking about opening the accidental attachment. That’s bad when it happens, but it’s not as prevalent as the stuff that we actually ask to download - the software that we explicitly and intentionally install on our computers. Installing software safely is all about taking a few steps to minimize the impact of what we’re about to do to our machines. • Avoid it if you can

My number one recommendation for keeping your machine clear of cruft is to think carefully before installing anything. I’m not really talking about updates. Those are things that you almost always want. I’m talking about new programs, add-ons, plugins, and other things that so often vie for our attention and play on our curiosity. I’m also not saying to never install anything. That kind of defeats the purpose of having a general purpose computer or computing device. I am asking you to think about whether you really need whatever it is that you’re considering installing. Is it something you’ll actually use or is this idle curiosity? Do you understand why someone or something is even suggesting that you install some random tool that you’ve never heard of? If you’re not sure, just wait until you find out more. You can always install something later if you find that you have a need and use for whatever it is. But remember: a program that’s not installed can do you no harm. Do your testing elsewhere

Sometimes, we just don’t really know if the software that we’re looking at is something worthwhile. In fact, we won’t know until we actually try it out – perhaps it’s a trial version or it’s just a package that we’re installing, because we really need to play with it a bit before we decide to invest further. As you might imagine, this happens to me all the time. One approach to testing software safely is to use what you might call a “sacrificial machine” – one that you don’t really care about or isn’t particularly important. If you don’t have a second physical machine available for that, one solid approach is to use a virtual machine. This is nothing more than a software simulation of a PC that runs within a window on your desktop. I actually have several virtual machines that I’ve set up here on my main desktop machine: one each for Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8. When it’s running, it’s like having a completely separate PC except that it’s running on my single desktop.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 25 http://askleo.com Testing your software elsewhere allows you to avoid having any of the side effects of that software from appearing on the machine that you do care about – the one that you use every day. Once you determine that the software is indeed going to be useful, you can then install it “for real” on your main machine. That test or virtual machine can be left alone, reformatted, restored from a backup, or completely discarded depending on your own desires. Of course, if you decide that the software is not what you had in mind, then you’ve come to that conclusion without putting your most important machine at risk. Choose the Custom option – always

Many setup programs will offer you a default installation. This helps you install the application and a set of optional components so the program is ready to go. It used to be a convenience and an easy way to get software installed quickly without needing to spend a lot of time understanding obscure details. Unfortunately, in recent years, the default is very often the wrong choice. As we’ve seen, many software vendors, particularly those whose products are free, are including in their default installations unrelated additions. More often than not, that comes in the form of an additional toolbar that will later appear in your web browser, but this “foistware” (as it’s sometimes referred to) can actually run the range from the benign to the downright malicious.

A case where a (fairly reputable) software package actually tries to discourage the “Custom” installation . The only way to avoid it for many software installations is to select the Advanced or Custom option, if it’s offered during the setup process. That typically exposes all of the optional choices that you might have, including whether or not to accept the unrelated software that you don’t need. Un-check options you don’t need

Regardless of whether you needed to select Custom or Advanced to expose them, many software installers – particularly for larger packages – include an array of options that allow you to pick and choose what parts of the product you actually want to have installed on your machine.

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No matter what of software you're installing, it's worth taking a look at the options to see if the additional components are things that you need. If not, consider un-selecting them, so that they’re not installed. Not only does this reduce the amount of disk space that the install will take, but it also reduces the impact that this software may have on system resources (like the registry) and the number of components that may need to be updated in the future.. Opt out of unrelated options

So, why do software packages include components that aren’t even a part of the software that you’re installing? It's a source of additional revenue for the software vendor, even though it often confuses users and adds unnecessary software to their customer's machine.

Custom installation option revealing items actually unrelated to the software being installed. Free toolbars and limited trials of more powerful software are often the most common add-ons. Installation options may also change your default settings for search engines and home pages. Opt out. Just say no. Or make it your own choice to install the specific options being offered. My guess is that saying no will keep your machine cleaner and your experience less frustrating.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 27 http://askleo.com Start when Windows starts isn’t always needed

Many programs install components that want to start running every time you reboot or log in to Windows. In some cases, it’s the right thing to do. You want your anti-malware tools to always run without having to think about them, so having them start when Windows starts is a pretty clear choice. At the other end of the spectrum are utilities that just don’t need to run right away, yet the installer feels that their program is so important that it must run always and as soon as possible.And of course, many programs are somewhere in the middle. If used often, it makes sense that they start automatically, but if used only occasionally, it might make more sense to free up the resources and speed up the boot time by only starting them when actually needed.

When you encounter a setup option relating to automatically starting, think twice. It’s very possible that you don’t need the program to do that. Leave auto start off and you’ll end up with a slightly faster boot time and more system resources like CPU and RAM available for the things that you really do want to run. It’s sometimes worth reviewing the options or preferences for programs that you already have installed to see which ones start automatically and then turn the option off for those that make sense. Summary

When it comes to installing software to keep your machine running as clean and as fast as possible, I recommend that you:  Don’t install software unless you actually know you need it.  Test software on something other than your primary or most important machine.  Choose the “Custom” or “Advanced” installation path so as to see all available options.  Uncheck options that you don’t want or need or that may be unrelated to the software that you are installing.  Think carefully about whether the software actually needs to start with Windows, if that’s an offered option. Read more

 Why do I suddenly have another toolbar in my browser? Browser toolbars come from two places: the browser and add-ons or toolbars you ask for. It’s easy to ask for toolbars without realizing it.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 28 http://askleo.com  Why do some programs say to “disable anti-virus” before installing, and should I turn it on again after? It’s not uncommon for setup programs to recommend disabling anti-virus programs first. We’ll look at why. But do turn it back on when you’re done.  How do I reinstall downloaded programs? When it’s important that you save several things for the day disaster strikes and you need to reinstall downloaded programs. I’ll look at what you need to save to prepare for the worst. More resources

 Bonus video: Installing Software Safely and with Minimal Impact  Updates and reader comments on Ask Leo!: Installing software safely and with minimal impact

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 29 http://askleo.com Managing Windows Update

Windows Update is one of those more-or-less magical components of Windows that we all know should be turned on and that we all hope never causes us a problem. When it’s working properly, it’s something that we can usually take for granted. There’s actually more to Windows Update (or “ Update,” if you have it configured to update all of your Microsoft products) than simply downloading and installing the latest security patches for us. For example, you may want some updates, but you’re not aware of them. And there may be updates that Windows Update offers that simply annoy you. Let’s look at managing Windows Update a little more proactively. • Just turn it on

To be clear, you should turn it on. It’s important that you have Windows Update configured to automatically check for, download, and install important and critical updates as they become available. This is an important step to keeping your computer safe and secure as fixes are made to various Windows components. In the Windows Update section of Control Panel, click Change settings:

The result will be the list of options associated with updating your machine automatically:

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Unless you have specific reasons to do otherwise, I recommend that you have Windows Update install updates automatically. Recommended updates are a matter of choice and we’ll be looking at an alternative to automatic updates in a moment. I do recommend that you let Windows Update operate on all the Microsoft software on your machine. Letting Windows Update update your machine regularly and automatically is a critical part of keeping your machine safe and secure. But there’s more. Visiting Windows Update manually

Every once in a while, I think it’s a good idea to fire up Windows Update manually and see what it has to offer. Typically, there’s more than you might expect. Windows Update can be reached either by the Windows Update item on the Start menu or by searching for Windows Update within the Control Panel. When you fire it up, it’s possible that there will be pending updates available, but not yet installed:

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The “important” update is likely to be installed the next time that Windows Update performs its scheduled automated update. The optional update, however, is just that – optional, but in need of your attention. Click that line.

