Keeping your Computer Healthy

Computers, like people need a bit of tender loving care every now and again, a chance to repair any damage that may have been done in the past. Unfortunately, unlike humans whose immune system automatically repairs any damage, machines tend to need a bit of a push in order to fix themselves.

What I´m going to write now isn´t something that should be done optionally; the stuff I am about to write should be stamped in big writing on the side of every computer case manufactured for all users to read!

These are very basic tools, but failure to run them can often result in data loss, slow performance and random crashes, just 10 minutes every couple of weeks can keep your computer in good working order.
Unfortunately not all of what I cover here will be available for everybody, for example a number of the programs that I am to mention may not come as part of Windows 95. Therefore I´m going to assume that everybody reading this article has Windows 98 or above, however if there is a Windows 95 option for anything mentioned, I will outline that too.

I´d just like to take this opportunity for a small disclaimer - Any information I give to help maintain or repair your system should cause no problems whatsoever. However, you use the contents of this article at your own risk and neither the Herald Express nor myself can be held responsible for the outcome of those actions. Rather than just reading this article by itself, I recommend that you sit down in front of the computer and run through the steps one by one in order to properly understand the information given.

Okay then, to kick off, start your computer up and click on `Start´, then go to `Programs´, `Accessories´ and then `System Tools´. Finally, click on `System Information´. This should bring up window displaying a summary of the hardware and software on your system. This information can be extremely useful when trying to troubleshoot problems with your computer, especially when on a technical support line.

If you are having a problem so severe that you find your computer won´t even start up properly and therefore you can´t get into System Information at all then please do the following - Start your computer and wait until the point where the computer says `Starting Windows´, at this point quickly press F8 and then choose `Safe mode´. Your computer will then start up in a minimal version of Windows, which should allow you to run these utilities so that you can get your computer to start up normally. Now follow the steps above in order to get into System Information.

Once in System Information, click on tools and you will see a number of Windows System Tools that are available to help diagnose and maintain your computer. I´ll go through them in the order they appear on my screen, the available options may differ depending on your computer set-up.

Firstly, `System File Checker´ is a good program that should be used if you encounter any errors or crashes when starting up or running your PC, it shouldn´t really be run for the sake of it. This program will check all your main system files for integrity. If any appear to be corrupt, the program will then give you the option of copying a working version of the file off your Windows CD-ROM.

Another program on the list called `Scandisk´ is probably one of the most useful pieces of software that you could run on your computer on a frequent basis. For Windows 95 users, this utility is available by clicking on `Start´ then `Run´ and type in Scandisk. This program looks for any problems on your hard disk, many of them caused by not shutting down the computer properly or by your computer crashing.

Once you have Scandisk up and running, you will be presented with a window which gives you the option of which drive to scan and whether you would like to do a standard or thorough examination as well as whether you´d like the program to automatically correct any errors it finds. To start off with, select drive C, do a standard examination and tell the program to automatically correct any problems it finds. Click on start and then the program should go through the motions and show a progress indicator to let you know when it expects to finish, you might see this as a nice time to go away and make a cup of tea until it finishes.

You will also find that closing down any programs that are currently running in the background and not trying to use your computer while Scandisk performs these checks a good idea as it gives the program a chance to accurately find any problems there are with your hard drive. When you find that you have an hour or so to spare, possibly by leaving the computer running overnight or while at work, try performing a thorough scan - Just start it off and then leave the computer unattended until it has finished. This program can also be used to check any other hard drives on your system or any floppy disks for errors.

I have tried to cover as much as possible in this one article, and we will continue this subject on to next week, where we will also start to look at tuning up your computer and some of the other system tools available to check your system for problems.

Computer Articles 2007

As you may remember last week we discussed the use of Scandisk and System File checker as tools to keep your computer in healthy running order. This article will continue on from where we left off last week.

For those of you who missed the first part of this series, there were some very useful hints and tips and although all the information given here can be used by itself, I would recommend that you read last weeks article in conjunction. If you don´t have an old copy of the Herald, then please e-mail me and I will send a copy of the article on to you.

As with last week I would like to say that all the information given here to help maintain or repair your system should cause no problems whatsoever. However, you use the contents of this article at your own risk and neither the Herald Express nor myself can be held responsible for the outcome of those actions and that rather than reading the article by itself I recommend that you sit down in front of your computer and follow the points made step by step.

