Feature

Spring Clean Your PC

Blossoms are blooming. Birds are chirping. The days are longer, and the nights are warmer. While we archive our scarves and see if our shorts still fit, it’s a tradition to take a little time to de-clutter, restore, and renew. Why shouldn’t the onset of spring signal PC cleaning as well?

We spend so much time worrying about legitimate threats that could result in lost data and diminished performance, it’s sometimes easy to forget that our PC’s main culprit can be its owner. PC spring cleaning is an essential part of keeping it optimized and organized, negating the effects of months of use and abuse at your hands. It’s simple, and the results can be stunning: your operating system can once again feel like a shiny racehorse instead of a pasture-ready nag.

If you want to apply the mop and broom to your PC, try these simple steps that take down the cobwebs, shake out the dust, and scrub it ‘till it squeaks.

A Good Scrubbing

Do you eat 3 meals a day at your keyboard? Even if not, you might consider physically cleaning your keyboard and monitor. It may not help your computer run faster, but it’ll put you in the right frame of mind. This requires a few extra players: namely, a can of compressed air and some computer wipes (basically soft, lint-free clothes with a solution of water and rubbing alcohol). These cleaners are cheap and available to any computer store.

Take your can of compressed air and try it a few times, to get the feel. Then find the fan. Because the fan draws in air to cool your system down, it brings in a lot of dust, which could make the inside of your computer look like the lint trap from your local college dorm. Gently loosen some of that dust, keeping the nozzle at least four inches from your hardware. Once you’ve gotten most of the dust out, spray your keyboard to get at any pre-historic toast crumbs nestled under the keys.

Now go ahead and give the exterior of your machine a wipe-down with your wipes or a soft, damp cloth that has a small splash of rubbing alcohol on it (check your manual to confirm the right cleaning approach). Don’t pour any liquid directly onto your PC; rub the cloth gently over your computer’s surface, including the monitor, to get up any extra grime.

Looking good. While you’re at it, do something about that messy desk.

PC Checkup

Start your spring-cleaning with a full-system scan with your security software. This gets rid of any viruses, spyware, or other malware that could be lurking in the “eaves”. You should be doing it year-round, but this is a good excuse to do it now. If you have a problem that may need professional help, consider calling a hired gun and using a service like Norton PC Checkup to diagnose problems, or Norton PC Tuneup to accelerate your speed.

De-clutter and De-fragment

Once your computer is scanned, it’s time to start weeding. You can use Norton Utilities software to expedite this process if you don’t want to go the DIY route. But the basic idea is to see if you have a truckload of temporary files and cookies that need deleting. Are there programs that you installed months ago that you used once and forgot about? See if there are any programs that you no longer use or need, and consider uninstalling. This frees up space so that your computer runs faster and more smoothly. You might have to restart your computer to complete the uninstall process.

Now, what does your desktop look like? Do you have old files that are ready for the can? Do you store documents haphazardly? Try going through your most popular folders and organizing your documents while clearing out anything that you no longer need. This is also an excellent time to delete or back up (then delete) any photos and music files that you don’t want on your system anymore.

Trash full? Time to recycle! Empty and delete.

Now that you’ve de-cluttered, you can reorganize your files so that they’re easier to locate, like books in a library. It’s good to defragment pretty regularly (at least once a year). If you haven’t done it in awhile, it might take some time—at least enough to eat a salami sandwich, play a game of ball, or man the lemonade stand down the street.

For information on how to defragment your PC, go here.
For Macs, go here.

Back Up

Now that everything’s clean and purring like a new engine, this is a great time to back up your system. You can use an external hard-drive or an online service like Symantec Online Backup. That way if anything happens to your machine, your data is secure. Repeat, if you crash, you’ll be able to get your important information back. In other words, it’s important.

Go Outside

Finished! Your computer is now Spring cleaned and happy. Reborn, if you will. So put down that compressed air and get a whiff of those cherry blossoms. Your work here is done. But remember, you don’t need to wait until next spring to do your next spring cleaning.