As you can see, I have one optional update available, the Bing Desktop. If an optional update is listed and you want it installed, make sure the checkbox to its left is checked and click OK. But what it you don’t want the update? In fact, what if you know that you’ll never want the update? Hiding updates

Naturally, you can safely ignore any optional updates, but as we’ll soon see, that can become quite annoying as optional updates accumulate over time. Fortunately, you can hide them. Right-click the update item that you know you’ll never want:

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Click Hide update. The item will not disappear instantly, but it will no longer appear in subsequent visits to Windows Update, and it won’t be included in the count of available updates:

It’s a fine way to make your visits to Windows Update less annoying. And yes, they can be annoying. Let me show you why. Un-hiding updates

Let’s say you’ve hidden lots of optional updates over time. One day, you realize that you think you really do want that update that you vaguely remember having hidden. Fortunately, you can un-hide. On the left side list of options in Windows Update, click Restore hidden updates:

The result is a list of all of the updates that you hid in the past: The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 33 http://askleo.com

As you can see, I’ve already hidden quite a few. This list is long enough that if I waded through it each time I visited Windows Update, I might well have missed something important or at least interesting. So I carefully hid all of the updates that I knew I would never need. To unhide an update, click on the checkbox to its left, and then click the Restore button. That will return the update to the list of available updates. You can make the final selection to include it when Windows Update updates your machine. Letting Windows Update update

Theoretically, by simply setting all of the automatic settings in Windows Update and manually dealing with the optional items every so often, we should be completely done with Windows Update. Color me paranoid, but because I’m here in Windows Update, I want to let it run to completion. I want to see that my machine is completely updated. So, I select the updates that I want installed (including the important ones that would probably get installed later anyway) and click Install updates.

I then let Windows Update do its thing. Depending on the number of updates and their size, it could take a little time. It may even require a reboot with update processing both while the machine shuts down and comes back up.

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After it’s all done, I run Windows Update one last time to confirm that the machine is now as up-to-date as possible:

Is this really necessary?

Is keeping your machine as up-to-date as possible really necessary? When it comes to critical and important updates, it absolutely is. As I’ve said above, it’s an important part of keeping your computer secure and protected against the latest malware out on the internet. When it comes to the optional components, it’s something that you can get away without ever looking at them. I recommend an every-so-often look anyway simply to keep abreast of possible improvements and make explicit decisions about things that you don’t want so they don’t accidentally land on your machine at a later date. Finally, running Windows Update manually every so often is one more confirmation that everything is working as it should… or an important reminder that something needs to be looked at if it fails. Read more

 How do I ignore a Windows Update item? Most often, you’ll want to take the updates offered by Windows Update. If you want to delay or completely avoid an update, I’ll show you how to hide it.  I got burned by Windows Update. Should I just avoid it? After a bad experience with Windows Update, it’s tempting to bail on the idea completely. That could leave your machine vulnerable to malware.  Should I install optional Windows driver updates? Update will often suggest optional Windows driver updates. They’re optional, so you don’t need to take them, but should you?  How do I make sure that Windows is up-to-date? You can make sure that Windows is up-to-date by either enabling Automatic Updates or by visiting the Windows Update website. More resources

 Bonus video: Managing Windows Update  Updates and reader comments on Ask Leo!: Managing Windows Update

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 35 http://askleo.com Using Windows Disk Cleanup

Over time, it’s not uncommon for files to accumulate on your system – unused files, old ones, or files that you no longer need. There are many reasons for this, but most are pretty valid when you get down to the details. Fortunately, you don’t need to get too deep into the details. Windows includes a disk-cleanup utility that’s helpful for cleaning up this kind of problem. Let’s walk through the steps of using Windows Disk Cleanup. • Launching the utility

Click the Start menu, the All Programs item, the Accessories items, and then the System Tools item:

You may be asked to select which drive you want to clean up:

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After selecting the disk (typically the : or system drive), Disk Cleanup does some calculations to determine what kinds of things are on the disk that could potentially be removed to save space.

Cleaning up user files

The default action is for disk cleanup to clean up files associated with or accessible by your currently logged-in account.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 37 http://askleo.com As you can see, there’s a long list of different items that can be deleted or “cleaned up” to save space. Click each and a description appears below it. In my experience, the most common and useful thing to select here is:  Temporary Files – These are files created by applications and the system itself that, as the name implies, are temporary. Very often, they aren’t deleted by the processes that created them for various reasons. As a result, they accumulate over time. This is often a large amount of space if Disk Cleanup has never been run. In reality, there’s nothing wrong with selecting everything1. Click OK and Disk Cleanup goes to work:

Cleaning system files

You may have noticed a button in the user interface:

Click that and potentially after asking for Administrative confirmation, the Disk Cleanup utility will re-launch, this time to operate on system-wide cleaning opportunities:

1 Of course, you do have a complete system backup, just in case, right? RIGHT?

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While this list looks very similar, several items are new and some are slightly different. Once again, the most interesting and common items to clean include:  Service Pack Backup Files: This can actually free up a lot of space, but it comes at a cost. Once you’ve deleted these backup files, the pack(s) on your machine cannot be uninstalled. The only way to “uninstall” a service pack after deleting these files is to reinstall Windows from scratch without it. This is very rare and typically getting rid of these files is a fine idea. It’s typically just fine to select everything in the list to be cleaned up.2 Click OK and Disk Cleanup goes to work:

The result after running Disk Cleanup should be more free disk space. Perhaps a lot more space, if this is the first time Disk Cleanup has been run.

2 See previous footnote about having a backup, just in case. The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 39 http://askleo.com CCleaner comparison

While there is a fair amount of overlap between running Piriform’s CCleaner disk cleaning app, it’s not a 100% replacement for Disk Cleanup. For example, I don’t believe CCleaner will remove service pack backup files. Perhaps the biggest difference is that CCleaner does not limit itself to Windows. By its very nature, Windows Disk Cleanup will deal only with Windows and perhaps Microsoft-provided software, like Internet Explorer. On the other hand, CCleaner cleans up many of the same items, plus assorted things that can be cleaned up relating to other browsers and applications not supplied by Microsoft. My short recommendation:  If you can run only one, run CCleaner.  If you don’t want to download yet another third-party application, then run Windows Disk Cleanup.  Otherwise, why not run both? Read more

 CCleaner – Windows Cleaning Tool CCleaner is a popular and highly regarded tool for cleaning files, history, cookies, and much more from your computer.  Do I need both disk cleanup and CCleaner? Disk cleanup and CCleaner can both be run on your computer, but do you need to keep them both?  My hard disk is filling up, what should I do? If your disk is filling up, it could be due to many causes. I’ll walk through some of the techniques to free up space on a full hard disk. More resources

 Bonus video: Using Windows Disk Cleanup  Updates and reader comments on Ask Leo!: Using Windows Disk Cleanup

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 40 http://askleo.com Uninstalling Software You Don’t Need

It’s not at all uncommon for a computer to accumulate quite the collection of software. Applications, utilities, Windows features, and who knows what else accumulate over time to take up space and resources from our machines. It’s also not uncommon for much of the software installed on our machine to go unused and not really be needed. Perhaps we stopped using a specific application. Maybe a trial version of some software remains. Possibly some software was installed as part of some other installation. The bottom line is that there are things we can uninstall. There are two places we need to look. • Before we start: back up

I know, I know, I’m a broken record on this, but it’s for your own good. Before you start uninstalling programs, particularly if you’re not certain about some of the things that you’re about to remove, please seriously consider starting with an image backup of your system. That way, if you find that you uninstalled something that you shouldn’t have, you’ll always be able to restore that backup image as if nothing ever happened. If nothing else, it allows you to be slightly more aggressive, knowing that you can always turn back the clock should something go wrong. Uninstalling applications

The most common scenario that people think of when we say “uninstall” is to reverse the effects of a setup program that was run on their computer at some point in time. Most of the time, that’s as simple as re-running the setup program and instructing it to remove whatever software it had previously installed. On the Start menu, click Control Panel, and in Control Panel, click Uninstall a Program:

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Control Panel will present a list of the assorted software installed on your machine that can be uninstalled. Right-click the one you want to remove and click Uninstall:

What happens next depends on the application. In most cases, a specific uninstallation program will run and remove the application after confirming that with you. Some applications will give you the option of leaving any customizations behind so that if you reinstall the program later, those will be preserved. What if it’s not in Control Panel?