To kick off, we are going to free up a bit of disk space - this process applies to those using Windows 98 or higher only. Start off by clicking on `Start´ and then to `Programs´, `Accessories´ and then to `System Tools´ and finally click on `Disk Cleanup´ then it will start up a small program which will run through your hard drive and pick up any files that can be safely deleted from your hard-disk. These consist of files such as Temporary Internet Files, Temporary Set-up Files, file stored in the Recycle Bin etc. Once the program has finished scanning, you can decide which of these files you want to delete from your computer. For more experienced users, there are also options in a separate menu to remove parts of Windows that you don´t use and to remove old programs you don´t need anymore.

Once you have freed up as much space as possible using this program, it is time to properly organise your hard disk. If you click on `Start´ and then to `Run´ and type in `Defrag´ you will start up a program called `Disk Defragmenter´ which we will use to speed up the time it takes to load programs and information from your hard drive. If you select drive `C´ to be defragmented and then click on `OK´, I will explain what the purpose of this program is while the computer runs the utility.

As you know, the hard-drive is the device inside your computer that is used to save and load programs and information that you use on a day-to-day basis, very much like a big filing cabinet. To use a real life example of how the hard drive works, imagine that every time you take a file out of this filing cabinet, you put it back wherever you like, but make a note of where you put it, for example - Taking `January 1999 expenses´ and putting it into the file marked `Recipe ideas´, and then to write down in a big table that you did this. As you can imagine, over a period of time you would get to a point where all the information was so inefficiently organised that it would take you much longer to find the information that you needed. Therefore you would go about putting all records back into the most efficient places so everything would be where it should logically be. Now when using the computer, we have to use a program such as Disk Defragmenter to sort out all the information we have saved put on to the disk in the past in to a sensible order that allows the computer to load things from it´s `virtual filing cabinet´ in the shortest time. One would just think that the computer should just keep itself organised as it goes, but due to the way the PC works, this is technically impossible.

While you are running Disk Defragmenter, you will find that closing down any programs that are running in the background and not trying to use the computer while it is running a good idea as otherwise whenever the contents of the hard-drive are changed, the program will have to restart from the beginning. Because Disk Defragmenter can take so long to complete, it would be beneficial if you were to run the program over night or while you are at work, not shortly before you want to use the computer.

Unfortunately, I have run out of room to conclude this set of articles on System Maintenance, and so I will continue next week by explaining the inbuilt Windows Maintenance Wizard and how to really increase your system speed by reducing the amount of unnecessary programs that start up when you first turn on your computer. This advice is especially important when running utilities such as Scandisk and Disk Defragmenter and follows a number of readers comments that after following my example last week about running Scandisk to check for disk errors, the program would never complete because the programs that started with Windows kept writing to the disk, forcing it to restart.

As promised last week, we will continue to look at the essential ways in which to keep your system in top shape and the easiest ways to minimise the number of technical support calls that you will have make in the coming years that you own your PC. By simply following the steps I am going to give you today and the tips over the past two weeks, you will be able to take the most fundamental but also the most important steps to ensuring that your PC has a trouble-free existence.

Once again, I would like to state that the information given here to help maintain or repair your computer should not cause any problems whatsoever, however you use the contents of this article at your own risk and neither the Herald Express nor myself can be held responsible for the outcome of those actions. Rather than reading the information given here by itself, I would suggest that you follow the points through step-by-step in front of your computer.

If you imagine that you go to a car show room and you buy yourself a brand new 2.4 litre V6 sports car and then when you get it back to your house you stick 500lb of brick into the back of it and leave them there for the life of the car. Doesn´t make much sense does it? Many people are happy to do it with their computer though - let me explain!

All modern day computers are able to perform many tasks at once, however, as many of you may realise the more tasks you try to do at once, the slower your computer will become. Try to download video off the Internet, write to a CD, play a tune from your hard-disk and print from Word all at the same time and you may find that your computer becomes pretty sluggish.

However what most people don´t seem to realise is that many programs load up when they first turn their computer on. These programs start themselves up and stay there until you turn the computer off, whether you want to use them or not.

