Clean the Junk Out of Your Computer - How to

Over time, your computer ends up with old programs you no longer use, temporary files that take up valuable space on your hard drive, and a host of other "odds and ends" files that are no longer necessary. Having all this excess baggage slows your machine down. Sometimes, to the point that your computer will start crashing. When that happens, you know the time is way over due to lighten up the load on your hard drive. Read this informative article and learn how to clean the junk out of your computer and make it run faster and smoother!

Take A Look At Your Taskbar
On the bottom right corner of your computer screen is the taskbar. The icons here are the programs that start up when your computer boots up. The more programs you have in here, the longer it will take for your computer to boot up. So, take a look at the taskbar and decide if you actually need all of those time-consuming icons. Right click on any icons you want to remove from the taskbar, or turn them off.

Decide What Desktop Icons Need to Go
Take a look at your desktop. Is it covered with icons from top to bottom? Actually, does it have more than just a few rows of icons? If so, then your computer has a problem with "desktop clutter." Windows XP has a feature that clumps your unused icons into a folder so they don't clutter up your desktop. I find this rather odd, because, if you don't use them, then why have the icons on your desktop or the programs in your computer? Personally, I think it makes more sense to dump the unused icons and clean the junk out of your computer.

But, if you want to keep your desktop more organized, you can create a new folder by right clicking, then clicking on "New" and "Folder". Name your folder something like "Misc" and left click twice. You can can place your rarely used icons in there to avoid having desktop clutter.

The first step to clean the junk out out your computer is to look over your desktop and decide which icons need to go. It'll probably be easier to decide what you want to keep first, then go from there. For example, I love playing Scrabble®, and I play it often. That's why I keep the icon shortcut on my desktop, so I can easily find it.