Your computer works harder
than you think. It’s
constantly prioritizing
tasks, storing files,
executing commands,
allocating memory. It’s
really quite amazing how
efficient these machines are.
Over time, however, errors
occur on your hard drive,
data gets disorganized, and
references become obsolete.
These little problems add up,
and as they do, your
operating system slows down,
system and software crashes
occur more frequently, start
up and shut down operations
take longer and longer. In
order to get your system back
into shape, and even better,
to keep it from slowing down
in the first place, regular
maintenance will keep your
machine running smoothly and
safely.
No guidance on
computer maintenance would be
complete without a reference
to the Ultimate Cleanup
procedure. Just like with
cars, the ultimate cleanup
maintenance step is to simply
buy a new computer. However,
unlike cars, there is an
alternative to buying a new
computer – reinstall the
operating system and all
programs returning it to the
day it was born. This is not
a step for beginners, but
often is the only way to be
sure that an inflected system
is totally cleared of
malware.
Many computer
brands now include a set of
“System Recovery”
disks or a recovery partition
on the hard disk. These allow
you to reset everything to
the same state that it was
first purchased, including
all sample and demo programs
(that we hope you have since
removed!) In addition, these
restore processes usually
delete all add-on
applications and may even
delete all user data, so be
very careful to backup your
data on a separate device.
How often to
do a particular maintenance
step is a hotly debated
subject. The debate extends
from “daily” to
“never” and even to
whether you should power-down
(“turn-off”) your
computer when you are
finished with it. As in most
debates, there are good
arguments on both sides. In
order to provide some sort of
consensus recommendation, we
asked a number of
knowledgeable computer people
what they would advise and
tabulated the results. Oddly,
the most asked follow-up
question to the survey was,
“Should I show what I do
myself or what I
recommend?” Based on
that, unsurprisingly the
recommendations did not agree
- not even on any one item!
Therefore,
attached is a list of things
that you may (or may not!)
need to periodically do. The
recommendations provided in
the schedules below are the
author's but feel free to
change them if you have a
reason to. This should match
the advice given elsewhere
(see the
‘Maintenance” tab
on the "Home"
page).
Computer
Maintenance Schedule (Excel)
Computer
Maintenance Schedule (pdf)
The Excel file
is 'editable' (if you have an
application to open Excel
files) so you can put 'your'
dates in the cells to keep
track of your maintenance
schedule.
