Might have been useful taking this approach myself.

As good as it is to clean out all that collective dust (and I highly recommend that you do), that’s not what this article is for.

After the jump, I’ll show you how to clean up the files in your PC, using some very useful programs and tweaks to get rid of the junk that slows it down.

Step 1: Viruses

First off, you should run whatever anti-virus program you use to get rid of viruses, spyware and rootkits.

Most PCs sold nowadays are bundled with one you can use, so chances are you’ll have one of these at hand.

If you don’t have one, there are really good free alternatives available including AVG. FileHippo is great for finding free software like this.

For AVG:

• Download, install and open
• Go to “Computer scanner” tab
• Click “Scan whole computer”

Step 2: Unused Files

Another great tool that I’ve used for years is CCleaner by Piriform.

There are a lot of files that can clog up your system pretty quickly like your Recycle Bin and pretty much everything that your web browsers use. CCleaner takes all of that and removes it.

I have everything ticked to be cleaned up apart from “Wipe Free Space”, which takes a while to run. Something you don’t need every time you use the program.

As for the rest, you should find out what they mean before you tick them to be deleted. The default settings should still free up loads of space if you’re unsure.

• Download, install and open
• Go to “Cleaner” tab
• Tick every box apart from “Wipe Free Space”
• (Optional) Click “Analyze” button to see how much space you’ll be freeing up
• Click “Run Cleaner” button

Step 3: Cleaning the Registry

Programs (and Windows itself) aren’t too clever in cleaning up after themselves within the registry. It holds a lot of crap left behind from software uninstalls and file associations.

I’d go into how much I despise it but that’s for another day. For now we’ll just clean up the mess.

• Open CCleaner (following on from last step)
• Go to “Registry” tab
• Click “Scan for Issues” button
• Click “Fix Selected Issues…” button when it’s made up the list
• Click “Fix All Selected Issues” button

Any dialogue boxes that come up will just be checking that you know what you’re doing. Of course you do, you’re the soldier with UAC switched off!

Step 4: Checking for Large Files

Another application I like to use for this sort of thing is SequoiaView. The site isn’t too friendly but you’re looking to download “SequoiaView version 1.3 XP” (works on Windows 7 and Vista).

Basically, this collects file size information from all of the files in your hard drive and displays them as squares inside the window – so I would give it a minute to load.

It groups them into folders and sets different colours for types, making it easier to visualise your file system on-screen.

• Download, install and open
• Select “C:\” from drop down menu
• Click “Colorscheme on/off” button
• Go to “View” > “Options…” > “Selection” and select “File and entire path”
• Click “OK”

Step 5: Defrag

Something you’ll want to do every once in a while is a disk defragmentation (not as much as the rest of the list, it takes forever).

Windows has a built in program for this, but if you want a nice interface (or an interface at all) and a folder-specific option, Defraggler is the way to go. It’s another Piriform product.

I’ve heard there aren’t much speed differences if you’re defragmenting a full drive, and if this one isn’t going to be used as often then you might as well just use the default Windows application.

Windows Defrag:

• Go to “Start” > “All Programs” > “Accessories” > “System Tools” > “Disk Defragmenter”
• Select drive “C:\” and click “Defragment disk”

Defraggler:

• Download, install and open
• Go to “Defrag” > “Defrag” from button at bottom of window
• If asked to empty Recycle Bin before you start, click “OK”

And there you have it, five simple steps to prepare your PC for another year of hard torture.

Enjoy your nice, clean, faster computer! 

After a few very miserable attempts at some “website’s own” search results, or having to rake through lists of them from each site’s different categories, I turned to Google Images.

It wasn’t until now that I had found such a great use for its new feature, the colour filter, that you might have noticed on your own escapades into their image search pages. Looks a bit like this:

This helps you get the general colour of background image you want, should you have a preference. I liked this because, as far as I know, no desktop image download sites have this and it’s an option a lot of people would benefit from.

You can also click on Advanced Image Search next to the search buttons like in the image below…

…to use a wider range of options:

Content types
For news content, faces, photo content and line drawings specifically

Exact size
If you want it to be the precise size of your desktop (with a handy link to put them in itself if you don’t know the sizes off-hand)

Filetypes
If you want it to be in a specific format (may improve quality if you don’t choose GIF and pick BMP instead, but it’s not always the case)

Coloration
If you’re looking for black and white or grayscale images

Domain
If you like the images on a site, but want a better search method

There’s also an experimental feature in Google Labs called Similar Images which may also help you find what you’re looking for (although it doesn’t have all the options listed above, so it’ll have to be a one-or-the-other choice).

I can now safely say that I have a much better background than the black screen I had been living with recently, although it wouldn’t have taken much.

Oh yeah, the background solution thing.

Basically I was getting a completely black background and whenever I tried to change the image it just stayed the way it was, although it seemed to be taking the time to load it in.

Right click your desktop and go to Properties,
Click the Desktop tab then the Customize Desktop... button,
If there’s a Web tab click on that then untick everything that’s on that page and OK your way out.

If not, you probably don’t have the same problem I did.

Good luck