How to Extend the Useful Life of an Older Computer

This article was written on an older Dell desktop computer running Windows XP. At eight or ten years old it's considered a dinosaur. Right now this trusty Dell is proving a point. You don't have to stop using your computer just because it is older. With just a few steps you can extend the life of an older computer and delay the expense of major physical upgrades or buying a new one.

Your first step is to backup all important data on your machine to an external source. USB drives, also called “thumb-drives”, are the perfect choice. Lacking that, writing to a compact disk is your next best option. If you cannot do either of those then there are a myriad of free online storage sites where you can park your files.

Once we've safely backed up our data we will do a complete optimization This involves several steps that will purge the older computer of years of accumulated junk. This purge alone will often free enough physical memory and hard drive space to increase usability significantly.

Remove any programs or applications from the computer that you are not using at least weekly. The best way to do this is to download a free uninstaller program from the internet. Install this, and all other tools, to a formatted USB drive or a CD. The advantage of a dedicated uninstaller is that the program will remove applications and other associated files, folders, and registry entries.

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After uninstalling any applications that are not in the “must have” category you will want to clean up the windows registry. A registry cleaner compares the contents of your hard drive to the actual registry database and removes invalid entries. Because the database is so large, this removal will in many cases significantly speed up your machine.

The next task is to clean up the programs that start automatically whenever windows starts. Many times your applications will load into memory (RAM) even when they are not being used. Click “Start” then “Run”. In the dialog box type “MSCONFIG”. A screen will pop up that allows you to selectively eliminate start up programs as well as services. Clear the check boxes of the ones you don't want or need. Close the program then restart windows. If you experience unwanted side effects, relaunch msconfig and recheck the boxes.

After the restart, you will open the “run” dialog as detailed above and type “scandisk”. This will initiate a scan of the hard drive to correct file errors on the hard drive itself. Once the scan is complete you will type “defrag” in the “run” dialog box. The defragmentation process will realign your files sequentially for the most part. This realignment will cause your hard drive to access the files faster. When this finishes, your initial optimization is complete.

Another major step you can take following optimization is to move various tasks online or utilize open source software. Let's assume that you need the most current version of Microsoft Office for some reason. There is a free product called OpenOffice that is fully compatible with MS Office. The full installation takes up less hard drive space and uses less physical memory as well.

If your hard drive space is really at a premium and you don't need the full functionality of MS Office or Open Office, consider using an online document suite such as Google Docs. This online suite of tools is fully compatible with MS Office. Your advantage is that it takes up virtually no hard drive space, and memory use above the browser requirement is negligible. Because it is tied to your Google account you will have access to your documents from almost anywhere.

For your data files, consider using free online storage. There are several places where you can park your files for free. An added benefit is the ability to access those files from any internet connected computer.

We cannot stop the march of time and obsolescence but we can significantly slow it down. As software and online demands for resources grow, repeating these steps will keep your computer working longer than you might think possible.

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How to Extend the Useful Life of an Older Computer

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