Do you regularly optimise your PC?

[Bloodwych]

EDIT - added the all important CCleaner to the list, which runs from a link on my recycle bin!

I have 27 processes running from boot, 26 after it's been running for a while.

Yes, I have a general idea what every single one does and taken complete control over what services are running, as many default choices by Microsoft are not required for a home user. Event viewer is useful too, as you can often tell if you've disabled a required service. I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to operating systems - I like to know my way around.

Keeping things simple and quick to carry out, I find the only tools I require to keep XP happy are:

• Perfect Disk (boot time defrag and usage based defrag)
• Erunt (registry optimizer and backup tool)
• Ghost (partition images of a fresh install and last know good/trusted install. I hate doing the same things twice!)
• Startup monitor/manager tool, like the freeware "Starter".
• CrapCleaner (or CCleaner) - removes known junk from your system

and, erm that's it! The thing that keeps it optimized the most is how I use it. I concentrate on the above utilities as they make a large difference, not ones that do optimizations you probably won't notice.

I have never needed to re-install XP in two years, although I do have separate PCs for games and emulation (mentioned in Harrison's "how many PCs do you own" thread). This install is still running like new.

Couple of things I do practice is if I need to install new, unknown pieces of software I'll back up my registry using Erunt first (takes seconds, system restore is disabled as I found it's unreliable). Then I'll install the software, decide on what I want to keep, then uninstall it. I'll then restore my previous registry and install only the software deemed worthy of being on my system!

The key to a happy XP is a good registry, monitor your startup programs and services and running security software/firewall (hardware router preferred).

The other thing is having strict security on my browser (firefox with noscript, cookie safe) and email client. Only allowing trusted sites to run certain content helps a lot and gives you more control over what reaches your computer.

I'm always learning with computers, many times from guys like yourself, and that's why I've always enjoyed using them as a hobby. The above strategy works well for me as it requires very little time and stress to carry out, but can save hours of heartache when things go wrong!