Castanet

Does anyone know of any good programs to recommend for cleaning up a computer?

I do the usual regular maintenance stuff but the computer is starting to slow down a bit.

I've disabled a few programs that were coming on at Start up and I've deleted a bunch of duplicate files and such that cleared up some space. CC Cleaner is one I've used in the past (as its free and appears reliable).

I don't really want to take it in to a business and pay ridiculous $$ to do something that I can do.

Anyone do this themselves?

Which OS?

Windows 10 allows you to do a clean install and keep your files or start from scratch.

Bsuds wrote:Which OS?

Windows 10 allows you to do a clean install and keep your files or start from scratch.

A fair point, sorry.

I should actually just do the update. I have 8 and it's been asking me to update for a while, but apparently it cannot do so without literally redoing everything from scratch as you say. So I'd have to take everything we need off, to update... then put it back on. Just not sure I want the undertaking just yet. I may have to bite the bullet. I forgot all about that.

Every 2 weeks or so, it tries to update a bunch of stuff, the fails because it's not 10 yet and then undoes the changes and restarts.

Damnit Suds.

Disregard. I'll just get rid of everything and put on 10

fvkasm2x wrote:
Damnit Suds.

Disregard. I'll just get rid of everything and put on 10

Good luck! I still have my Laptop on 8.1 because Win 10 will not install on it.

It worked with the free version of Win 10 but when I tried the anniversary update all Hell broke loose.

Bsuds wrote:
Good luck! I still have my Laptop on 8.1 because Win 10 will not install on it.

It worked with the free version of Win 10 but when I tried the anniversary update all Hell broke loose.

Ya, I've been putting it off because I updated a laptop years ago to Windows XP back when that came out and it messed everything up. Could never get it going as well as it was before the update. Had no problems until I "fixed" it with the new OS

A clean install of Win 10 is the way to go, I do a format and clean install of my OS around every six months anyway. In this day an age of cloud services, some apps reinstall themselves, others I just have to install and once I sign in to them, I get all my settings and data back. Usually takes an evening with a couple of beer, and Netflix running on a tablet. I also have all my data on a separate drive so nothing is lost.

With Windows 10 though, install ALL of the updates including the Creators Update BEFORE installing any apps. I've had issues myself and have heard from others that the Creators Update caused havoc with installed apps. Since installing them after, I've had no problems.

why would you want to do a clean install every 6 months...and then have to reinstall all the apps...unless of course there arent that many, maybe 2 or 3?

To avoid such issues, you might want to consider backing up your system, after a fresh installation of your operating system, using programs such as TrueImage or Macrium Reflect. It takes an image of your hard drive, C drive, for example, and when you find yourself with issues you can simply restore your computer back to the way it was. It normally takes 10 to 15 minutes to restore, depending of how large your C drive is.

Macrium Reflect used to have a free version of their program for version 6, but it appears they have removed it for version 7. I have found a link for version 6 though.

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

I just find a reinstall is a nice clean approach, I've never had good luck with images, plus you have to keep them updated. Its useful if you have to deploy many identical systems, but for me its fairly painless. MS Office installs practically automatically, Visual Studio restores itself when I sign in, same with Photoshop and Premier. Most of of my other programs are small and don't take much to reload. Its overall a painless process which is akin to cleaning out the garage, it feels good to do too.

You can do what you want...obviously.

You dont HAVE to keep the image updated. Once it is saved, after you do a clean install and get all the windows 10 updates, then install all of the applications, you can image it and forget it until the computer crashes and unrecoverable. Then you load up the image and restore it. You have now eliminated the step to reinstall windows and the applications. Now all you have to do is get the windows updates from the time the image was made to the current date.

I keep an image of Drive C when I first created it and put it aside. I then use that to restore the C drive, do updates and then image that maybe every 6 months.

MacCrium is an easy to use image program, much easier than True Image. You should give it a try, it is free after-all.

ETA: You can also do automatic image updates, either a full, differential or incremental. I uncheck those choices because I prefer to do the full image on my own schedule.

I'll give it a shot next time I do a reinstall, which is soon as I need to upgrade to a bigger SSD.

pmaria wrote:I'll give it a shot next time I do a reinstall, which is soon as I need to upgrade to a bigger SSD.

What will be the capacity?

Caberry98 wrote:

pmaria wrote:I'll give it a shot next time I do a reinstall, which is soon as I need to upgrade to a bigger SSD.

What will be the capacity?

Delayed response due to being away... Probably a 512GB, and use my existing 256gb for one application that happens to take a crap ton of space. I also have 4TB RAID for all the data.

Without cleaning anything, if you whip in a solid state drive for the cost of a good tech, that'll speed your machine up beyond what it would have been brand new.

pmaria wrote:I just find a reinstall is a nice clean approach, I've never had good luck with images, plus you have to keep them updated. Its useful if you have to deploy many identical systems, but for me its fairly painless. MS Office installs practically automatically, Visual Studio restores itself when I sign in, same with Photoshop and Premier. Most of of my other programs are small and don't take much to reload. Its overall a painless process which is akin to cleaning out the garage, it feels good to do too.

I find that unless the person is a user with horrible skills, running CCleaner once a month or so on Windows 10 is more than sufficient, and a lot less hassle than doing a clean install.

Once upon a time clean installs were the norm, and necessary, but that was with older operating systems.