Most, but not all programs that you install on your computer will add themselves to the Add/Remove or Programs list from which you can then uninstall them. If they do not, the first place to look is on any Start menu item that the program has added. Occasionally, programs will include an “Uninstall” menu item in lieu of (and sometimes, in addition to) the Control Panel item. In other cases, the original setup program will run and display the uninstall option as well as an option to modify or change the installation. This allows you to add or remove features or components.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 42 http://askleo.com In most cases, these types of uninstalls are actually quite sufficient and achieve the intended goal: freeing up disk space and removing any auto-start utilities associated with the application. If the uninstall fails or there remain obvious traces of the application after the uninstall that cause some sort of problem, then it might be appropriate to try a utility such as Revo Uninstaller, which can sometimes perform a more thorough removal of a program. But there’s another aspect to removing installed software that many people overlook. What about Windows itself? Managing Windows features

With the list of installed software displayed in Control Panel, you’ll see a link to the left: Turn Windows features on or off:

Click that to be taken to a long list of assorted features and components in Windows itself that can be controlled or removed.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 43 http://askleo.com Many of the items are fairly clear and obvious. For example, unchecking “Games” will cause all of the pre- installed games that come with Windows to be removed. You can also expand that list (click the little plus sign in front of the checkbox) and pick and choose which games to keep or remove. Other items may seem straightforward, but actually may not be. For example, if you don’t use Internet Explorer, it would be tempting to uninstall it. The problem is that because large portions of IE are used by Windows itself as well as other applications, uninstalling it will either have little effect (perhaps removing only the icons) or will cause other programs to fail. My suggestion here is to simply proceed with caution. Uninstall or disable only the things that you’re certain of or consider leaving them alone until you do a little more research to understand the ramifications of turning it off. Which brings us to the biggest question of all. What can I safely uninstall?

Sadly, this is an unanswerable question. It all depends on you, your computer, and how you use it. What can be removed is different from one person and one computer to the next. Applications that you depend on and could (or should) never remove are so much space wasted to someone else. Components you have installed that you may not even recognize could be used by applications that you depend on every day – or they could be completely pointless. The same is true for the list of Windows options that you can control. One person’s critical feature is another person’s waste of space. As a result, my recommendations are:  Backup first, just in case you remove something that you quickly decide that you’d rather have kept.  Keep your original installation media for everything, always, just in case you remove something you later decide you’d rather have kept.  Research things when you’re uncertain.  Leave things alone when you’re still uncertain.  Use disk space or CPU usage tools to identify applications that cause computer speed or disk space issues (if you have those kinds of problems). Leave everything else alone. When in doubt, leave it alone. More resources

 Bonus video: Uninstalling Software You Don’t Need  Updates and reader comments on Ask Leo!: Uninstalling Software You Don’t Need

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 44 http://askleo.com Where’s my disk space going?

Disappearing disk space is a common scenario. Somehow, no matter how much we have, disk space never seems enough. As we collect pictures and programs (and programs themselves collect data), more disk space is consumed unless files are deleted. With so much happening on our computers these days, it’s almost impossible to simply and quickly realize exactly what’s taking up space. Fortunately, there’s a free tool that I frequently recommend that can give us some very helpful data. • TreeSize Free

TreeSize Free is a free tool that will show you what’s taking up all of the space on your machine. (A paid version is available with additional features, but for what we’re doing, the free version will suffice.)

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 45 http://askleo.com Download TreeSize Free from the JAM Software page and install it. On completion of the installation, you’re given the option to run it as Administrator:

I recommend you run it as Administrator, so that TreeSize is able to access and return as much information about your hard disk usage as possible. The TreeSize scan

As TreeSize scans your hard drive, it updates its display in real time.

Once the small blue progress bar disappears, the results are complete. A typical machine

This is the result of running TreeSize on a basic Windows 7 installation:

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The primary information here is a list of all of the top-level folders on the C: drive and the amount of disk space consumed by their contents. It's helpful that it's sorted by decreasing disk space with the biggest consumers of space are at the top. Not surprisingly, the Windows folder and everything it contains are consuming the most space. Right below that is “[5 files]” which represents the five files that aren’t in any folder at all, but live in the root of the C: drive. Aside: Disk space is not memory

I keep hearing people confuse these terms and when you're asking for help, it's important that you know the difference between them so you can accurately describe what you're experiencing. To over-simplify a little:

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 47 http://askleo.com  Memory is the RAM (for Random Access Memory) where your programs and data reside when they are in use. When you turn your computer off, your memory is erased. To free up memory, you might just run fewer programs at the same time.  Disk space is your hard drive where data is stored permanently or until you or a program explicitly erases it. To free up disk space, you delete files. Another good difference to note is size. My laptop, for example, has eight gigabytes of memory, but 300 gigabytes of disk space. Disk space on a machine is almost always much greater than its memory. Digging deeper

You can see the contents of the next level of folders down by clicking the small triangle to the left of the folder name. Here’s the Windows folder expanded:

You can see right away that the “winsxs” folder contains the most data of all the sub folders within C:\Windows. (This is normal, by the way.) You can also see the relative size of each of the other folders within Windows. If you wanted to drill down deeper, you could simply expand the subfolder. We can look at those “[5 Files]” again simply by clicking on the triangle in front of the item:

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Now, we can see that pagefile. – the system virtual memory and paging file – is taking up three gigabytes on this machine and that hiberfil.sys – the file used to implement hibernation – is taking up two. In this case, that’s actually a discovery for me because this machine will never use hibernate. Disabling that feature allows me to delete hiberfil.sys and free up two gigabytes. TreeSize on user files

It’s often very useful to use TreeSize to see what’s stored in your user account’s My Documents or similar folder. In Windows, that means looking at the contents of “C:\Users\.” In my case, that’s C:\Users\LeoN:

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I have some of the sub-folders expanded here already and you can see that my Outlook.pst file is the largest file in my Documents folder. Your machine

Now, as to what’s eating up the disk space on your machine, there’s no way for me to know. But when you use a tool like TreeSize, you should be able to see what’s taking up all that space and take appropriate action. Read more

 CCleaner – Windows Cleaning Tool CCleaner is a popular and highly regarded tool for cleaning files, history, cookies, and much more from your computer.  Can I delete the contents of my TMP folder? Windows maintains a folder for temporary files, but it doesn’t always get cleaned up. With a little care, you can delete the temporary folder’s contents.  Why does the space used by files on my hard drive show different numbers depending on how I look? Depending on how you look at your disk, the amount of space used can appear quite different. We’ll look at some of the possible reasons. More resources

 Bonus video: Where’s my disk space going?  Updates and reader comments on Ask Leo!: Where’s my disk space going?

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 50 http://askleo.com Checking and repairing a disk with CHKDSK

CHKDSK has been around since before the days of Windows. This utility has in some ways changed dramatically for new environments and new disk formats. Yet in other ways, it’s pretty much the same old disk checking utility that we’ve been using since the days of DOS. Regardless of its age or origins, CHKDSK is an important tool for disk maintenance and recovery (in some cases) from a variety of disk-related issues. Let’s run CHKDSK. • CHKDSK on a non-system drive

The simplest usage of CHKDSK is on a drive that is not your system (Windows) drive. In Windows Explorer, right-click on the drive that you want to check:

Click Properties. In the resulting dialog box, click the Tools tab:

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Click the Check now… button.

