Features of Windows That Are Helpful

This week in our "Windows Help" feature, I would like to talk about some things that are included in Windows XP that can actually help with P.C. maintenance. Yeah, something in Windows is helpful! I know!!

First up is the "Disk Cleanup" feature. If you don't regularly use this to get rid of temporary Internet files, Recycle Bin files, and Offline Web pages, your wasting a ton of space. This cleanup will free up your system enough that you will notice a significant speed up. Another cool thing you can do is set Disk Cleanup to compress your old files that you haven't access in a while. This can potentially save you a ton of space. The only thing is that when you want to access a compressed file, it will take a little more time to access it. Of course, that is the reason you compress older files, because you rarely use them.

Up next is the Disk Defragmentor feature. I know, I know, you have heard to defragment your hard-drive countless times. This advice is true. A fragmented Hard Drive can slow your computer down a lot, because windows does a ton of random writes to your hard-drive. This is another feature that can speed you up considerably.

Now, many of you power users probably already use these features, but there are some who don't, and they truly are missing out on a good feature to Windows. Let's all hope that Windows 7 has some more of these great features...

Chris out.