Anything you use over a period of time tends to get worn out and needs proper maintenance for a fresh lease of life. This is true of Windows. As you install and throw away programs, connect to the internet and invite spyware, and load memory-hogging start-up applications, your Windows gets bogged down.

To keep your PC running smoothly, there are two things you must regularly do: defrag and update your anti-virus software.

Defrag: As your computer keeps writing to your hard disk, parts of files get scattered all over the disk. This fragmentation occurs when Windows cannot or will not allocate space contiguously to store a file as a complete unit. When this happens, the operating system takes time to read a file and this considerably slows down your PC. Windows XP has a feature which optimises application start-up and operating system boot time by moving the relevant files to the outer edges of the hard drive for faster disk access. The utility will also move parts of files and store them together. You will find the Defrag utility under Start—>Programs—>Accessories—>System Tools. It is called Disk Defragmenter.

Update anti-virus: You must update your anti-virus and anti-spyware program every week. Every day new viruses and malware are being discovered. Your protection tools can get outdated very quickly and put your PC at grave risk. Hence it is imperative that you keep your security utilities updated. Also, set your Windows to download updates automatically as and when they are available from the Microsoft site. This can be done by navigating to Start—>Programs—>Accessories—>System Tools—>Security Centre. Click on Automatic Updates and select the recommended option.

Here are few more things you can do to revitalise your Windows.

Process Explorer: You need to kill those memory-hungry processes that reduce your computer to a crawl. The Process Explorer utility from Sysinternals helps you see what is running on your system and lets you stop any process that is slowing down your computer. The utility is available at www. microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/Process Explorer.mspx.

After you install it, right click on the column header and choose Select Columns. After clicking on the Process Performance tab, put check marks against CPU Usage and CPU Time. Next, click on Process Memory and put a tick against Virtual Size. Now arrange the window so that the most memory-hungry processes are shown at the top. This is easily done by clicking on the Virtual Size column. Now you can stop processes according to whether they are eating up too much memory or whether they are taking up too much of your CPU time or usage. But be very careful in what you stop. If you stop processes that Windows needs, your computer will crash. There is a neat description of what the process does so you will not actually be doing things blindly.

Use Prefetch: Some programs in Windows have a little extra command in their shortcut. It looks something like this: ‘/prefetch:1’. This prefetch switch makes some applications load faster. You can try this out on some of your other programs. Right click on the shortcut for the application and select Properties. In the target field just add /prefetch:1 at the end of the line. For some programs this may not work. Just revert if it does not.

Direct Memory Access: When we install Windows XP, the hard disks and CD drives may be set to Programmed Input/Output for moving data. PIO is an older method of moving data. Direct Memory Access (DMA) is far superior and is supported by all modern devices. To check whether your drives are set to DMA, right click on My Computer and go to Properties—>Hardware—>Device Manager. Double click on IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers to expand it. Now double click again on Primary IDE Channel and select the Advanced Settings tab. Ensure that the DMA option is selected for both Transfer modes. Then repeat the steps for the Secondary IDE Channel.

Write Caching: You can make the transfer of data between your hard drive and memory more efficient by enabling write caching on the disk. Right click on My Computer and go to Properties—>Hardware—>Device Manager. Double click on Disk Drives to expand it. Select your Disk and choose properties and then click the Policies tab. Here, tick mark ‘Enable write caching for disk’. You should repeat the step for all your hard drives.

Faster Boot: The less Windows has to do, the better it performs. So you need to help it along the way. Disable all COM, LPT and USB ports that you do not use. You will find that your computer starts a lot faster. Navigate to Device Manager by right clicking on My Computer and selecting Properties and Hardware. In the Device Manager Window, expand Ports by clicking on the Plus sign. Right click on a port not in use and select Disable. Do the same thing for USB and LPT ports.

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