There are two options presented before CHKDSK begins its work:  Automatically fix errors. If not checked, CHKDSK will simply report but not fix any problems that it finds.  Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors. This is a more time-consuming scan of the disk that I’ll discuss below. In general, the default setting is fine when you suspect that there is a problem that needs to be fixed.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 52 http://askleo.com Click Start and you may then get this message:

CHKDSK can only check or repair a disk when it is the only program using that disk; even the rest of Windows cannot be accessing the disk while CHKDSK does its job. Forcing a dismount makes that happen. If a program is actually accessing the drive or files on the drive about to be dismounted, the old “results are unpredictable” phrase applies. Programs may simply notice and do the right thing (whatever that might be), they may crash, or something in-between. That’s why the common advice is to close most programs when running CHKDSK or at least make sure none can access the drive you’re about to check. Click Force a dismount and CHKDSK begins its work. Eventually, this is the message that you hope to see:

The See details link displays a log of CHKDSK’s activity. Any errors to be repaired would be listed here. CHKDSK on a system drive

Remember how I said that CHKDSK requires exclusive access to the drive in order to be able to repair it? And that even Windows can’t be accessing the disk? That presents a problem when you want to CHKDSK the system drive – typically your C: drive. If Windows is running, then by definition, it accesses the system drive nearly constantly. The solution is to run CHKDSK before Windows runs.

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If you attempt to CHKDSK your system drive instead of getting the option to dismount it (not something that can be done while Windows is running), you’ll get this message offering to run the CHKDSK before Windows is loaded the next time that you reboot. Click Schedule disk check. Now, reboot your machine. As the machine reboots, you’ll see something like this before Windows loads:

Once completed, Windows will load normally. Getting the results of a scheduled CHKDSK

A very common question is where to get the results of a CHKDSK that ran before Windows started. There’s no pause, and the information shown above disappears as soon as Windows starts to boot. Run the by clicking Start, and then Run, (or type Windows Key + R). Enter in eventvwr and click OK:

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In Event Viewer, click the Application log under Windows Logs, and look for the line item that ends with Wininit (for Windows Initialization) and has “Checking file system on C:” in the lower General tab.

To make reading the results easier, just double-click on that Wininit line.

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The scrolling box near the top contains the results of CHKDSK that scrolled past on the screen before Windows loaded. CHKDSK via command line

CHKDSK is a command-line tool. All of the options that we've talked about in this section so far simply run that same tool in a way that captures its output. You can do that directly yourself. Click on Start, All Programs, Accessories, and then right-click Command Prompt.

Click Run as administrator because CHKDSK does require administrative access to do its job. In the Command Prompt, type:

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 56 http://askleo.com CHKDSK /F …to run CHKDSK with the “/F” or “fix” parameter. Without /F, CHKDSK will simply report but not repair any errors.

As you can see, the example above checks the D: drive and just as in the windowed interface, CHKDSK must dismount the drive before it can be checked. If you run CHKDSK against the C: drive:

…it similarly requests that the CHKDSK be scheduled at the next reboot. So what does CHKDSK check?

It’s difficult to describe exactly what information it is that CHKDSK checks without getting lost in the geekery of file system details and hard disk layout. Essentially, it checks the organizational and overhead information on a hard disk that allows Windows to locate and access the files stored on that disk. One analogy might be to think of a hard disk as a kind of simple telephone book. By default, CHKDSK reads through all the listings and makes sure that they all have a name and a properly formatted telephone number. If a street address is present, CHKDSK might also ensure that the address is also properly formatted and represents a real address in the area that the phone book is supposed to cover. If problems are found and CHKDSK has been asked to repair things, then it might take actions like removing invalid phone numbers or perhaps adding a proper area code or country code that was supposed to be there in the first place. That's only if CHKDSK can tell from other information what the right answer should be. Similarly, it might try to fix a physical address but CHKDSK has the option of removing that information if it can’t come up with what the information should have been in the first place.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 57 http://askleo.com In fact, it’s possible for CHKDSK to simply remove entries that are so garbled that its proper values can’t be figured out. Scanning for bad sectors? That’s sort of like calling every phone number in the book and making sure that it rings through to a real phone. It might not be the right person answering, but the phone number works at some basic level. Scanning for bad sectors

Normally, CHKDSK simply checks that the information stored on the disk is correct. There’s a fair amount of overhead information that tells Windows where files are located and how they’re actually stored and distributed around the disk media. CHKDSK uses its knowledge of what this information is supposed to look like to ensure that it’s correct and try to fix it when it’s not. Scanning for bad sectors is another thing entirely. When this option is selected, CHKDSK actually reads the entire disk, not just the overhead information. As a result, a bad sector scan takes significantly longer than a simple CHKDSK. As CHKDSK reads, it notices if those reads actually succeed. When they do not, it marks the area that failed as “bad” so that they system won’t attempt to write more information into those areas with problems. It’s important to note that this scan doesn’t test whether the data found is good or valid: only that it can in fact be read. As we saw earlier, scanning for errors is a simple checkbox when you run CHKDSK from Windows Explorer. For those that prefer the command line, it’s the “/R” – repair – option. When to CHKDSK

Normally, CHKDSK only needs to run when a problem is suspected. In particular, a scan for bad sectors only should be done once you’ve actually encountered a bad sector – usually in the form of a bad read, write, or explicit CRC error. CHKDSK will do what it can, but most importantly, it will remove the bad area from use. Running CHKDSK to simply check the validity of the file system is a quicker operation and it’s not unreasonable to run it every-so-often, particularly if your machine has been crashing. In most cases, Windows will actually force a CHKDSK after a system crash or improper . This is done not to fix the cause of the crash (although in some cases it could), but rather to fix any disk-related issues that may have resulted from the crash. What CHKDSK won’t do

While we talk about CHKDSK “repairing” a hard disk, it is not a tool per se. Its job is not to recover lost or damaged files, but to ensure that the information currently on the disk is in a consistent and safe state. When it comes time to search for files accidentally lost or deleted, then you need to use tools like Recuva and similar. If you’re trying to recover data from a hard drive that has a persistent media problem or is so damaged that a CHKDSK scan for bad sectors can’t help, then a tool like SpinRite might be your only option. That is, unless you have a backup and can simply replace your failing hard drive.

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 What does “chkdsk cannot run because the is in use by another process” mean? CHKDSK checks your disk for errors at a low level. That means CHKDSK needs exclusive access to the disk. We’ll look at why that is and what to do.  How do I keep CHKDSK from running on every start up? There are times when the disk checking utility needs to run before you boot into Windows. Sometimes, it seems to get stuck and does so every time.  CHKDSK runs on every boot, but fails, and my system is unstable. What can I do? CHKDSK will run on boot if the system has detected problems with your hard disk. If it fails, the problem may be serious and can result in instability.  How do I fix a bad sector on my hard drive? You should try to fix bad sectors on your hard drive before trashing it. Starting with CHKDSK may help. More resources

 Bonus video: Checking and repairing a disk with CHKDSK  Updates and reader comments on Ask Leo!: Checking and repairing a disk with CHKDSK

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 59 http://askleo.com Defragging

Disk defragging, or more correctly “defragmenting,” is the source of many questions, more than a few misconceptions, and many articles on Ask Leo! The good news is that for reasons we’ll explore, defragging in Windows 7 and later is actually something you rarely need think about any more. While we’re exploring, we’ll also look at a brief refresher on what fragmentation is, why defragmenting is needed, and how to do it yourself, if you want to. I’ll also address some of the most common myths of defragmenting. • Fragmentation

To summarize from my article What is ‘defragging’ and why should I do it?: “Imagine that you have a book, but that the pages are randomly scattered throughout your house. You have a list of where each page is, so when you want to read your book you go find page 1, then you look on the list for page 2 and go to that, then look up page 3, and so on. In order to read your book in order, you’re racing around the house like crazy because the pages are all over. That’s a fragmented file – lots of “fragments” scattered all over the disk. It takes time to do all that running around to read the book from beginning to end. Defragmenting is nothing more than the hard disk equivalent of collecting up all the pages and putting them next to each other, in order, for every book on your book shelf. Things are much easier (i.e. quicker) to read when they’re gathered together in order.” Why you needn’t worry about defragging

