Windows XP Slow Startup Problems.

File cleanup is an important part of fixing your windows xp slow startup problem. It can be significant cause of slowing down your PC even once windows xp is up and running.

We have fixed up errors on the drive and hopefully your startup is at least a bit faster. What else is there?

What also happens over time is that a lot of crud gets left on the hard drive. This crud can be temporary files, files that you have deleted and reside in the recycle bin and logfiles that in some cases can grow very big.

Now how do we get this crud on our disk? Well I have just mentioned one, deleted files that go to the recycle bin. Sometimes these files could be gigabytes in size. (Remember that video you deleted last week?)

Crud can be left when a program terminates because something has gone wrong.

One of the biggest is because naughty you do not close down your PC properly. Remember you were typing that large document. You finished and instead of closing word down and shutting down windows properly you just hit that power off button!

Naughty, naughty, naughty.

When you start using a program (MS word for example) It generates temporary files. When you are writing a document your word document is actually written to the temporary file. When you click on “save document” it saves from this temporary file down to your real document file on disk. More temporary files are generated when you change things. (You have probably noticed that you can undo things you have typed) Very clever. Temporary files are kept of your original document several times back that enables you to go back and undo (or redo) things.

Finished! , Hit the power off button. Now if you had closed MS word down and shut down windows properly all these temp files would have been neatly cleaned up and deleted.

Heck, I’ve just hit the power off button. MS word and windows have not had the time to do this I have just chopped them off at the neck.

When you switch on your PC again windows no longer knows about these temp files because all the pointers to them have gone so there they stay.

You continue being naughty, your disk gradually gets more and more crud you may even end up with more crud than good stuff eventually, especially if you are a heavy user of MS Word. You can get some big and lots of temp files there.

Well let’s give a bit of help. Start with yourself, whenever you finish close down any programs you are using and close down windows properly. (You know, click start bottom left corner then click “Turn off Computer”)

Lets get rid of that stuff in the recycle bin.

There are three ways of doing this, easy, harder and easier.

Let’s start with “easy”. If you have a “recycle bin” icon on your desktop perform the following.

1. Left “double click” on it.
2. A window should open that shows in the right pane all your files and documents in the recycle bin.
3. In the left pane at top left you will find “empty the recycle bin ”left click” on it.
4. All the files and documents will disappear.

And that’s it, simple isn’t it.

Now if you do not have a “recycle” icon on your desktop, (sometimes happens) you will have to do it harder.

1. Go into your file Manager. (what’s “file manager”)
File manager allows you to manage your files and documents (copy, delete etc. But of course you knew this.)
2. “Right” click on “start” in the bottom left corner of your desktop.
3. “Left” click on “explorer” (this is not Internet explorer. Microsoft called it this jut to confuse you)
4. You will get a window that shows you all your folders in the left pane and all your files in the right pane.
5. In the left pane scroll down to the bottom until you see “recycle bin”
6. “Left” click on it and you will see all the files showing in the right panel.
7. “Right” click on the “recycle” bin folder and then click on “empty recycle bin”
8. Voila! All gone.

Just one useful suggestion, if you are deleting large files (such as video files which may be gigabytes in size) It may be useful to stop them going to the recycle bin. As long as you are sure you do not want to recover them you can stop them as follows:

In file manager normally you would just press the ”delete” key. If instead if you hold the shift key down and then pressed the “delete” key this will delete it and also stop it going to the “recycle” bin.

Now it is hopeful that your windows xp slow startup problem has been fixed a bit more.

Next, if you are having problems with booting your computer you may want to go into “Windows XP Safe Mode” to have the opportunity to fix it.

Windows XP Utilities | No Comments »

How to defrag a hard disk as disk fragmentation  can certainly cause windows to startup slow. Now you have cleaned up the physical bits and pieces of your disk and you have got rid of all the crud. You may find that your system may now run considerably faster. There is another area that may cause slowing down of your PC running under windows XP. Fragmentation!

What’s hard disk fragmentation?

Well consider this analogy. What if you put every page of your daily newspaper in a different room? In order to read it you would have to go around pick up each piece and put it into order before you start reading it. (That’s what I have to do after my wife has read it).

Anyway you may take 15 minutes or so before it is in a readable format.

This is exactly what happens with some the files on your disk. Windows-XP has to go and find each part and put them in order.

So how do the files get split up and put on different parts of the disk?

Remember you started off with your spanking new PC, hardly anything on your disk. You start loading things down to it, gradually using more and more of the disk. Well as long as you do not delete anything then these files will all be nice and together. Then you look at your photos and say “that not a very nice one of me” off to trash.
And so on. This creates little empty spaces on your disk which windows xp tries to use when a new file comes along. Hah! There’s a empty bit put a bit of the file there and then go find another empty bit to put the rest and so on.

You now have a fragmented file.

Another way this can happen is when your initial file has to grow bigger. It is already slotted nice and neatly in one space but then you need to add to it. Guess what, no space at the end so off windows goes to find a bit of empty space. Hope it’s big enough.

Anyway over time things get worse and worse and now you get files that can be split up in thousands of different spaces. This will slow windows down as it goes to find all the different pieces, sorts then into order and then presents the file to you or another program. (Are your games slow)?
Well you can fix this. Once again windows knows this happens so has provided you will an accessory once again to fix it.

Perform the following:

1. On your start menu (bottom left corner) place your mouse pointer and click the right mouse button.
2. Place your mouse pointer on “explore” and click the right mouse button.
3. You should now have a screen showing your file structure.
4. Place your mouse over the part that probable says “Local Disk (C:)
(Whatever it is called it the (C:) is the important part)
5. Left click and it should highlight. Right click the mouse while it is selected.
6. You should get another menu. Right at the bottom you will see “properties”. Left click it.
7. You should get a box that shows a pretty circle with blue and pink segments in it. (If you have more pink than blue then you are in a good state space wise on your disk. If you have only a small sliver of pink then you are in some other trouble. (Send me a comment if you want)
8. At the top of the box there is a menu. Click “Tools” with your left mouse button.
9. You should now see a button saying “Defragment Now” Left click it.
10. Another window should open. At the top is listed your disk drives, left click “C” drive. Then at the bottom left click “Analyse”.
11. Away windows will go looking to see how much your files are fragmented. It may take a while if the disk fragmentation is bad. Eventually you will get a nice colourful display bar in the middle and a message saying you should defrag this disk or not.
12. Now in the display bar, if you have lots of blue you are usually OK. If you have lots of red then you will get the “defragment message. If you have masses of red then you are in real trouble and you must defragment.
13. Left click on the “Defragment button and away it will go. Go off and watch a film or something it may take a while if your disk is badly fragmented.
14. You may hit another problem here. To defragment, Windows has to find enough clear space to assemble the file it is defragmenting. It has to be large enough to assemble the file contiguously (now there’s a big word). If it can’t it will fail. The only way out of this is for you to go and delete any files that you do not need any more. Then you start this all over again Anyway after everything has gone OK your bar should be nice and blue.

You should now know how to defrag your hard drive and you should perform this procedure at least every six months. When you do the check it will say if you need to but I would suggest you do it anyway.

Now you know how to defraq you may like to know how to partition your hard drive so go to “how to partition hard drive” to learn how

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