Obviously if you get a dozen of these programs loading on start-up and sitting in the background on the off chance that you might use them, your computer as a whole will become much slower and possibly less reliable. Look at the bottom right hand side of your screen and you´ll see what I mean. Each of those little icons by the side of the clock is a program that is sat in the background eating up all your computers resources making it perform slower. Now just think to yourself do you actually use these programs enough to have them constantly sat in the background, or would you prefer to just start them up when you needed them? Personally one of the first things that I do when troubleshooting and repairing a computer, is to take off all the programs that are loading on start up and never have I had the owners comment that they actually ever used the shortcuts for any of their programs!
Don´t get worried now, we are not actually going to remove the program itself, just stop it from sitting in the background adding little features into Windows, which we neither want, nor use.

Now, first off, position your mouse pointer over one of the little icons down in the bottom right hand corner of your screen, the ones sat next to the clock. Right click on them and have a good look around to see if you can see an option to remove it or prevent it starting when Windows loads up - Repeat this for all the icons except for the speaker icon and then we´ll move onto removing the more stubborn programs.

Okay then, next right click on the start menu at the left hand side of the screen and click on explore, if you look in the right hand side of this window that opens up you will see a folder called `programs´ double click on this folder and then double click on `startup´. Have a look to see if there are any shortcuts in this folder that you don´t want starting every time your computer boots up and if you find anything you think looks irrelevant then right click on it and the click `delete´, the computer will ask if you´re sure so then click `yes´. This shortcut will be stored in the recycle bin, so if you restart your computer and experience any problems then simply restore the file that you deleted from the recycle bin.

Finally, to get rid of the really stubborn programs, go into Windows System Information by clicking on `Start´ and then to `Programs´, `Accessories´ and then to `System Tools´ and finally click on `System Information´. Once the window has opened up, click on Tools and then System Configuration, now if you click on the startup tab you will be able to see any of the remaining programs that are automatically loading up when the system first boots. Simply uncheck the box next to anything you don´t want to load up when you turn your computer on and then restart. A word of warning - Don´t fiddle around disabling `ScanRegistry´, `TaskMonitor´, `SystemTray´ or `LoadPowerProfile´, because these are essential for the smooth running of Windows. Basically use your discretion at what looks unimportant to you, because if you find that when you´ve restarted your computer it isn´t running correctly you can always re-enable any of the programs that load on boot-up by going back into System Configuration and re-checking any of the boxes that you disabled before.

Keeping in line with the current subject of essential ways to care for your computer and keeping it running in peak condition this week I will answer a number of questions that I have received from our readers over the past couple of weeks.

` Problems with programs restarting Scandisk´

Following your article entitled "Computer Health Check" in Saturdays Herald Express I thought I would give it a go since I have no computer knowledge as such and so I rely on people like yourself for information as to what I should be doing to look after my computer. I ran the Scandisk program you suggested but after about 5 minuets I got a message on the screen saying "Scandisk has restarted 10 times" and that I should close all other programs so it can finish sooner. I don´t understand this because I was not running any other programs as I had just turned the computer on to run Scandisk.
I would be grateful to hear any suggestions you may have as to the reason for this and how I can overcome it.

The message you have received is a result of any program that is currently working in memory accessing your hard disk in some way, for example to load or save a file. Obviously this is cause for concern for a disk checker such as Scandisk or a Disk Defragmenter as the contents of your hard drive are constantly changing and so it is difficult for the program to get an accurate representation as to what is on your hard drive - Image trying to complete a puzzle that it always changing.
You mention that you had only just turned on the computer and so there shouldn´t be any programs running in the background, however, as featured in last weeks article, many programs will automatically load themselves as part of Windows whether we want them to or not. I have e-mailed you last weeks article for details of how to remove these programs permanently, however here is a short term fix for you and any other readers at home that are having problems running Scandisk or Disk Defragmenter properly because of this reason. Okay then, when Windows has started up press the following keys all at the same time. `Control (Or Ctrl), Alt and Delete´, you should now see a small Window that lists the programs currently running in memory. Click on one of these and then click `End Task´, keep doing this until you have removed all programs except for `Systray´ and `Explorer´. Don´t worry, all the programs you remove will load up again when you restart your computer, now simply run Scandisk and Disk Defragmenter as usual and then reboot.