Let’s fire up the disk defragmenting tool. In Windows Explorer, right-click on the drive you want to defragment and click Properties:

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In the resulting dialog box, click the Tools tab, and then the Defragment now… button:

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(In Windows 8, the term “Optimize” is also being used instead of or in addition to “Defragment.” This opens the disk defragmenting tool::

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The first thing that you might notice is this:

By default, Windows will defrag all of the hard drives connected to your machine once a week. In fact, if you look in the “Microsoft” branch of the (in Start, All Programs, Administrative Tools), you’ll see that there’s a scheduled task for exactly that purpose:

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99% of the time, that’s plenty. Even if your machine is off at the scheduled time, Windows will run it as soon as possible thereafter – and only when the machine is idle so as not to interfere with whatever you might be doing. Defragging manually

Let’s say that for some reason, you want to defrag a drive manually. Perhaps it’s become particularly fragmented and you don’t want to wait. Perhaps it’s a drive, such as a removable drive, that the scheduled has missed for some reason. In the disk defragmenter, simply click the disk that you want to defrag and click Defragment disk:

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Analyze disk simply updates the “% fragmented” number that appears with each disk. Defragmenting actually begins by updating that number as well. The time defragmentation takes depends on the size of the disk, the speed of the disk, and how badly fragmented it is. After a potentially long time and many passes,…

the disk is defragmented. Defragging from the command line

As it turns out, the task that is scheduled to defrag your computer weekly does nothing more than run the command-line version of the defragmenting tool. You can run that too, if you like. You’ll need to run the Windows Command Prompt “as administrator” to get the privileges required to run the defragging tool. Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, and then right-click Command Prompt and click Run as administrator. In the command prompt, type “defrag c:” (without the quotes) to defragment the C: drive:

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The command line defrag tool has several additional options, just type “defrag /?” to list them. Another alternative: Defraggler

Piriform’s Defraggler is an alternative disk defragmenting tool that some people prefer for one or both of two reasons:  It’s more visually informative  It’s more aggressive than Windows built-in defragmenting tool Defraggler displays a continuously updated map of the drive’s defragmentation status as it does its work. This isvery similar to the old Windows XP defragmenting tool:

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Those that are so inclined often feel that this gives them a much better sense of what’s happening, as well as more detailed results when the tool is finished. When it comes to results, however, we need to talk a little about why no defragmentation programs can defragment completely. Defragging is never perfect

After running a defragmenter on your hard drive, you will find that the drive remains fragmented. In fact, sometimes even running a different defragmentation tool may report a drive as defragmented even though the Windows tool reports it as not fragmented at all. There are several reasons. 1. Some files, like the system paging file and hibernation files, cannot be defragmented while Windows is running. The Windows tool apparently excludes them from the calculation. 2. Defragmenting is a surprisingly complex process, and different tools use different algorithms to file contents around on the disk. Some algorithms are more aggressive than others at the cost of taking longer. 3. Files are in use and being fragmented by other programs – including Windows itself – while the defragmentation process happens. 4. Getting a perfectly defragmented disk – when defragged in place3 – may often take significantly more time than it’s actually worth. The thinking is that you’d never notice the performance improvement of

3 If you use a second disk, you can achieve 100% defragmentation by copying all files to that other disk, formatting the original, erasing it completely, and then copying the files back. Many backup programs restore functions will actually achieve similar results. The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 67 http://askleo.com defragging that last 3%, which might take significant additional time to achieve. Many defragging programs take this into account and simply defrag to the point of “good enough.” The point is that “good enough” typically is exactly that – good enough. You really wouldn’t notice the performance increase if you spent the extra time defragmenting completely. (Although it can make sense to defrag the paging file – once – should it be significantly fragmented.) If you really, really want to get near-perfect defragmentation, you can keep running the defragging tool over and over. Each run should give you progressively better results, at least for the files that it’s able to defrag. Debunking defragging myths

Like many things about Windows specifically and computers in general, the whole concept of defragmenting is somewhat mysterious and magical. As a result, there are many misconceptions. “Defragging frees up disk space” - No, it does not. All defragging does is move files and file parts around on the hard disk. It doesn’t delete, remove, or repair anything. It is only a performance optimization. “Defragging wears out the hard disk” - Magnetic hard drive: no. USB/Flash drive: yes. SSD: probably yes.  Traditional mechanical magnetic hard disks with spinning platters and moving arms work hard while defragging happens, but they’re built specifically to handle that and work hard at other times as well.  Defragging your USB thumb drive or other inexpensive flash memory based device will significantly shorten its life, due to the fact that flash memory wears out the more you write to it.  There may be anecdotal evidence that defragmenting an SSD – also a flash-based technology, albeit of much higher quality – may speed it up. I still strongly recommend not doing it. Ultimately, SSDs are still subject to the wear issues similar to other flash memory and the speed of an SSD shouldn’t depend on “where” the data is stored within it. I wouldn’t risk it. “Fragmentation/defragmenting will cause my programs to crash” - No. All programs, including Windows itself, are blissfully unaware of fragmentation. Other than files reading or writing more quickly, program behavior is unaffected. Read more

 What is ‘defragging’ and why should I do it? Defragging rearranges the layout of files on your hard disk for faster access, specifically when (or even if) you need to do it at all is evolving.  How do I schedule Disk Defragmenter to run with the Windows Task Scheduler? You want to defragment your hard disk periodically. Task Scheduler runs programs periodically. Put those together to defragment your disk regularly.  How do I defragment my new hard disk? Defragmenting is a useful bit of maintenance to keep your hard disks speedy. It’s not always needed, though. We’ll look at when, and how, to defrag.  Why won’t some files defrag? When you defrag files, the pieces of the file are physically arranged for quicker access. But you can’t defrag some files. At least, not easily. More resources

 Bonus video: Defragging  Updates and reader comments on Ask Leo!: Defragging in Windows 7 (and later)

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 68 http://askleo.com CCleaner - Windows Cleaning Tool

CCleaner has been around a long time and with good reason: it provides several very valuable and useful functions. Several of CCleaner's functions may duplicate some tools that you already have, but its primary claim to fame is its ability to clean up files, history, and other things from your computer that you might not need or want to keep around. It lives up to its name as a cleaner. • First, about that name

Let's first do some full disclosure on that name. CCleaner started out years ago as "Crap Cleaner" - its focus was on cleaning temporary files - the crap - that was left around by many, many applications. It's since matured into much, much more. Part of that maturation was apparently sanitizing the program's name somewhat. Those of us who've been around for a while still think of it by its original name. File cleaner

Start CCleaner and you'll begin in its cleaner tool, which shows you the various types of Windows components and file types that it can clean:

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Click the Applications tab and you'll also get a long list of other programs that CCleaner also knows about:

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In both cases, you can scroll through and select or de-select which items you would like CCleaner to clean. When first using the tool, the next step is to click Analyze, which simply examines your system for cleaning opportunities.

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Here, you can see that when run on my system, CCleaner would free up a little over 400 megabytes of space. Not surprisingly, the largest component is Google Chrome's browser cache, as that's the browser that I've been using all day. Ramifications of cleaning files

For the most part, the files that CCleaner proposes to delete are indeed safe to delete. But it's important to realize that there may be ramifications. Some examples:  Deleting cookies may require that you re-login to sites that had previously remembered you.  Deleting history - whether it is in a browser or other applications - means that the history feature will no longer have the entries that are deleted.  Deleting temporary internet files may slightly slow down your subsequent initial visits to the websites that you visit frequently.  ... and so on. It's worth browsing the list of items that CCleaner proposes to delete and if you're unsure, go back and uncheck the corresponding item so that it doesn't try to delete it. As for me, I tend to run with the default selection. Registry Cleaner

As you may already know, I'm not a huge fan of registry cleaners. In general, the risk is too high and the benefits are typically miniscule. Unless there's a specific problem that you're attempting to solve, I suggest not using a general purpose registry cleaner ... ever. That being said, if you feel you must, CCleaner's registry cleaner is a reasonable choice.

