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Welcome
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Welcome to another edition of Keep Your PC Healthy.
In this edition, we have a podcast with Philip Churchill of the Windows Home Server blog, look at ways to speed up your computer startup, and how increasing RAM can help your PC's performance.
As the year comes to a close, we want to thank all of our readers and contributors throughout the year. And we wish all of you a wonderful holiday season and a happy, healthful and successful 2008. |
| Windows Home Server Podcast with Philip Churchill |
| Philip Churchill runs the popular Windows Home Server blog at www.mswhs.com. We sat down recently with Philip and had a chat about Microsoft's new Windows Home Server - what it is, who it's for, tips when using it - and more. You can listen to the podcast here. | |
| Clean up your startup |
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When you startup your PC, there are various things that can make it a slower process than necessary. Here's a way you can tidy up your computer and make it start faster.
Remove any unnecessary programs and/or items from the Windows Startup routine using the MSCONFIG utility. Here's how:
- Click Start.
- Click Run.
- Type MSCONFIG.
- Click OK.
- Click the Startup tab.
- Uncheck any items you do not want to start when Windows starts.
If you are not sure what some of the items are, you can visit the WinTasks Process Library. It contains known system processes, applications, as well as spyware references and explanations. You can also identify items by searching for the filenames using Google or your favorite Web search engine.
Clean up your startup, and get working - or playing - faster.
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Add RAM to speed up your computer |
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Adding more memory to a computer system can increase its performance. If there isn't enough room in memory for all the information the CPU needs, the computer has to set up what's known as a virtual memory file. In so doing, the CPU reserves space on the hard disk to simulate additional RAM. This process, referred to as "swapping", slows the system down.
RAM memory does not actually increase the processing performance of the processor. The computer processor searches for instructions to be executed in the RAM memory of the computer. If those instructions are not stored in the RAM memory, they will have to be transferred from the hard disk (or from any other storage system, such as floppy disks, CD-ROMs and Zip-disks) to the RAM memory.
So, a greater amount of RAM memory means that more instructions fit into that memory and, therefore, bigger programs can be loaded at once. With virtual memory, the computer's processor creates a file in the hard disk called a swap file, that is used to store RAM memory data. If you attempt to load a program that does not fit in the RAM, the operating system sends to the swap file parts of programs that are presently stored in the RAM memory but are not being accessed, freeing space in the RAM memory and allowing the program to be loaded. When you need to access a part of the program that the system has stored in the hard disk, the opposite process happens: the system stores in the disk parts of memory that are not in use at the time and transfers the original memory content back.
So, every time the computer performs a change of data from the memory to the swap file of the hard disk, you notice a slowness. When we install more RAM memory in the computer, the probability of "running out" of RAM memory and having the necessity to make a change with the hard disk swap file is smaller and, therefore, you notice that the computer is faster than before.
To have a clearer idea, suppose your computer has 64 MB of RAM memory and all the programs that are loaded (open) at the same time use 100 MB. This means that the system is using the virtual memory feature, making changes with the hard disk. However, if that same computer had 128 MB, it would not be necessary to make any changes with the hard disk (with the same programs loaded), making the computer faster.
Adding memory may be the step you need to speed up your computer.
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| Cool Tool of the Month T-Shirt Winner |
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This month's Cool Tool of the Month winner is SlickRun, nominated by Paul Laudeman of Bloomington, Indiana. As Paul writes, "SlickRun is a fantastic tool that allows you to create shortcut commands to launch various applications on your system. I also use it to open frequently accessed folders, launch a Google search, spreadsheet, and more. Very useful and best of all, free!"
Congratulations, Paul
 Become the very next winner of this fine t-shirt (Click here to see it in detail) by sending us your nomination for Cool Tool of the Month. Click the link above at top left to nominate your choice. | |
Volume 1 Issue 14