` Cannot find the Scandisk program´

Following last weeks article regarding using Scandisk, I went to start the program up from System Tools and the program wasn´t on the menu at all - Could you shed any light on this matter? I am using Windows 98 and have never run Scandisk before.

First off, lets try the simple approach, it is possible that Scandisk is on your computer, but just doesn´t have an icon present in the start menu. To test out this theory first click on `Start´ and then `Run´. Type in `Scandisk´ and see if anything happens. If you get a message that the program cannot be found then we will have to install it, as detailed below.

If my memory serves me correctly, Scandisk is an optional part in some versions of Windows 98, therefore it is quite conceivable that Scandisk simply hasn´t been installed on to your computer. This is easily fixed; simply go to `Start´ and then to `Control Panel´ and `Add Remove Programs´. Click on the `Windows Setup´ tab on the window that will open and scroll down to `System Tools´. Click `Details´ and then check mark the box next to the text that says `Scandisk´ and click OK. Windows will now attempt to install and setup Scandisk; you may need your original Windows 98 CD-ROM for this.

For the final instalment of this series of computer maintenance articles, I will be reviewing a program that claims do everything that I´ve explained over the last 4 weeks, more effectively and with greater simplicity that the programs that are bundled with Microsoft Windows. For the price of around £30 you will get a copy of the program Norton Utilities 2001 - The latest in the Norton range, which, amongst other things includes improved versions of Microsoft Scandisk and Disk Defragmenter that we have covered in previous articles.

Before I elaborate on all the features of Norton Utilities, what exactly does Norton Utilities versions of Scandisk and Disk Defragmenter offer in comparison to their Microsoft Windows counterparts? Well for a start they´re faster and do a more thorough job than their Microsoft counterparts. Hopefully you´ve all taken my advice in previous articles on System Maintained and have had a chance to get to use both of the fore mentioned programs. You´ll know what I´m talking about then, when I say that I tend to find that the Norton versions of these programs don´t seem to restart as often whenever a file is saved to the hard drive or when there are a lot of programs running in memory.

Anyway, I digress. One of the most impressive features of this package is the Norton System Doctor; Just launch this program up and it goes about your computer looking for disk problems, fragmented files, missing program files and invalid parts of your Windows Operating System that can be repaired. All in all this will lead to you having a much more stable computer and will probably add a little bit of extra speed into the mix for good measure. After running Norton System Doctor, you would be wise to run another The Norton Optimisation Wizard - Another component of Norton Utilities.
As its name suggests, this program optimises your Windows files and therefore reduces the amount of time that you are waiting for your computer to load and run. Imagine it being very similar to the way that you would take your car to the garage to have its engine tuned. Even by themselves, these two programs, Norton System Doctor and Norton Optimisation Wizard should themselves be worth the £30 asking price. If you are willing to put aside 30 minutes a month to let them free on your computer, then you will find that your machine will become much more pleasant to use.

In addition to just preventive medicine, if the worst does happen and you have a problem booting up into Windows properly, there are a number of ways that Norton Utilities can help you out. First try getting into Windows Safe Mode and then using System Doctor as detailed above. With any luck, you will be able fix the problem that is preventing you from starting Windows properly. The program also has the option of creating a Rescue Disk, which could provide invaluable if you find that one day you are unable to start Windows at all - Not even in safe mode. The Rescue Disk will allow you to at least start your computer so you can attempt to diagnose the problem by following step by step on screen instructions.

This suite of programs also allows you to un-delete files that you mistakenly deleted. For example, if you have spent days doing a 10,000 word report and then you go and accidentally delete the file, chances are that Norton Un-Erase can restore it for you. In harsh comparison there is also a utility called `Wipe info´ which allows you to delete files way beyond recovery, so that if you were working with confidential information and didn´t want anybody to be able to recover the file after it was deleted then you could simply shred it.

In addition to all these extremely useful features there are also a number of smaller utilities that may appeal to certain users only, for example, an improved Windows registry editor, the ability to easily compare the properties of two different files and an improved version of the Recycle Bin.

All in all, taking into account the asking price, I would say that Norton Utilities is an extremely good buy for anybody that uses his or her computer a moderate to heavy amount. Obviously if you only ever write the odd letter using your computer then you probably wouldn´t get the use out of the program and therefore it would be hard for me to recommend it. END

Computer Articles 2007