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Note: After you scan for issues, there will almost always be issues. Even on my machine - which is working just great - CCleaner has listed over 200 "issues" that it would clean up for me, if allowed. I'm not going to clean them, as cleaning them would give me no appreciable benefit. If you do elect to "Fix selected issues...", CCleaner will prompt you to backup the registry first, which I recommend that you do. Additional tools

CCleaner includes several other tools:

Included are:

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 73 http://askleo.com  Uninstall: An additional interface to uninstalling software on your machine. This is potentially useful if Control Panel's uninstall isn't working properly for you.  Startup: An interface for managing programs that start automatically when you boot your computer or login, as well as Internet Explorer add-ons.  System Restore: An interface to manage Windows' Restore Points.  Drive Wiper: A utility which can securely wipe the free space on your disk or in fact, wipe an entire hard drive. Most of these tools duplicate other tools that I often recommend, but they can be convenient if you already have CCleaner installed and don't want to grab yet another tool. Running CCleaner automatically

CCleaner can be configured to run automatically when Windows starts. I prefer to run it automatically myself. In particular, I schedule it to run before my nightly backup, so as to not waste backup space with temporary files and the like. If you run CCleaner once, it is configured by default to save the settings that you select into a .ini file. You can then schedule the command: "C:\Program Files\CCleaner\CCleaner64.exe" /AUTO (using CCleaner.exe for 64-bit systems) and it will automatically run and perform the cleaning operation. Next steps

CCleaner is a free download from Piriform, the makers of another tool that I often recommend: Recuva. Download it, run the Analyze function, and see what you see. It may become a useful cleanup utility to keep in your toolbox. I recommend it. Read more

 What's the best registry cleaner? Registry cleaners are widely available. When do you need one? Why? In general, a registry cleaner isn't needed and when it is, shouldn't be used frequently.  Recuva - A free, easy to use undelete and file recover tool Even with the Recycle Bin to protect you, it's not uncommon to need to recover files that have been "permanently" deleted. Recuva gives you a chance.  Why do system cleanup utilities report many errors on a supposedly clean system? System and registry cleaners often report wildly differing results. The reason? Sales tactics and no clear consensus of what it means to be clean.  What kind of maintenance should I do to avoid software rot? Regular maintenance of your computer can help keep it performing well, but some things like software rot, can only be delayed not avoided entirely. More resources

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 74 http://askleo.com  Bonus video: CCleaner - Windows Cleaning Tool  Updates and reader comments on Ask Leo!: CCleaner - Windows Cleaning Tool

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 75 http://askleo.com Scheduling CCleaner

In the previous section, we focused on running CCleaner as needed to clean things up when we think of it or encounter a problem. The beauty of computers is that they’re very good at doing things automatically. That includes not only creating crap, but cleaning it up as well. • Backup first

I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t remind you to back up your machine before you run CCleaner, or any cleaning tool, particularly for the first time. While it’s rare for CCleaner to actually break anything, you may realize after a cleaning that you cleaned something you didn’t want to lose. A restore to a full backup image can quickly help you recover from that, so that you can then adjust the CCleaner settings and move on. Run CCleaner and choose settings

If you haven’t already, download CCleaner (making sure to select the free version), install it, and then run it.

CCleaner does require administrative access to run. It will clean up areas on the machine that are system controlled and thus require administrative privileges. Spend a few minutes examining the items listed in CCleaner’s Cleaner section:

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Make sure to scroll through the entire Windows tab for components included with Windows and the Applications tab for applications that CCleaner knows how to clean. Select only those items that you want to have automatically cleaned up on a regular schedule. I’ll discuss some of the implications below, but the important thing to realize here is that whatever you select will be automatically removed without your involvement on each automated run of CCleaner. After selecting what you want cleaned, go ahead and run an analysis:

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In fact, you might even want to run an actual cleaning to make sure that the result are as you expect them to be. Once you’re satisfied, click the Options icon, then the Advanced button, and make sure that “Save all settings to INI file” is checked:

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This causes all of the options that you’ve selected to be written to an .ini file for use by CCleaner when it is run automatically. Important: If you later run CCleaner and change any settings while this checkbox is checked, you will be changing the settings for the automated run as well. Close CCleaner. It’s time to schedule things. Schedule the cleaning

In Control Panel, click Administrative Tools, double-click Task Scheduler, and in Task Scheduler, click Task Scheduler Library (on the left):

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As you can see, this will list a number of pre-existing scheduled tasks. Click Create Basic Task… on the right.

Give this task a name. I selected CCleaner Weekly Cleaning in the example above. The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 80 http://askleo.com Click Next.

Task Scheduler actually has a number of ways that tasks can be initiated. In our case, we’ll set up a weekly task. Click Next.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 81 http://askleo.com In the example above, I’ve configured the task to run beginning the following Sunday, at 1AM, and then repeat every Sunday thereafter. Choose whatever time or schedule you might prefer. Click Next.

Select Start a program and click Next.

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The program to run is “C:\Program Files\CCleaner\CCleaner.exe” (including the quotes, as there’s a space between “Program” and “Files”). If you’re running 64-bit Windows, you may want to run CCleaner64.exe. The argument is “/auto.” That tells CCleaner not to bother displaying its user interface, but to get right to cleaning when it’s run. Click Next.

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Before clicking Finish on the summary screen, make sure that Open the Properties dialog for this task when I click Finish is checked. There’s one more thing that we need to specify.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 84 http://askleo.com As we saw when we started CCleaner manually, it needs administrative access. Make sure that Run with highest privileges is checked to enable that for the scheduled task. You might also want to change the Run only when user is logged on setting.) Click OK. Close all the windows and you have your weekly scheduled CCleaner cleaning. The implications of automated cleaning

When you run CCleaner or any cleaning tool manually, you’ll expect that certain things will be removed. That’s the point, after all. When cleaning happens automatically, it’s easy to forget and you’ll sometimes be surprised when something goes missing. With the schedule put into place above, CCleaner will run silently once a week and clean things up. That means that after the CCleaner run:  You’ll be logged out of all the sites that relied on cookies to keep you logged in if you allow CCleaner to clear cookies. You’ll simply need to re-login to those sites as you visit them again.  You won’t find any deleted documents in your Recycle Bin, if you’ve allowed CCleaner to empty it.  You’ll find that some conveniently remembered bits of information in various programs (for example, recently typed URLS in IE) may have been forgotten, if you allowed CCleaner to clean them.  The first few page fetches in your browser might take a little longer as it has to rebuild the cache if you let CCleaner clean it.  And so on… You get the idea. CCleaner is great at cleaning things up. You’ll just want to make sure that they are things you actually do want to have cleaned up – particularly once you allow the process to happen automatically. Read more

 CCleaner – Windows Cleaning Tool CCleaner is a popular and highly regarded tool for cleaning files, history, cookies, and much more from your computer.  Using Windows Disk Cleanup Over time, it’s not uncommon for files to accumulate on your system – unused files, old ones, or files you no longer need. There are many reasons for this, but most are pretty valid when you get down to the details.  Do I need both disk cleanup and CCleaner? Disk cleanup and CCleaner can both be run on your computer, but do you need to keep them both?  Where’s my disk space going? It’s not uncommon to run out of disk space. A free utility can help tell where your disk space is going so you can determine what steps to take.  What’s the best registry cleaner? Registry cleaners are widely available. When do you need one? Why? In general, a registry cleaner isn’t needed and when it is, it shouldn’t be used frequently. More resources

