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My Computer has been hijacked/is running slow!
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Posted on June 14th, 2007
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Windows XP
So your computer is running slow, you have junk on it, and heck you have LOTS of harddrive space taken by who knows what. Well I will be covering how to go about this.

1. Uninstall Useless Programs!
This is the first step to getting rid of junk, if you have programs on your computer you never use, uninstall them as they are just a waste of space, and can slow down hard drive loading time as it has to scan through even more files.

So by now you have uninstalled all the programs. Well we hope so right? Often times Applications and Programs keep files on your computer even after uninstallation. So to get rid of these goto where you installed it. Often it is under C:Program Files Find the folders that may have been left behind and delete them.


Next step is to empty your recycling bin.

2. Remove Viruses and Spyware

Often times people do not want to buy virus scanners or do not update their software because they don't know how or they just don't care. But this is important to keeping your computer health up. If you do not wish to buy a AntiVirus Software I suggest using AntiVir. AntiVir has kept my computer clean for as long as I have been using it and it can be found here:
AntiVir

Other virus scanners you may want to try:
Avast! AntiVirus
AVG Scanner
KasperSky
BitDefender <- I have never tried this one so I do not know how reliable it is.

Now that you have chosen your virus scanner it is now time to choose a spyware scanner. The most popular and reliable is Ad-Aware 2007 which can be downloaded at the site listed below:
Lavasoft Ad-aware Scanner 2007

Now often times people suggest a spyware scanner called Search and Destroy or S&D, well I do not recommend it. Unless they have changed their methods they are not very good at keeping up with new adaware and spyware. You may use it as a secondary scanner though.

3. Hard Drive Space Loss

Well it seems you have removed most things, but still you haven't figured out what is taking up your hard drive space and it seems impossible to find the files.
Well I have just the programs for you :)

CCleaner - This program will go through and clean off any internet temporary files and any other files that seem unnecessary. You can select what it cleans in the options. Most of the time it clears about 1.8GB or more on my hard drive every 6 months or so!

Well You still have about 50 bagillion Gigabytes missing from your hard drive. Well the next program will fix this all for you!
This is not a very well known program but it works brilliantly and you can download it from the link below
Ashampoo WinOptimizer

Inside the program you will find many things such as Startup Optimize etc. You can do all the others as you wish, but the one we are aiming for is Disk Space explorer

So goto File Tools > Disk Space explorer

Let it scan your hard drive, depending on the size and space taken on your hard drive depends on how long it will take, it most likely will take about 5 minutes to scan.
--
Now that it has finished scanning you can see each folder and how much space they are taking up. You can browse inside that window and go straight to the root of the space consumption. You can remove or if you wish keep the files. After clearing a bunch of stuff re-scan and check to make sure you didn't miss anything because the file sizes do NOT update when you delete files inside of them.

And I forgot to mention, if you want to get to that folder all you have to do is right click the folder in the window and click Open in Explorer. This will take you to a normal explorer window inside that folder.

This is something especially people that use bit torrent may not realize, but often times when you remove a torrent you may accidentally say do not remove data, or sometimes the program closes incorrectly and makes a copy of the files into the root folder of the program, this can take up more space depending on what you are downloading. I had a bunch of the PurePwnage episodes in the root folder a long with game patches etc which took a whole 7GB of broken torrent files.

Other things you may see is in C:Downloads This be quite full also, things you may stream online may be saved in there depending on your browser settings.


4. Finalizing the clean

In the Ashampoo Optimizer there is a disk defragmenter I highly recommend running it to clean up the files and have your files and folders sorted for faster loading speeds, especially after everything you may have removed.

After disk Defragmenter has run, Goto Start > Run and type in CMD and press Enter
In the command prompt that appears type in CHKDSK and press enter. This will run through the hard drive and check for any errors and notify you if any. There are 3 steps and should only take 5 minutes. You may do this before disk defragmenter if you wish.

5. Keeping your computer from future attacks/slowdowns

At least every week run the virus scan that you chose and run the spyware scanner that you have installed. Also run disk defragmenter for maximum speed and efficiency on your computer.
If you wish to get a program solely for the purpose of disk defragmenter and do not trust the Preinstalled Microsoft Defragmenter(Which I don't) I suggest getting Diskeeper 2007 .

Now often times people get popups on a computer, Hopefully this guide stopped them, if not I suggest getting a popup blocker. I have never had a popup on my computer so I have never had to deal with it. But from I heard these types of sites cause major popups:
1. Warez Sites which you shouldn't be going to anyways
2. Strange and obscure sites that nobody has heard of
3. Sites that make you download items before you can enter
4. And sites that support illegal activity

If you don't believe me of those sites then I guess you will just stick with popups, so don't come complaining to me :)

I hope this helped, if you have any questions or see something wrong with my guide PM me on the forums or comment here!
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