Say Happy New Year to Those Old Forgotten Programs!

"May Old Acquaintances Be Removed!"

You are not the only one that collects and tries programs
to see if you will like them, or if they will Magically
change the way you use your Puter. The New Year is the best
time I can think of to Clean House. Well, anytime is good
but this is the best excuse I can think of.

This may be oversimplified but let's bypass the tech Speak.
A couple of things happen when you install programs. First,
they sit on your hard drive taking up space, and they have
installed files to your "Registry". Also probably some DLL's
(these are little files needed for Windows to make the
programs run) in your system.ini.

So what is a DLL? Dynamic Link Library file. These go in a
Windows initializing file called "system.ini". INI for
Initialization File. When Windows starts it looks at the
"system.ini to see what programs have to be available so
they will start when you want to use them.

Windows also reads the Registry to see what programs are
on your Puter and what it has to do to make them work. OH,
Windows also reads your Startup Folder to see what has to
start automatically and hide in the background. Also the
"msconfig" to place all these programs in your "Startup".

There are a lot more things happen but let's just look at
these items to see how they effect your system. Yeah, I
thought the same thing. "I never use them and I have plenty
of room on my hard drive so why bother removing them?"

Well, as all of this is happening and while you are looking
at the Windows logo, Windows is secretly loading all of
it's mysterious Stuff and your mind is blank, Windows is
applying all of this information to "System Resources" and
slowing down the operation of your Puter. Gosh, those folks
at Microsoft are smart. Or is that sneaky? Either way, you
don't have the foggiest idea of what is hiding behind the
Windows Startup screen. You just know it is there for a long
time with that little blue bar at the bottom moving across
the screen.

Yup, it is using up resources like they had no limit. If you
have more Stuff than Resources Windows will just stop! Not
to mention that when it does get loaded and your pretty
Windows background shows up, a lot of your Resources are
already used up. Now you want to run a couple of programs.
Nope! Illegal Operation or Critical Error. "CRASH" and
"LOCKUP".

Wait! Before you start finding Folders and overworking tour
Delete Key, there are some things you need to know. Windows
has a program living in your Control Panel called "Add
Remove Programs". If the program is listed here and you
just delete the folder in Explore, all the secret files
stay on your Puter waiting for you to need the program and
eating up Resources.

So start here. Click on the "Start" button, then "Settings",
then double click on "Control Panel". Find the program you
want to remove and select it then hit the Add/Remove
button. Follow the instructions and it will try it's best
to get rid of the program. Not always successfully though.
You may get a message that "Some files could not be
removed". If you are lucky there will be a "Details" button
that will give you the information about "Leftover Stuff".
Write down the information and then you get to be a
detective and try to find them so you can remove them
manually.

After you have removed the "Old acquaintances" you should
run "Scandisk" and then "Defrag" your hard drive. Removing
files and programs will leave holes or spaces all over
your drive slowing it down even more. You will be amazed at
the performance change. "May Old acquaintances Be Removed!"

About the Author

Mike Smith, owner of CM/YMTC, has extensive experience with
computers and the Internet. Check out his latest venture,
the ELearning Center.
http://www.cmymtc.com/elearncntr.htm