Is your computer slow to open files? Searching for a document seem to take forever? Does just trying to open a web page bring your computer to a screeching halt?
Maybe it’s time to do some hardware upgrades, like installing more RAM. Or maybe it’s time to replace the computer completely. Was Clinton still in office when you purchased your last PC?

But before you start shopping, why not use some simple, free utilities to do a basic cleanup to see if the improvements made can squeeze a little more life out of your computer?

When we take on a new client for computer support in Fort Myers, one of our first priorities is to do a thorough cleanup of the workstations. This ensures that we’re working on computers that are performing to the best of their capabilities and makes it far easier to identify what upgrades or improvements might actually be required.
To do a basic cleanup, we use the following three utilities, all of which can be found for free on the web.

1. CCleaner –This easy to use utility will scour your computer for old temp files, cached web pages and other junk files that are taking up space as well as using up valuable resources. It’s best to run a CCleaner cleanup before running other utilities. This way, when you run scans with your other utilities, they won’t have to waste time looking for problems in the potentially thousands of files that CCleaner could delete for you first.

CCleaner also has a very useful Registry Cleaner that can scan and cleanup your registry of outdated or incorrect entries. This can greatly improve your computer’s boot time and overall performance.

2. Malwarebytes – As dangerous and destructive as Viruses can be, so too can be Malware… programs that find their way onto user’s computers through infected websites or through email messages. Malware is often responsible for those nasty, annoying pop-up ads that can make Internet browsing near impossible on a heavily infected machine. When we’re doing computer support in Fort Myers for our customers, this is one of the first things we like to check for, as these infections can often lie silently in the background, tracking and spying on user’s web activity without the user being aware that anything is wrong, other than that their computer seems terribly slow.

3. Microsoft Security Essentials – There are plenty of quality Antivirus applications available, and one of the best is actually a free program from Microsoft. Viruses caused over Five Billion dollars in damages to businesses worldwide in 2009 and is a very real danger to all companies. Running regular virus scans is a must, and there is absolutely no excuse for not having good Antivirus protection on a computer, especially when one as good as MSE is available for free.
When we provide our clients with IT support in Fort Myers, these are the first three utilities that we run to make sure that a computer is running the best it can in its current hardware configuration.

We recommend that you do the same for your computer.