 Bonus video: Scheduling CCleaner  Updates and reader comments on Ask Leo!: Scheduling CCleaner

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 85 http://askleo.com Cleaning the Registry

Because so many sites and individuals seem to push registry cleaning as some kind of silver bullet to fixing computer woes, we need to clarify a few things. There is no “best” registry cleaner. There are a wide variety of opinions on registry cleaners and PC cleaning tools. Many people believe that they’re valuable and important tools to keep your system running smoothly. My opinion’s a little … contrary. • It’s rarely needed

I rarely use a registry cleaner. In fact, I’ve never actually felt that I’ve needed to use a registry cleaner. Usually, I only run them to experiment with the cleaner, not because I felt my system would benefit. And I definitely install and play with random things on my machine on a regular basis. That kind of “playing” is exactly what most registry cleaning advocates would say lead to issues with the registry. And yet … I’ve rarely had issues and when I did, running registry cleaners weren’t part of the solution. My fundamental belief is that the best registry cleaner is no registry cleaner at all. Running a registry cleaner is a risk

In my experience, most computers don’t benefit substantially, if at all, from a registry cleaning. And some actually get worse. Many people reach for a registry cleaner when an application is having problems or Windows is misbehaving. The problem is that these types of situations rarely respond to registry “cleaning” – they often require an application- or Windows-specific resolution. Unfortunately, I also get reports of situations where registry cleaners have made things worse, often much worse. I’ve heard from individuals that have had to completely reformat and reinstall Windows after running a registry cleaner that did much more harm than good. When to run a registry cleaner

So when is registry cleaning appropriate? I would identify two cases. When you want to:  Speed up a very slow Windows, but only if nothing else has really helped.  Resolve Windows or applications crashes, but only if nothing else has helped. In both cases, I consider it one of the last resorts because while it might help, it’s just not that likely to help much. Before you begin, back up first; take a full system image. That way, if something goes wrong as a result of the clean-up, you can safely restore your machine to a point in time before the damage was done.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 86 http://askleo.com Safe registry cleaning

There are those that disagree with my position. And, to be honest, while there are the occasional horror stories like those I just mentioned, most of the time registry cleaners don’t do any damage. They may not do any good, but reputable ones aren’t going to harm your system unless there’s some other kind of underlying problem. Because you can’t tell whether your situation is going to be one of those “mostly OK” scenarios or a total disaster, it’s important that you take care to always back up properly before your begin. Which registry cleaner should you use?

So, if you’re going to use a registry cleaner, which one should you use? There are plenty of tools out there, that’s for sure. I’ll recommend two:  CCleaner, the Windows cleanup utility has a registry cleaner as well. Run “Analyze” and you’ll be able to see the changes its about to make.  Macecraft’s JV16PowerTools, a commercial solution that includes not only a registry cleaner but an entire suite of useful maintenance utilities. I’ve used both of these tools on an otherwise clean and working of Windows 8 and had no issues. Regardless of which registry cleaner you use, please backup first. You can’t have too many backups. Read more

 Why do registry errors keep coming back? Registry cleaners will often report multiple errors on every run, even after having recently ‘cleaned’ the registry. The registry is … complicated.  Why do different registry cleaners give different results? Registry cleaning is a bit of a black art. There’s no real consensus on cleanliness, and different programs will often return different results.  How do I monitor what changes in my registry? One part of most program’s installation process is modifying and updating the registry. It is possible to see exactly what was touched in the registry.  How do I fix “ not working” after I ran a registry cleaner? An error after running a registry cleaner is all too common. I’ll point you at an article with some steps to try. More resources

 Updates and reader comments on Ask Leo!: What’s the best registry cleaner?

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 87 http://askleo.com Monitoring your system with Resource Monitor

When diagnosing a system problem or even just monitoring the health of a working system, it’s useful to peek “under the hood” to see what’s going on. Windows 7 added a handy utility called Resource Monitor that does just that. It provides more information than the existing Task Manager without getting into all of the esoteric and often confusing detail of Process Explorer. Resource Manager is a useful tool to have in your back pocket. • Overview tab

You’ll find Resource Monitor in Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Resource Monitor. Once you run it, it will begin displaying the Overview tab, an overview of activity on your system:

The results shown can be sorted by any column, so the upper pane labeled CPU is sorted by “Average CPU Usage.” This is perhaps the most useful sort that shows the processes running on your machine in decreasing order of CPU usage. You can see that perfmon.exe, which is the actual Resource Monitor program, is currently using 6% of the available CPU.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 88 http://askleo.com The lower pane, Memory, is sorted by “Commit” – one of the indescribable, but useful numbers measuring RAM usage. Here, you can see that MsMpEng.exe (which turns out to be Microsoft Security Essentials) uses 196 megabytes. Off to the right, you can see graphs associated with some aspect of each of the tabs. The CPU graph shows total CPU usage. Disk and Network (each of which we’ll explore in more detail in a moment) graph total disk and network activity respectively. And the Memory graph at the bottom shows “faults.” This isn’t an error at all, but it’s a reflection of how hard the memory manager reads from disk. Typically, it’s how often it’s using the system paging file. You can expand or collapse any of the four panes simply by clicking on the pane’s bar. Instead, let’s look at more detail as provided by the tabs across the top. CPU tab

The CPU tab expands on the information presented in the Overview’s CPU pane.

Once again, it has four panes of information and a couple of graphs. The Processes pane is very much like the information presented in the Overview, Process Explorer, and even Task Manager. Once again, you can sort by the different columns and examine information about each process. The Services panel looks at the various Windows services, support services, and functionality provided by background processes in Windows. You can see which services are running and even explore their individual CPU usage. (This is difficult to see with other tools because many services can be bundled into the same executable and those tools only provide information to the executable process level.)

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 89 http://askleo.com Associated Handles is where you’ll find what open files and other resources the selected process in the Process list above uses. Associated Handles is more than just files. Many system resources, from network connections to areas of RAM to registry keys and more, use “handles,” so they’re listed here. Associated Modules lists any modules that are in use by the process selected in that first list. In this case, “Modules” refers to the files used as part of this program. The list will include those DLLs that were provided as part of the programs installation, as well as any and all Windows component DLLs and resources that the applications use. To the right, there’s a graph displaying the historical total CPU usage as well as a graph displaying just the CPU usage by system services. Memory tab

The Memory tab focuses on displaying the memory or RAM usage characteristics of the various programs running and the system as a whole.

There are only two panes: a Processes pane, showing information about each running process, and a Physical Memory pane, presenting an overview of the computer’s RAM usage. The most interesting columns in this view are the “Commit” and “Working Set” columns. Without getting super geeky, these columns reflect two different measures of the memory being used by the processes listed. When I’m concerned that a process uses too much RAM, I look at these numbers. The important graphs on the right4 are overall “Used Physical Memory,” as well as Hard Faults. Once again, Hard Faults is a measure of how often the computer uses the hard disk to manage its RAM. Some usage is

4 “Commit Charge” is another one of those geeky rabbit holes that can best be ignored here. If you’re just itching for a definition Wikipedia has one. Good luck. The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 90 http://askleo.com normal; programs often use a technique to load that manifests as “faults.” On the other hand, when the system is out of RAM and swaps excessively to disk, Hard Faults will skyrocket as system performance suffers. Disk tab

The Disk tab presents useful information about what processes access specific files on the various disks attached to your system.

The top pane, Processes with Disk Activity, is a list of processes that are currently accessing the disk and a couple of measures of just how much data is being read and written. The second pane, Disk Activity, breaks down disk activity to the file level, so you can see exactly which process accesses which file and what kind of read or write activity is happening. The Storage pane presents information on disk activity at the drive level. The graphs to the right include an overall disk activity meter, as well as a reflection of how much work has “backed up” for each disk in the system. Network tab

The Network tab focuses on the networking activity of the processes running on your machine.

