Published on by

In one of my my earlier posts I already mentioned some of the tools I am using to keep my Windows installation in good shape — fast and responsive. What I am going to do now is to debunk a myth called Windows Rot.

Every now and then someone complains how Windows gets slower over time ultimately leading to the need for reinstallation in order to regain lost performance.

Everybody knows what causes that performance loss — disk fragmentation, registry bloat, poor working habits and improper maintainance.

However, nobody seems to follow some pretty obvious ground rules when working with a PC so I am going to list the most important five rules here:

  • Install only programs you use often
    • If your PC is a valuable tool for you, then don't treat is as a toy. In other words, do not install and try just about every game and application you see available for download on the Internet.
  • Organize your files
    • Do not rely on searching! To be efficient, seaching needs indexing which uses resources and updating index database often fragments your disk. Furthermore, imagine how poor would you perform at home if you had to search over and over again for dustbuster, soap, knives and forks, light switches, pajamas, etc.
  • Check for new drivers often
    • This is important because it eradicates bugs, improves overall system stability, and often gives considerable performance boosts.
  • Keep applications up to date
    • Ensure you are using latest version of all the applications you work with. Same reasoning applies as for drivers.
  • Clean-up and tune-up your PC
    • Delete files you no longer need, empty Recycle Bin, clear browser cache, clear TEMP folder, optimize registry and perform offline and online defragmentation of your disks.

As you can see, tuning is only number five on my personal list. Most people do it as if it was the one and only thing to do, and they often perform parts of it in wrong order or they use wrong tools. Stay with me if you want to learn how to do it the right way. You will need the following tools:

  • Bootvis
    • Running Bootvis (Optimize System) ensures that your boot files are laid out properly for fast system booting.
  • NTREGOPT
    • Running NTREGOPT compacts the registry and improves system performance.
  • PerfectDisk
    • Running PerfectDisk, the mother of all defragmenters, in offline mode and in smart placement mode with free space consolidation ensures that you get top performance out of your disks. Do not bother using other defragmenters — Donn Edwards tested them all for you and it is official, PerfectDisk is the best commercial defragmenter.

What follows is a batch file you can use to clean-up your system partition before performing the optimization with the tools I mentioned above:

@echo off
echo Killing Explorer...
taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe
echo Done.
echo Cleaning Firefox Cache...
REM *** Change YOUR_PROFILE to the exact name of your profile folder ***
del /S /F /Q "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\YOUR_PROFILE.default\Cache\*.*"
echo Done.
echo Cleaning Icons and Fonts Cache...
del /AH /F /Q "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\IconCache.db"
del /F /Q "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\GDIPFONTCACHEV1.DAT"
echo Done.
echo Cleaning Internet Explorer History...
rd /S /Q "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\History\History.IE5"
echo Done.
echo Cleaning Internet Explorer and Outlook Temporary Internet Files...
del /S /F /Q "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\*.*"
echo Done.
echo Cleaning IE7 Updates folder...
rd /S /Q "%WINDIR%\ie7updates"
md "%WINDIR%\ie7updates"
echo Done.
echo Cleaning TEMP folder...
rd /S /Q "%TEMP%"
md "%TEMP%"
echo Done.
echo Cleaning *.log files from %WINDIR%...
net stop "Automatic Updates"
net stop "Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)"
del /S /Q "%WINDIR%\*.log"
net start "Automatic Updates"
echo Done.
echo Cleaning System File Checker cache...
sfc /purgecache
echo Done.
echo Cleaning Minidumps...
del /AH /S /F /Q "%WINDIR%\Minidump\*.*"
echo Done.
echo Cleaning Windows Update downloads...
del /S /F /Q "%WINDIR%\SoftwareDistribution\Download\*.*"
echo Done.
echo Cleaning Recent Docs...
del /S /F /Q "%USERPROFILE%\Recent\*.*"
echo Done.
echo Restarting Windows Explorer...
start explorer.exe
echo Done.

Download cleanup.bat (1,589 bytes)

Don't forget to change YOUR_PROFILE to the exact name of your Firefox profile and feel free to add more commands, for example to delete Internet and Windows Explorer browsing history or to empty some other folders of your choice.

Now that you learned how to improve performance, next logical step would be to learn how to keep it that way. Luckily, that is even easier. Things you should do in addition to the above mentioned optimization steps are reducing the number of running applications by emptying your system tray as much as possible and making sure that download applications such as Azureus, eMule or FlashGet always reserve space for the whole file before they start downloading it.

So, what are you waiting for? Go and apply some of that WD-40 to that Windows Rot of yours!