From experience I have known many people that swear at their computer for being too slow and they normally associate this lack of good performance with the brand of their machine.

Dell, HP, ASUS, Compaq, Lenovo, etc… all make some great machines but the trick is to understand how to maintain a computer.

Unfortunately nowadays no machine is clean and what I mean by this is that no machine really comes with a sqeaky clean install of the Operating System. Most vendors will install trial software and online offers and it has become quite a market tool for the major computer companies.

We’ll take an example and pick on Hewlett Packard. They have been in the business since before Mr. Tech was born. If you purchase an HP computer today you are guaranteed to have at least a dozen programs in there that you have no clue about or that you might never use. It’s sad but it happens daily and the consumer isn’t given a choice.

The only choice is to go and custom build a computer but that doesn’t attract too many users out there from either lack of knowledge on the subject, lack of time, or both.

At any rate, in a HP machine I serviced a few days ago there were so many programs running at startup that it took 10 minutes for the machine to actually start up. The OS? Windows XP Pro. The reason? HP loves money and not about efficiency of your machine. End result? Unhappy customer.

The irony of all this is that without all these “junk” programs that come in the machines I probably wouldn’t have a job or at least I wouldn’t have a lot of work to do on people’s computers.

Anyway, enough chit chat about one computer or another. The truth of the matter is that you need to clean up your machine whether you first got it or have had it for 5 years… the process is the same.

This step-by-step process is assuming that you have a Windows 2000 SP4 or a Windows XP machine that can actually turn on and can load windows properly. For Vista the process is similar but I’ll get to that eventually.

Start by going to START > RUN > Type: control > Press OK.

That will bring up the control panel as seen here…

Click the Add or Remove Programs

Now it’s time to remove “junk” | This category includes any software that you have installed and you know you don’t need anymore. If you don’t know what it is then please don’t remove it because for all we know it might be something important.

Protection Software: If you have Norton / McAfee / Verizon / AOL / Trend Micro… or any kind of malware protection suite that has been installed in the machine you will need to remove it. No I’m not crazy but I am insanely against any of the above software because I know first hand what they do to a machine. They provide such an intrusive protective infrastructure that it usually causes machine instability. On the Downloads section you will find a removal tool for Norton and AOL, while the other software can be removed from the Add/Remove Programs utility in Windows.

Once you’re done removing software you might have to restart. Do that and come back to this post

Are you back? OK! Now it’s time to get down and dirty…

NOTE: For Windows 2000 upgrade to Windows XP Professional and save yourself the hassle, but if you are a die hard fan then download the MSConfig.exe utility from the downloads section to be able to work with the utility.

Go to START > RUN > Type: MSCONFIG > Click OK

You will see this window…

Click on the services tab and check the [ Hide all Microsoft Services ] Option.

Now you’re in control of your system and what it can and cannot start up. Uncheck Machine Debug Manager if you see it and anything that has to do with the Anti-Virus software that you previously uninstalled. (Symantec, Trend, AOL, etc…)

Now click on the Startup tab. In my opinion you shouldn’t have any programs running at startup because you should be able to choose what program you would like to run. Because of this I say that you disable everything in there but that will be up to you. Click Disable All and then go through and see if you need something to startup (Like AIM or some program you use constantly) and check only that.

Click the OK button

It will automatically ask you to Restart. Click on Restart.

Once your machine has been restarted it will come up with a window stating you have used the Startup Configuration Utility. Check the box to make sure it doesn’t pop-up again and that’s that!

Your machine should be much faster and more responsive. Another post that is coming up will explain in detail how to tweak your windows settings to make it run faster. Stay tuned and don’t hesitate to comment or ask me anything.