PC Software Maintenance

Most of the maintenance related problems that you have with your computer are due to software. There are a few things we can do to protect ourselves from Software related issues. We can backup our data so that no matter what, it is safe. We can help the computer keep itself better organized. We can also make sure that only the software we really need is installed. And, we can try to make sure that there is no 'evil' software hiding on the computer.

Backup your Data

The first, and maybe the most important thing you can do to protect your computer is backup your data. In reality, your data IS your computer. If your computer blew up tomorrow, you could probably replace it. What you could not replace as easily is the data. Your pictures, music, documents, and anything else you have on the computer are the most difficult things to loose. This is why Backups are so important. The Hard Drive on which your data is stored is the part of the computer that is most likely to fail. Often, the Hard Drive fails without any warning!

The easiest way to make backups is to buy an external Hard Drive, which plugs in using the USB port on your computer. Many of these come with special software that will automatically make backups from time to time. The thing to remember about this method though, is that the data is on another Hard Disk. The external Hard Disk is prone to failure as well. It is possible, although not very likely, that both drives could fail at the same time.

Some DVD Writers also come with Backup software. I like this idea better because you can take the DVD's with your data on them and place them in a Safety Deposit Box if the information is important enough. However, if you have a lot of information, it may get spread across many disks. This can be time consuming as you need to keep changing the disk in the drive each time it fills one up.

There are a couple of other ways to backup your data, but I do not know that they translate well to home use. The first is backup tapes. These can be unstable and expensive.

Another method that is actually pretty good, but expensive, is an external RAID drive. RAID is a technology that uses multiple hard drives to store your data in a way that if one drive fails, it can rebuild that drive from 'extra' data it has written to the rest of the drives. The nice thing about this is that you do not have to shut down the computer when a drive fails. The computer will keep running, rebuilding the 'missing' data as needed. As soon as you plug in a new Hard Drive, it will write the missing data back to that drive. Keep in mind, that when it is running with a missing, or dead drive, if any other drive were to fail, it would lo longer be able to continue. At that point all data is lost.

You do not need special software to backup your information. You can simply copy your important files to a disk yourself. What makes backup software nice is that it makes it more automatic. There is less 'forgetting' when using such software. Another difference comes in determining what to backup. The first time you make backups, you need to copy all of your data to the backups disks. After that, you really only need to copy new files, and the files you have changed. Therefore, the very first time you backup your computer, it take a lot of space to do it. But each backup after that might be rather small. Keeping track of what changed can be a pain, but this is another feature of a good backup program. It monitors new / changed files for you and knows what needs to be backed up.

There are a few different methods of backing up data.

Drive Image
Full Backup
Incremental Backup
Differential Backup

A Drive Image includes everything on your hard drive in one (or a couple of) package. If you ever have to replace the hard drive, all you need is the software you used to create the image, and the Image file. With that, your computer will be restored to the exact same condition as when the backup was made. However, Each time you create a new image, it will be full size.

Organize your Computer

Over time, a lot of unneeded data can accumulate on your computer. This might be old project files, temporary data stored by a program (such as a Internet Browser), or old programs you have installed, but do not need anymore. Cleaning these old files out can help you find more important files when you need them. It may also help the computer perform better, since it will not have to look through as much data to find what it needs. Finally, it may also help you find 'troublemakers' that do not need to be there at all.

Cleaning up the computer has gotten to be much easier with later versions of Windows. If you view the contents of your computer, and right-click on a drive, and select properties, you may find a button labeled 'Disk Cleanup'. This will start a process where Windows will try to find maintenance tasks it can perform on this drive. It will look for old files that can be compressed to save space. It will also look for temporary files that might be good to delete. Eventually, it will present you with a list of file categories that it thinks can be deleted. Keep in mind that this tool is really designed to help clear space on a drive that is low on space, so these are things that probably can be deleted, but that do not have to be deleted.

Downloaded Program Files are probably programs that you found on the Internet, but that are stored on your computer. If you use Web-Based programs, you may want to leave this alone.
Temporary Internet files are Web pages and related files that you have visited recently. When you visit a Web page, your computer has to download the files that make up the page, and then display them on the screen. When you are done with that page, the computer does not always delete these 'cache' files just in case you go back to that page. This way, it might not have to download all of the files again. Most of the time it is safe, and good, to delete these files.
Off-line Web Pages are normally Web pages you have selected to be able to look at, even if you have no Internet connection. This is more useful on a Laptop, than a regular computer. If your computer is set up to use a Web page as the desktop image, this is likely stored as an off-line Web Page. Normally, you can delete these, as long as you tell Internet Explorer to update the pages before you need them again.
Microsoft Error Reporting Temporary Files are created by Windows when it detects a system failure. Normally these files are sent to Microsoft and then deleted. You can generally delete these.
Office Setup Files are left over from installing Microsoft Office (if you have that installed). They are there in case you try to use a new feature that is not fully installed yet. As long as these are available, Office should not need to ask for a CD when installing new parts. You can delete these files, but keep in mind that if you do try to use a new feature in Office, you will need to have the install CD handy.
Recycle Bin contains many of the files you may have recently deleted. This is here just in case you accidentally delete a file. You can go into the Recycle Bin and restore the file. Most of the time it just gets filled up with old stuff you no longer need.

