Clean up your Hard Drive in this order:

  1. Do you have a good virus checker, is it updated.?

  2. Is your Microsoft Windows Program up to date?
    3. a) Go to internet explorer
    b) Choose windows updates from the tool menu
    c) Allow it to come up and then click "scan for updates"
    d) When it gives you a list choose to install all "critical updates"
    e) Download them and install them.
    f) The windows updates that are not critical are your choice... I usually do them all except the million or so on foreign language.

  3. Go to My Computer and double click left on it.
    4. a) Right click your C drive and get properties
    b) See how full your drive is!
    c) Click the button that says clean up
    d) allow it to scan your computer and then delete all the excess files.

  4. Go to Internet Explorer and go to Internet Options in the tool menu.
    5. a) On the first page delete cookies, files and history.

  5. Close those windows and run Spybot Search & Destroy first, then run Ad-aware.
    6. If you do not have these programs, follow the instructions to download, install and run Spybot and Ad-aware. Click here for Spybot, and click here for Ad-aware.

  6. Go to Programs/ Accessories/ system tools/disk defragmenter and run it to defrag your hard drive.

  7. After all is complete (could be hours), update your virus checker and do a complete scan. For a good free one called AVG click here.

  8. You can scan your hard drive for problems, go to Programs/accessories/system tools / scan disk. In XP open my computer right click on the C drive and get properties and choose the tools tab and click check now in the error checking section. This will force you to restart to work.

  9. If you think you may still have problems go to www.trendmicro.com and do an on-line scan with "Housecall", it often finds Trojans and worms not found by others.

  10. Cleaning your Desktop of unwanted icons. Right Click the unwanted Icon and choose "delete." Be aware some system icons such as recycle bin cannot be deleted. You can also right click and make a new folder to store some in if you wish. Clean the quick launch bar... drag them to trash.

Other things to clean and organize

  1. Clean your Internet Explorer favorites list: Go to favorites on the top menu and choose "organize favorites" you can now delete, rename, create folders and move items to folders you can also drag the items around in the list and putting a website address on a folder will put it in the folder.
  2. Clean your web mail deleted items so your mailbox doesn't become full.
  3. Clean Spam and Viruses from Postini. (for Cablelan users) Remember to empty "removed items".
  4. Clean and organize "My Documents" Folder. Learn to "control click " and "Shift click" and drag and drop.
  5. Remove unwanted programs.
    6. a) Use uninstall in the programs list.
    b) Use Add and Remove Programs control panel.
    c) Use third party uninstall programs.
    d) Only manually delete as a last resort and search for all instances of the program.