Number 261 - February 2005

Basic Windows Maintenance
by Vic Laurie
Over the last few years Windows maintenance has been a pet theme of mine. I have given a variety of presentations and lectures and written a number of articles on the subject. Here I am going to get on my soapbox again. I know from experience that many ordinary home PC users would benefit greatly from just a modicum of basic knowledge on the subject. I also know from experience that there is a lot of inertia and considerable reluctance to learn that basic knowledge. It's a shame because I have encountered many instances where a PC user tells me about a problem that could have been fixed in 10 or 15 minutes with a little basic knowledge. Instead he or she loses many days waiting for a friend or relative to fix it or spends a fair amount of money for a technician. (Or in some cases even buys a new computer.) In this article I outline the basic things that I think would be of use to all PC users whatever their technical background. True, you could go through life and never need any of this stuff. On the other hand, a little preparation might just save you from a peck of trouble.    (Please note that there are also several relevant articles and PowerPoint presentations available for downloading on the site http://www.vlaurie.com. Both the Windows 98 Tools and Maintaining the Computer pages pertain.) Updating Virus Protection    Most computers nowadays come with an anti-virus program. However, many people fail to keep their database of virus definitions updated. All the major anti-virus programs come with an update feature that should be used regularly. New viruses appear daily and updating every two weeks is not too often. Unfortunately, the major companies no longer provide unlimited updates but have started charging after one year's (or even less) usage. Depending on your version, subscriptions are in the range of $5 to $15 per year. There are still some free services but these are subject to change at any time. If you do need to buy a new anti-virus program, you may be better off buying a utility suite. For very little additional cost they include many other useful utilities.    Information about anti-virus software can be found at    www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,2768351,00.html    www.zdnet.com/zdhelp/filters/subfilter/0,7212, 6003257,00.html    www.pcmag.com/article/0,2997,s%253D1474% 2526a% 253D2736,00.asp    http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q49/5/00.ASP Preparing for Disaster    Unfortunately, hard drive failure is not all that uncommon. If it occurs, everything that is on the drive is lost (unless you resort to an expensive recovery service). Also, if you do get a virus, a lot of your disk may be wiped out. Or, in a variety of other ways, files may be corrupted or lost. Botched software installations, system crashes, or just plain carelessness can lose valuable data. Thus, backups are essential. Ideally, the whole system should be backed up to some external storage device. At a minimum, all files such as passwords, favorite places, address books, financial and tax records, important documents and correspondence (including e-mail), and any other personal data that has more than transitory value should be backed up to some place other than your hard drive.    Windows 98 comes with a backup accessory in Programs/ Accessories/ System Tools/ Backup. The program may not installed by default so you may have to add it from the Windows disk. The Windows disk also contains a tool called the System Recovery Wizard. An article on how to do a full system restore with it is at http://support.microsoft.com/ support/ kb/ articles/q187/5/ 26.asp. Personally, I prefer other ways of backing up, such as Norton Ghost, but this may be more than the beginner or casual user wants to cope with.. At the very least, regularly copy essential files using a CD-RW, Iomega drive, or other storage medium. If you really don't have much that is important on your system, you could conceivably use diskettes but at a capacity of 1.44 Mbytes each you won't get much storage, even with some form of file compression. Information on backup media and software is at www.pcmag.com/ article/ 0,2997,s%253D1474%2526a% 253D2800,00.asp Also see http://windows.about.com/ c/ ht/ 00/07/ How_Back_System0962932997.htm. In addition to providing a way to restore the entire system, backup software generally provides a way to replace individual files.    In general, restoring a system may require some sort of boot disk. The process of creating a Windows startup disk is described at . Norton Ghost and other software create their own particular versions of a boot disk. Whichever form of backup you use, be sure to create the appropriate boot disk. Restoring the Registry    Less catastrophic than a hard drive crash, a corrupted Registry is nonetheless a major matter for the unprepared. Almost all Windows 95	home users that I have known never backed up their Registry and had a serious problem if anything ever happened to the Registry. Fortunately, Windows 98 automatically makes backup copies once a day for each of the last 5 days that the system has booted. (Of course, if you never reboot, you will not have this protection.) Restoring one of the five backup copies of the Registry is easily done by means of the system tool, Registry Checker (scanreg.exe). It does require going into DOS but the process is quite painless even for the novice. If one day your computer informs you that it won't boot into Windows because the Registry is corrupt and you are staring at the black and white DOS screen, simply type "scanreg /restore" (without quotes) and enter. You will get a screen asking which of the five Registry backups you wish to restore. They will be dated sopick one from a date when you know everything was functioning. See http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q183/8/87.asp or http://216.167.71.32/windows98/start-145.shtml for more details.    In Windows Me (and sometimes in Windows 98) you will have to use a boot disk because DOS is not available. It is imperative, therefore, to make a boot disk to have handy for any such emergency. Disk Maintenance    Windows comes with two system accessories that should be used regularly to keep the file system on the hard drive healthy. These are ScanDisk and Defrag. They can be accessed in Programs|Accessories|System Tools or by entering "scandiskw" or "defrag" (without quotes) into the Run line. ScanDisk can be run in either the "Standard" or "Thorough" modes. The latter takes quite a while and need not be run very often. Microsoft suggests running Standard once a week, while Thorough is suggested once a month. Personally, I think the average home user could get away with using one month and four months, respectively, but the number is arbitrary. In any case, ScanDisk Standard should always be run after any system crash. More on ScanDisk is at www.microsoft.com/ windows98/ usingwindows/ maintaining/ tips/ beginner/ scandisk.asp http://support.microsoft.com/ support/ kb/ articles/ Q186/3/65.ASP    Heavy computer users should defrag once a week while once a month is probably adequate for average home use. The best procedure is to run right after ScanDisk. Note that the first time that Defrag is run is likely to be a lengthy session. It may take several hours, depending on your disk size and condition. At about 10% defragmented the system will seem to hang for many minutes but will eventually go on. More information is at www.microsoft.com/ windows98/ usingwindows/ maintaining/ tips/ beginner/ diskdefrag.asp http://support.microsoft.com/ support/kb/ articles/ q186/1/71.asp    Ron Badour has good pages on ScanDisk and Defrag (sometimes slow to load) at    http://badour.freewebsites.com/html/scandisk.html    http://badour.freewebsites.com/html/defrag.html    An important consideration in running either of these tools is to have nothing else running in the background. You can do Ctrl-Alt-Delete to bring up the list of running programs or more easily use the neat program EndItAll from PC Magazine (see the discussion at http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/Hurry2.htm) File Maintenance    A certain amount of housekeeping will help your system to be more efficient and stable. Windows programs use a lot of temporary files, which can accumulate at an alarming rate. In particular, the folders \Windows\Temporary Internet Files\ and \Windows\temp\ can really build up. These folders should be cleaned out periodically. An easy way to do this is to go to My Computer and right-click on the icon for the C: drive. Open the Properties sheet and make sure the "General" tab is selected. Then click "Disk Cleanup". You will be given a choice of temporary folders to clean, including the Recycle Bin. More on Disk Cleanup is at http://216.167.71.32/windows98/start-141.shtml. Also, an entire article on cleaning up is at http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/clean.htm.    Incidentally, if you click on the "Tools" tab in the properties sheet, you can access ScanDisk and Defrag from here as well as Microsoft Backup (if it is installed). Conclusion    The procedures outlined here are not onerous. Nor do they require any special knowledge. However, a PC user who carries out these minimal basic steps on a regular basis is likely to have a better computer experience. Things may still go wrong but the prepared user will have much less trouble overall.
Number 262 - February 2005