Last week I had a harrowing time with my assembled desktop computer. It took almost 10 minutes to start and another 15 minutes before I could open any program. And don’t even talk of the Internet connection; it showed a speed of 0.1 Kilobit per second. Can you imagine how slow that is in the age of broadband?

Frustrated, I tried to shut the computer down and restart several times. But it was a fruitless exercise. Next I tried to defrag the C:\ drive. You will find Defrag under Accessories--System Tools. It is an essential part of computer maintenance. With constant writing to the hard drive, parts of files are scattered all over the place in the disk. Defrag moves pieces of these files close together so that they can be read faster when you access them.

To my dismay, I found that the Defrag program stopped after just five minutes. Normally, it takes quite a while to complete the process. A window popped up saying you need at least 15 per cent free space to defrag this volume. It said remove some files and try again. That is easier said than done. The My Documents folder had all my important files, movies, photos and songs. I use iTunes and this application stores all the files under My Music which is under My Documents. There was no way I was going to shift my iTunes folder as my iPod syncs with it.

I turned to Windows Help to get out of my predicament. Unfortunately, their help files are absolutely useless. The Troubleshooting option is the worst. It never fixes your problem. Then my wireless keyboard and mouse made by Microsoft packed up. I replaced the batteries, but it still would not work. What was going on? I have Genuine Windows with up-to-date patches, an Internet Security Suite which I bought over the net. I am well protected. There has never been a virus problem ever.

I am sure many of you have faced a similar predicament. Luckily for me after a couple of more restarts my Internet speed picked up. Then the most magical thing happened. My PC got fixed in 10 minutes flat and as a bonus my computer got a tremendous performance boost. I will share the secret with you.

There is a software called WindowsCare Personal Edition. It is completely free. I would recommend every one of you download this program and periodically run it. It deep scans both your Registry and Windows core for any errors and conflicts, makes a thorough diagnosis and fixes all those problems. It will assess your current performance status and suggest optimisations, clean out any junk and accelerate the whole system.

The program ends slow downs, freezes, crashes and security threats. It scans and finds errors that most other similar utilities miss out on. It keeps your PC error free and running smoothly forever. It immunises your PC against several viruses, spyware and malware. It removes unnecessary programs that start up with Windows. This effectively makes your computer start up and shut down at least 20 times faster.

I experiment with my computer a lot, loading and uninstalling programs all the time. WindowsCare found 32,000 registry errors which led to my PC practically freezing. It fixed it in a flash. It is the most wonderful utility I have come across in recent times. You can download it for free from www.iobit.com.

Ashampoo

There are several other utilities which may be of help to you. Lots of programs in your computer behave as they please. They consider themselves so important that they make it a point to start with Windows when you boot your computer. But most of the time they are useless. The Ashampoo StartUp Tuner lists all auto-start entries and allows them to be individually deleted or to be deactivated. If you are careful, and deactivate all the unnecessary entries, you will be able to enjoy a faster start to Windows.

Send in your computer-related problems to askdoss@abpmail.com The solutions will appear soon