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Much like disk activity, the upper pane – Processes with Network Activity – shows the processes on your machine that access the network and how much data transmitted. As we’ll see in a second, “the network” includes both local and internet access. Network Activity is perhaps the most interesting pane here. This shows you the connections for remote IP addresses or local names processes and how much activity each connection used. In the example above, you can see Dropbox.exe is connected not only to a remote IP address (presumably the Dropbox server), but it is also connected to several of the other machines on my local network. TCP Connections lists processes that are connected to other machines on the local network or the internet, regardless of whether or not they transferred any data. These connections might be idle because they’re not transferring any data at that time, but rather than disconnecting and reconnecting each time, they stay connected. Listening Ports is the reverse of connections. This represents processes on your computer configured to accept a connection from a remote computer. Now, in most cases, your router or firewall blocks connections from the internet that might use these listening ports. But when you want to copy a file from one machine to another across your local network, one computer contacts the other by making a connection via one of these listening ports. The graphs on the right detail overall network data transfers and the number of connections. They can also break out the amount of data transferred if you have more than one network interface. Summary

I’ve obviously only scratched the surface here in discussing the types of things that Resource Monitor can view. It can’t do everything (I did have to open up Process Explorer to diagnose a problem on the example machine

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 92 http://askleo.com that I was using above), but it can provide a very useful window into the behavior of your Windows 7 (and 8) . My recommendation is pretty simple: fire it up, play with it a little, and explore what it can show you. When you experience a problem, consider firing it up as a diagnostic tool. It might show you something helpful. Read more

 How do I monitor network activity on my Windows 7 machine? Windows 7 has a useful utility for monitoring system activity. You can use it to find out a lot about what your computer is doing online.  Process Explorer – A Free Powerful Replacement for Windows Task Manager Process Explorer is Task Manager on steroids. A free utility that completely replaces Task Manager, there’s no reason not to have and use procexp.  How do I monitor internet activity and see who’s using it? Process Monitor is a powerful tool and it can be used to track down exactly what program on your machine is responsible for internet activity. More resources

 Bonus video: Monitoring your system with Resource Monitor  Updates and reader comments on Ask Leo!: Monitoring your system with Resource Monitor

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 93 http://askleo.com Get more: My Maintaining Windows 7 book

I have to also throw in a little plug and recommend one more thing. My book: Maintaining Windows 7 - Backing Up. As I said at the beginning, this book assumes that you’re backing up and backing up regularly. I can’t overstate the importance of that. You simply would not believe the number of times that catastrophes have been averted by having a backup, or the number of times critical and precious data (such as family photos, documents, and more) was lost forever simply because there was no backup at all. Maintaining Windows 7 - Backing Up includes step-by-step instructions to back up your computer using either Windows own included backup software or Macrium Reflect. Just like this book, you'll also get access to companion videos after purchase that actually show you each step of the process and walk you through setting up your backup and even restoring files ... or the entire computer. And also like this book, it comes in PDF, .epub, or .mobi (aka Kindle) formats or you can purchase it directly from Amazon. Regardless of where you get it, you'll receive access to all formats and the additional online videos once you've registered.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 94 http://askleo.com Afterword

I hope that that this book helps you keep and maintain your computer for years to come. If you find what you believe to be an error in this content, please register your book and then visit the errata page for it. That page will list all known errors and corrections in the book and give you a place to report anything you've found that isn't already listed. If you're left with questions, suggestions, or – dare I say it – even complaints, then by all means, let me know. Once again, the best way is to register your book. That'll give you access to a prioritized feedback form specifically for The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance. If you prefer not to register, you can use this form: http://askleo.com/book That's the Ask-a-question form for newsletter subscribers and book purchasers. If you have a more general technical question that's perhaps not related to what's covered in this book, I strongly encourage you to visit Ask Leo! and search the site for your answer. I know I often sound like a broken record on this, but I get asked so many questions that are answered already on the website that you'd be shocked. It'll be faster for you if you can simply find it there first, rather than waiting for me to get back to you. If you do need to ask a question that's not answered on the site, use that Ask-a-question form that I mentioned above: http://askleo.com/book If you haven't already subscribed, you might find my weekly Ask Leo! newsletter helpful as well. Each week, I highlight the latest articles published on the site, reader comments, popular articles, and recommendations along with some my own commentary and musings. Learn more about the newsletter and sign up here: http://newsletter.askleo.com Thanks again for your support. Here's to happy, safe, and problem-free computing.

Leo A. Notenboom http://askleo.com

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 95 http://askleo.com Register your book!

Having purchased this book, you're entitled to the companion videos as well as additional updates, errata, and other bonus materials including all the various formats in which this book is published. Registering gives you access to all that. Visit: http://go.ask-leo.com/regmaintain right now and register. That link is mentioned only here and it's totally FREE to owners of The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 96 http://askleo.com About the author

I’m Leo Notenboom and I've been writing software in various forms since 1976. In over 18 years at Microsoft, I held both managerial and individual contributor (i.e. programmer) roles in a number of groups ranging from programming languages to Windows Help, Microsoft Money, and Expedia. Since leaving Microsoft, I've been answering tech questions at the extremely popular Ask Leo! website (http://askleo.com) and expending my efforts on various consulting and entrepreneurial projects ... like this book! Curious for more? Someone asked and I answered on the site: Who is Leo? Feedback, questions, and contacting Leo

I truly appreciate reader input, comments, feedback, corrections, and opinions – even when the opinions differ from my own! (Honest!) Here's how best to contact me: . If you have a computer or tech-related question, the best approach by far is to first search Ask Leo! (http://askleo.com). Many, many questions are already answered right there, and finding those is much faster than waiting for me. . If you can't find your answer using search, visit http://askleo.com/book and submit your question. That's a special form just for book purchasers and newsletter subscribers, and it gets prioritized attention. . If you have a comment on any part of this book, register your book for access to a prioritized feedback form. If you prefer not to register, simply use the form mentioned above to let me know. Just mention "The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance" in your comment. Even though I may not reply, every comment is read – honest.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 97 http://askleo.com . If you feel you didn't pay enough for this ebook or just want to throw more money my way, feel free to visit http://buyleoalatte.com or http://buyleoabeer.com. . If you just want to drop me a line or have something that want to share that isn't covered above, you can use http://askleo.com/book for that, too. Thank you!

Leo A. Notenboom http://ask-leo.com

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 98 http://askleo.com Copyright & administrivia

This publication is protected under the US Copyright Act of 1974 and all other applicable international, federal, state and local laws. All rights are reserved. Please note that much of this publication is based on my own personal experience and anecdotal evidence. Although I've made every reasonable attempt to achieve complete accuracy of the content in this book, I can assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. You should use this information as you see fit and at your own risk. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners. They are used only for reference. Unless specifically stated otherwise, there is no implied endorsement if I use one of these terms. Ask Leo! ® is a registered trademark of Puget Sound Software, LLC and Leo A. Notenboom. Sharing this document

A lot of work went into putting this ebook together. I can't tell you how many hours go into a work of this type, but it's a lot. That means that this information has value, and your friends, neighbors, and co-workers may recognize that value and want to share it. The information in this document is copyrighted. Please do not share this information with others; you purchased The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance and you have every right to use it. Another person who has not purchased this document does not have that right. It is the sales of this valuable information that in part makes the continued publishing of Ask Leo! possible. If enough people disregard that simple economic fact, Ask Leo! would come to an end. If your friends think this information is valuable enough to ask you for it, I would hope that they would think it is valuable enough to purchase for themselves. After all, the price is low enough that just about anyone should be able to afford it. It should go without saying that you may not post this document or the information it contains on any electronic bulletin board, website, FTP site, newsgroup, or ... well, you get the idea.

The Ask Leo! ® Guide to Routine Maintenance 99 http://askleo.com