General Mantinence

Question

Hello! I was recently confronted with a corrupted OS softwear on my Aurora Alienwere computer that I have had for 2 years now. I had to make a fresh load, deleting all of my files. I was very sad, and am still very sad. Anyway, now, that I've gotten my computer running again, I want to keep anything like that ever happening again.  I have been told that general matinence, just general mantinence can help crashes like that. Well, the many people who have told me that were not very clear on what this 'general mantinence' is. So, I have 3 questions for you: # 1: What tasks do you define as general mantinence?  I have been told a couple (see list below), so if you want to add any additions or change the frequency of when you do them, please post. So far, I have been told that general mantinence is defined as a few of these tasks: Updating any Windows updates every two days Scanning your compute for viruses every week (MacAfee, Norton, etc..) Defragmenting every month Backing up every month Finally, deleting everything from the temporary files folder and recycle bin every week #2:One friend of mine is so paranoid about losing his things, he logs everything he does to his hard drive (install programs, downloading songs, saving documents etc...), so should I do that to? Should I not do it? Should I do only a couple things? #3: I have been told that after a while, your registry begins to gunk up. Is there any program that you have used that is trust worthy? I've heard some Ccleaner, or defraggler.... stuff like that... Anyway, I might have more questions later... so if you can, please answer! I am very thankful to anyone who replies! Cidma

bills889 · Answer

Hi yes cleaning the registry is very important. The best free program for this is called Ccleaner

Clean the registry once a month, or once a fortnight it doesnt matter. And yes all of the above is correct, AV program set to auto update, set win7 to auto update aswell. Defragmenting doesnt have to be done that frequently to my knowledge. And regularly back up your things.

bills889 · Answer

Also another thing

To avoid disk errors general advice says it's best not to occupy more than %80 of your HDD space. For eg if you have a 1tb drive you should not be using more than 800gb of space on it. It can lead to slower performance and also disk errors.

Spamfighter · Answer

Does ccleaner provide a way of reversing whatever it did? I have used the NORTON register cleaner once in my previious version of Norton 360, which didn't alow me to reverse the aciion. Not sure if the latest version has corected this. Has anyone any feedback regarding Norton's registry cleaner?

DELL-Pablo R · Answer

I think you're answering your own question there. All those tips will be useful to the community.

Also good advice from Bills. There are programs out there that will help with most of the maintenance you'd like to do.

They do a complete PC tune up, virus and malware protection, clean the registry, avoid HDD clutter and more.

Backing up your info periodically is a good practice, but another thing you can consider is adding a second Hard Drive with the same capacity as the one you own to your Aurora.

Then you can go ahead and build a Raid 1 that will automatically mirror your Hard Drive. That way you'll have your files intact in case of a mechanical failure.

Send me a PM if you need any advice about useful software or any inquiry you may have.

schneeball · Answer

to add on the back of this , i have several machines and have a couple of external HDD's to keep back ups of my important files . movies , music and game saves etc ! just incase you have a internal HDD failure

just a idea :)

bills889 · Answer

Yes Ccleaner can make a backup of the registry before it does its work. I have never used this anyways and never had a problem :)

Spamfighter · Answer

Thanks bills889 for your feedback.. I just like to be on the save side.

Why? Well, when I used Norton 360 in late Nov 2010 (436 keys deleted) and again in early Dec 2010 (76 keys deleted) (*) Quick Time Player didn't run anymore (still doesn't even with the latest version) Not that I care - don't use it but I understand iTunes, which I do use, needs to have Quick Time Player installed to run. So I was trying to reverse whatever Norton's registry cleaner had done to verify that Quick Time Player issue, but there was no backup nor option for it.

So with your experience with ccleaner, I will try that software to do a "perioded" reg clean. Of course now I also have monthly images taken after the MIO board update so I could re-install a previous image should some software after the "clean" no longer work as designed. \

(*) Didn't dare using a previous image, as my MIO board firmware was just before the Norton "clean" upgraded from 1.02.04 to 2.01.04 and latest restore point too preceded that MIO board update.

Locked Topics – Alienware General

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