On the Tools tab of the Properties screen, you will find buttons for Error-Checking, Defragmentation, and Backup.

Error-Checking will scan your drive for damaged files. The problem is, many times the damaged files cannot be fully recovered and what is recovered are pieces of the file that are only useful to Geeks. The other job Error-Checking can do for you is make sure the drive itself is not dying by performing a surface scan. I have mixed feelings about running this. If the drive is beginning to fail, Error-Checking may try to recover data and actually cause more problems. I recommend backing up your data before running Error-Checking.
Defragmentation is a way to 're-organize' the data stored on your computer. As your computer write information to the hard drive, it writes it in pieces. It locates the first available 'space' on the hard drive and writes to that space until it is full. There might not be enough room for all of the information, so the computer looks for the next available space. It then writes more in this space. It continues this process until all of the data has been written. The end result is that this one set of information may be spread across many different spaces on the disk. Later, when the computer wants to read this information back, it will need to locate each of these pieces, and reassemble the information. Defragmentation will go through each file on your computer and try to consolidate all of the pieces of each file so that it is all together. This will speed up the read operations from the disk. It can take a long time to do this, but it should not cause any damage to your data. I would recommend a Backup, and perhaps a Error-Check, before running Defragmentation.
Backup is a tool Microsoft included for backing up your data. I do not think it is a very good tool, but it is better than nothing. You will still need some sort of drive to store the backups on. Keep in mind that it does not make sense to store backups on the same drive they came from, otherwise if that drive dies, the backups go with it.

There is another place where you can delete Temporary Internet Files. You must open the Windows Control Panel, and locate Internet Properties. In here you can delete the cookies that are stored on the computer. Cookies are small files that Web pages place on your computer to hold small amounts on information. Sometimes, this is identification data so that when you return to the Web page later, it will recognize you, and not make you login again. Other times, these files are placed on your computer to track your Web browsing habits. This is done by advertisers on the Web, with the cooperation of the sites that display the ads. Deleting cookies will interrupt this tracking, but it may cause Web sites you go to frequently to not be able to recognize you anymore. It is a trade-off you need to balance. NOTE: Do not clear cookies if you have forgotten the login information (username, password) for any of the web pages you need, where the cookie may be currently providing that information.

These tools for cleaning Temporary Internet Files only clean out Microsoft Internet Explorer. If you are using a different browser, such as Firefox, or Opera, You will need to clear these files from within that program.

Over time, many programs get installed. Eventually, you may not need the program anymore, but you do not think to uninstall it. Every so often, you should go through the list of installed programs and remove the ones you do not need anymore. The biggest suggestion I have is of course to backup your data first, and you may want to make sure you still have the disks to re-install the software, in case you need it again later.

To remove software, you should start in the Add or Remove Programs tool in Control Panel. When you start this tool, it will provide a list of installed programs. Depending on your version of Windows, it may also tell you how much space the program is using, and how often the program is used. I would start by looking for programs that you recognize, and know you no longer need. You may find multiple versions of the same program installed. You should be able to remove the older version.

Once you have removed the obvious programs, pay close attention to the remaining software. Some of it may be support software for programs that you do use. However, some of it may be software that is there to 'spy' on you. If you are not sure what something is, you may want to get on the Internet and look it up.

Preventing Malicious Software (Malware)

There is plenty of software floating around out there that is designed to do things you would not want done. Some of it is just designed to monitor your behavior and report it back to someone (spyware), some of it is designed to be disruptive to your your computer, and some of it will just take over part of your computer to do work for someone else (bots).

There are two basic ways of dealing with these types of problems, active, and on-demand. Most software packages you can install work in both modes. Active scanning requires that software be loaded and running all the time looking for signs that malware is active. The On-Demand method means that the program only runs when it is asked to. This can be based on a schedule, or it can be something you run when you choose to.

Active Scanning runs all the time and looks for 'odd' behavior. This results in finding Malware almost right after it starts running. It also means that the Scanner is one more piece of software that is always running and maybe slowing your computer down or causing conflicts with other software. Active Scanning might not find Malware that is sitting on the hard drive, inactive.

On-Demand Scanning generally is set to run on a schedule. Once started, the Scanner will look at all of the files on the hard drive. This means that malware may be located, even if it is not running. This is an advantage over the Active Scanners. The disadvantage to On-Demand Scanning is that malware is not detected until you run a scan. If you scan once a week, then the malware could have been there for up to a week before it was found.

I personally prefer to use the On-Demand scanners. However, if you use your computer on the Internet, read E-mail, and do not know what to 'watch out for', then Active scanners will be better.