Regular Maintenance

Do these things regularly - say once a month - to keep your computer working efficiently. The primary thing is to free up storage space that is being wasted, and fix operation issues that are slowing things down.

1a. Run CCleaner:
Press Scan PC then Make it Better. Press the Registry tab then Scan for Issues. Click on Review Selected Issues... When the "Do you want to back up the registry before making changes?" window open press Yes. Now press Fix All Selected Issues and then Close.

1b. Run CleanUP!, using the Normal setting, to clean additional temp and cache files that CCleaner doesn't remove.

2. If your computer is working fine, go to the Windows search window and type "restore", and click on Create a restore point. Click on Configure then on Delete. When the warning window pops up press Continue. This will delete all the past restore points. You now need to create a new restore point, so press Create, give it a name and press Create again and press Close.

3. Again go to the Windows search window and type "%temp%", and click on %temp%. Press CTL+A to select all and press Delete. If you get a warning, check the box beside "Do this for all current items" and click Continue.

4. Open Windows file explorer and click on C: > Windows > SoftwareDistribution > Download. Press CTL+A to select all and press Delete. If you get a warning, check the box beside "Do this for all current items" and click Continue. (This deletes the Windows upgrade files that have been downloaded and installed - once installed they can be deleted.)

5. Open Windows file explorer and click on the View tab. On the right hand side click on Options. At the bottom of the window that opens click on Clear button beside "Clear file explorer history.

6. Go to the Windows search window and type "run". Click on the Run icon and in the window type "prefetch". If a warning window pops up press Continue and in the new window CTL+A to select all and press Delete. If you get a warning that some files are currently in use press Skip.

7. Again go to the Windows search window and type "disk", and click on Disk Cleanup. First click on Cleanup system files. Next check all the boxes in the window and press Okay. Note, if this may take a while to do. My first time took about 8 minutes to clear all the files.

8. If Microsoft Store is sluggish then go to the Windows search window and type "cmd", and right click on the Command Prompt icon that appears and select Run as administrator. At the prompt type "WSreset.exe" then press Enter.

9. While still in the Command Prompt window, at the prompt type "ipconfig /flushdns" then press Enter.

The above is from this video by Liron Segev

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Driver Updates

About once or twice a year it is good to check if any drivers need to be updated. A few programs make this easy. The paid version of CCleaner and Driver Easy can be used. The paid version of Driver Easy will do the updating automatically, but can be used to provide a list of drivers needing updating and a link to download the drivers (though downloads are very slow with the unpaid version).

CCleaner - download here. The paid version will download and install the new drivers.

Driver Easy - download here. The free version can be used to update drivers.

To use Driver Easy, run the program. If the file is not to large (over 20mb) use the Update button and wait for the download to complete. Select Manual installation and on the drop-down button select Driver location. When the file explorer window opens click on the file path and copy it.

Go to Device Manager and locate the driver by name. Right-click on the driver and select Install driver. Select Browse my computer for drivers. In the browse window paste the new driver location copied above. Press Next and on the new window press Install.

File downloads through the Driver Easy app are very slow. If the file is very large (over 20mb) try to find it with a Google search to get it directly from the driver manufacturer. Using Driver Easy, press the drop-down button beside a driver to be installed and select Driver details. Under Available, note the driver details of the manufacturer and especially the exact version number. Do an online search; download and install the new driver. If the downloaded driver has an ".exe" extension, just double click on it and it will self install. If the file has an ".inf" extension, right-click on it and select Install.