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David Brown

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engine987

Member
Oct 18, 2019
5
1
Hello all, I repair and maintain computers in my retirement to stay current and to see all the wonderful (ha-ha) problems that people encounter. I love Windows 10 and think it's Microsoft's best effort ever, especially after the debacle of Windows 8. I'm hoping to possibly learn something from this site, and I would like to hear about people's procedures for cleaning junk off a computer and optimising it. Slow running computers is a problem with at least 50% of my clients. I would also like to share my own procedure for cleaning and optimising if there is any interest from members.
 
My best advice to you is run Malwarebytes, tell them not to install the "free" programs, esp. the fixit for you and god forbid the driver update programs. CCleaner, the portable version will take out the trash on the hard drive but that's not the issue it used to be. While your at it use Revo uninstaller portable first to get rid of all the obvious garbage programs. When in doubt you can always use a search engine to see how legit a program might be. Once in a blue moon I run across an oddball I haven't heard of before but it's OK.
That's a good start and it usually returns pretty normal functions and speeds to a customer's system barring any serious virus infections which I rarely see lately. Things do change though.

A good place to begin to assemble your software toolkit is here: https://portableapps.com/
It's a great site
 
Hello all, I repair and maintain computers in my retirement to stay current and to see all the wonderful (ha-ha) problems that people encounter. I love Windows 10 and think it's Microsoft's best effort ever, especially after the debacle of Windows 8. I'm hoping to possibly learn something from this site, and I would like to hear about people's procedures for cleaning junk off a computer and optimising it. Slow running computers is a problem with at least 50% of my clients. I would also like to share my own procedure for cleaning and optimising if there is any interest from members.

Welcome @engine987! ;) :D
 
My best advice to you is run Malwarebytes, tell them not to install the "free" programs, esp. the fixit for you and god forbid the driver update programs. CCleaner, the portable version will take out the trash on the hard drive but that's not the issue it used to be. While your at it use Revo uninstaller portable first to get rid of all the obvious garbage programs. When in doubt you can always use a search engine to see how legit a program might be. Once in a blue moon I run across an oddball I haven't heard of before but it's OK.
That's a good start and it usually returns pretty normal functions and speeds to a customer's system barring any serious virus infections which I rarely see lately. Things do change though.

A good place to begin to assemble your software toolkit is here: https://portableapps.com/
It's a great site

Thanks DVDR_Dog, although I wasn't looking for advice, it's great that you have shared your thoughts, much appreciated. My cleaning procedure goes like this: run CCleaner in conjunction with CCEnhancer which adds many more items to delete than the standard CCleaner. I also set CCleaner to run when the computer starts. Once CCleaner is finished, I run Wise Disk Cleaner, then run Windows Disk Cleanup using sageset and sagerun options, deleting everything but Downloads. Once finished, I use Auslogics Registry Cleaner v7.0.24.0 (the later versions are requiring payment to delete all categories) and Wise Registry Cleaner - Deep Scan mode. One can always argue whether registry cleaners are worth running and could cause damage but I have used these 2 programs for years on many computers and have never run into a problem. After those are run, I then defragment using PerfectDisk. I have used Revo Uninstaller to clean junk files but I find that the programs I use are sufficient. I tell most clients that they don't need any additional anti-virus software (for Windows 10 only) as Windows Defender does a reasonable job. If however, they do visit dodgy sites or download torrents or are using a different OS, I do suggest one of the free anti-virus programs, such as BitDefender.
I'm familiar with portableapps.com and find it very useful, especially when I don't want to install maintenance programs on client computers. The only driver update software I have used is IObit Driver Booster - it works very well and I have never encountered a problem with it.
 
Just a couple of thoughts. These are shared by many here on the board though their own experiences for what it's worth and I have always thought it's better to ask a pirate.
You don't really address spyware/adware with the programs you mention. The gold standard has always been Malwarebytes. Install it and run it. If it picks up a bunch of nasty stuff leave it on there and suggest your customer consider paying for the full version. It's the one of the most important things you can do in 99% of the time to vastly improve system performance. Revo uninstaller is also considered one of the best. It provides a more thorough uninstall than the "all in ones" you mention that also uninstall.
Hard drives shouldn't be playing the role they once did. With 8GB of RAM rarely should you see a system relying on a page file like they once did if all they are running are average programs. With SSD all those disk utilities are meaningless with the exception of providing more space and can actually harm the drive in some circumstances. Most SSD manufacturers have their own disk utilities which are better suited for the job.
I know you probably will disagree. I can cite current article after article to prove my statements but it's your right to do what you think is best. My only caution would be to take it easy on your customer's SSD with all those utilities you are running. You are going to do more harm than any perceived good.
This reply is more for the other members info.
 
Just a couple of thoughts. These are shared by many here on the board though their own experiences for what it's worth and I have always thought it's better to ask a pirate.
You don't really address spyware/adware with the programs you mention. The gold standard has always been Malwarebytes. Install it and run it. If it picks up a bunch of nasty stuff leave it on there and suggest your customer consider paying for the full version. It's the one of the most important things you can do in 99% of the time to vastly improve system performance. Revo uninstaller is also considered one of the best. It provides a more thorough uninstall than the "all in ones" you mention that also uninstall.
Hard drives shouldn't be playing the role they once did. With 8GB of RAM rarely should you see a system relying on a page file like they once did if all they are running are average programs. With SSD all those disk utilities are meaningless with the exception of providing more space and can actually harm the drive in some circumstances. Most SSD manufacturers have their own disk utilities which are better suited for the job.
I know you probably will disagree. I can cite current article after article to prove my statements but it's your right to do what you think is best. My only caution would be to take it easy on your customer's SSD with all those utilities you are running. You are going to do more harm than any perceived good.
This reply is more for the other members info.
DVDR_Dog, thanks for your response. I meant to mention SSD's in my previous post - most of my clients do not have SSD's installed but, if they did, I would certainly not run PerfectDisk and I would be a bit more careful of deleting stuff, particularly registry data. As far as Malwarebytes is concerned, the problems my clients have usually has nothing to do with spyware/adware, but I will take your advice on that and add it to my list of tools to run. The cleanup tools I use do not uninstall anything and I'm aware the Revo Uninstaller does a great job when needing to uninstall programs. So, thank you for all your time and suggestions.
 
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