PC Maintenance How to keep your computer healthy

Areas We’ll Cover Software Hard Drive Networking Hardware

Software Update your Internet Browsers e.g. Mozilla Firefox, MS Internet Explorer It’s important to keep up with browser upgrades The latest versions usually contain important security fixes Firefox: Help  Check for Updates… IE: Tools  Windows Update

Software How to safely uninstall software Start menu  Settings  Control Panel  Add or Remove Programs

Software - Unresponsive Dealing with Unresponsive Software Sometimes, software will freeze on you and you’ll get a “Not Responding” message To shut it down: – CTRL + ALT + Delete – Task List – Choose application and End Task

Hard Drive Maintenance - Defragmentation A few times a year, you should defrag your computer Defragmentation reorganizes your computer’s contents, placing files closer together and creating large areas of free space. This will make your computer faster. Start  Programs  Accessories  System Tools  Disk Defragmenter

Hard Drive Maintenance – Disk Cleanup Every few months, you should perform a Disk Cleanup to remove or compress non-critical files and clear space Start  Programs  Accessories  System Tools  Disk Cleanup

Hard Drive Maintenance – Recycle Bin At least once a week, you should empty your Recycle Bin. Too many files in the bin can slow your machine Right-click on the Recycle Bin  Empty Recycle Bin

Hard Drive Backup Your Data Just wait until you lose a 10-page term paper – you’ll wish you had! Methods of backing up: – Writable CD-R (650 MB) or CD-RW (700 MB) – USB Flash Drive: 8 MB – 64 GB – External Hard Drive (can be huge)

Networking Anti-virus Software Be sure you have software like Symantec Norton AntiVirus and keep it updated (it can be set to automatically update itself) Will prevent or eliminate viruses or worms from messing with your machine You can download this for free – goWMU – Student Services tab – Virus Protection Downloads window

Networking Anti-spyware Spyware can take partial control of your machine and send information about your activity over the web or will launch pop-up adds Download and run Ad-Aware SE (free).

Networking Stop Hackers If you have fulltime access to the Internet you may be vulnerable to being hacked by other users If you’re concerned, download a free firewall program like ZoneAlarm (free).

Networking Safe Phishing scams – Other scams – – Search Google for others Attachments and images embedded in s

Hardware Computers ain’t cheap – take care of them! Monitor wipes Keyboard vacuum Remove dust from back Open and clean your mouse (ick)