Do you like to download trial games online? Have you purchased cheap games off of the discount rack only to find out after it was installed that the graphics were poor, the game was boring, and then you never really played it anymore? Have you just bought a new computer and don’t like the programs that were pre-installed? Part of good home computer maintenance is keeping your computer free from unwanted or unneeded programs that are not used and remain on your computer taking up valuable space and resources.
Removing these programs is not difficult, Windows provides a tool that makes it easy to find and remove the programs. However, when these programs are uninstalled many times the registry keys are not properly cleaned. So, as part of your home computer maintenance routine you’ll need to have a good quality registry cleaning software since manually editing the registry could be hazardous, or fatal, to your computer if you don’t know exactly what you are doing. Many times you’ll download a free trial game, or other software, that you are only able to use for a certain period of time and then the program is forgotten about and gets lost in the background. These programs may not take up much space on your hard drive, but they will build up and can diminish the performance of your computer over time. Even if you don’t see these programs and have deleted the shortcuts to them off of your desktop that doesn’t mean they’re not still on your computer taking up space. Your computer still has to process the program’s information and settings. During your home computer maintenance routine you can click on the start button and look for control panel, or right click on My Computer and click on “explore” to look for the control panel. Once you find the control panel click on add or remove programs and a window will come up with a list of all the programs installed on your computer.
Scroll through the list of programs and you can identify which games, or other software, that you have installed and no longer use. When you click on the program it will highlight and there will be a button that says change/remove, click this button and follow the prompts to uninstall the program. Sometimes, on larger programs you will be prompted to restart your computer after the uninstall, go ahead and restart your computer to finish. On new computers you may want to get rid of some of the programs that were installed from the factory that you will never use. Now you have just freed up valuable disk space on your computer, but you must be aware that there will be registry entries, that at this point, belong to what are now deleted programs. These registry entries are not harmful to your computer however, they will clutter the registry and slow processing time. If you are not familiar with editing the registry it is strongly suggested that you do not try, as any mistakes can cause your computer to act erratic or completely crash. It would be a good idea for you to purchase a good registry cleaning software package, or try to find a good free registry cleaning software. There are some good free registry cleaners available, but you need to be careful when shopping around for them because you could contract spyware that you do not want, or download a free scanner that will tell you what it found but will not finish the job until you purchase the full software. The ideal thing that you would want to do is invest a small amount of money in a good all-in-one home computer maintenance and security software package that will clean, scan, protect, and secure your computer keeping it running like the day you took it out of the box. If you take your home computer maintenance seriously, you should be able to get the full life out of your computer that you paid for without the problems and headaches that a cluttered and infested computer will bring.
