I figure with the new year approaching very quickly, its a good time to do a little hard drive clean up. I spent about half a day on it myself, and managed to boost my free space from 9.2 GB to 16.7 GB which is pretty amazing if you ask me. Things seem to be running much more quickly now as well.

For those of you who don’t know what the best approach to cleaning up that computer is… here’s a checklist for you:

1. Run Disk Cleanup – Windows provides a handy little tool that cleans out a bunch of old files that you don’t need. This can free up loads of space on its own. Go to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup. Follow the instructions and clean away!

2. Delete Old Outlook Emails – You’d be surprised how much space those old emails with attachments take up. If you think you need them, back them up on CD’s or a spare hard drive, and delete them off of your computer!

3. Add/Remove Programs - I install a bunch of crap all the time, so I find it worthwile to go through the window’s add/remove programs tool to remove the stuff I forgot I installed. If you’re not sure what you are deleting though, don’t mess with it.

4. Run Adaware – Lavasoft provides a free for non-commercial use program to clear your computer of harmful files that sneek in through the internet. Google “adaware” and you will find it. Make sure to get the free version, install all of the updates for it, and run a system scan. This can remove a lot of junk and drastically improve performance.

5. Clean up your registry - After you delete a bunch of programs over the years, stray registry keys get left behind in your system. Microsoft provides a tool called regclean which will clear out all that junk for you. You can get the tool here: http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,4666-order,1-page,1-c,systemresourcestuneup/description.html

6. Get Advanced Disk Cleaner and Run it - Best tool ever!!! I just discovered this little thing and it cleared 10,032 files and over 2GB worth of crap off of my hard drive.  Best of all its free! Get it here: http://www.innovative-sol.com/cleaner/index.htm

7. Go through your documents and files and delete whatever you don’t need. You can even back things up on disks that you need but never use to free up some space. Better yet, get a spare hard drive to keep some of your files on. They aren’t that expensive and removing all those files can really improve your system’s performance.

8. Defragment – Now that all that’s taken care of, defragment your hard drive by going to start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter. Select your C drive and click defragment. This might take awhile, but it will make things run much faster. It allows the computer to access your files more quickly because they will be bundled together on the disk.

9. Can-O-Air – Last but not least, buy yourself a can of air and blast the fan with it. This is especially useful if you have a laptop. Make sure the lid is closed and you will see all the crap that comes out on your screen. Dirt in the fan can cause your computer to overheat and run slowly.

These steps should make your life a lot easier, and your computer a lot happier. Don’t pay someone to do what you can do yourself.

Happy New Year everyone!