How to keep your PC clean & up-to-date

How to keep your PC clean & up-to-date

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The following step-by-step guide shows how I clean up and update my PC on a regular basis, to keep everything run smooth, fast and nice.
Software used in this guide can be found on this website. Use the Search function on this page to find all.

• First of all, I prefer to have the My Documents folder point to another partition or drive (D:\ in my case) to keep it seperated from my Windows installation on C:\. In My Documents, I try to sort my files/folders as good as possible:
  
  - Downloads (Contains all the new, unordered downloaded stuff. This is also my Shared Folder for programs like eMule and it's my default folder for downloads with all kinds of software.)
  - Documents (Contains all my text-documents, spreadsheets, etc.)
  - Drivers (Contains all the latest driver-versions for the hardware in my system.)
  - Firefox (Contains my Mozilla Firefox Profile.)
  - Flash (Contains my funny Flash Movies.)
  - Game-updates (Contains patches for my games.)
  - Homepages (Contains all my temporary, old, new and final versions of the websites I make.)
  - ISO (Contains ISO's of CD's I often use, for use with Daemon Tools. It keeps me from swapping discs all the time.)
  - Intranet (Contains my archived websites, downloaded with HTTrack Website Copier.)
  - Mail (Contains my Mozilla Thunderbird/Outlook Express Mail.)
  - My Backups (Contains all the backups I made with SyncBack or any other backup-program.)
  - My Music (Contains all my MP3-albums.)
  - My Video's (Contains all my temporary and final home video's, some ready and some almost ready for DVD-backup.)
  - My Pictures (Contains all my digital photo-albums.)
  - Nokia (Contains backdrops, ringtones, midlets for my mobile phone.)
  - Software (Contains my freeware collection [A's Absolute Freeware 2005 CD-ROM.)
  - Upload (This folder is use in my home network, and as uploadfolder on my FTP-server, so others can copy files to my system.)
  
• If I have a new version of a program already installed on my system, I install SyncBack to easily make backups of the stuff I want to use later in the My Backups folder, like (1) configuration files, (2) savegames, (3) etc.
  
• I pay a visit to WindowsUpdate to look for the latest updates for Windows.
  
• I install MyUninstaller, run it, and remove (1) all the software I don't want to use anymore, (2) all the software for which I have a better alternative and (3) the software for which I have a new version (I don't like installing new over old software. I like to start from scratch whenever possible).
  
• I install CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) and run it to remove all the crap from my PC.
  
• I restart my PC and remove all the empty, half-empty and left-behind files/folders related to the software I've just removed. I do this by checking the following folders: (1) \Program Files, (2) \Documents & Settings\Username\Application Data, (3) the Desktop and all other locations I often use.
  
• I install JV PowerTools and check the registry for keys related to software that I have uninstalled. I remove those keys. After that I run the Registry Cleaner from the Tools menu and search for all the keys that are save to remove, without the ignored items. When the program is done searching I select them all (CTRL-A) and remove them. Then I run the Registry Cleaner again and search for all the ignored items, and I review them one by one to decide which of those are safe to remove.
  
• Then I update my Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware data files.
  
• Now I restart my PC again in Safe Mode and run the Anti-Spyware and Anti-Virus software to be sure my system's clean of that kind of crap.
  
• Still in Safe Mode, I run a Defragmentation on all local drives. I use DIRMS to defrag my system. After that I keepBuzzsaw running every time I start Windows to defragment the drives on-the-fly.
  
• After this I restart Windows back in Normal Mode and then I'm ready to install new and/or updated software. If needed I restore the configuration files, savegames, etc. to the appropriate folder using SyncBack.
  
• I disable System Restore on all drives, and use ERUNT to make my registry backups instead.
  
• I install Sysinternals PageDefrag to defrag my registry at boot.

Now just see how smooth everything's running... ;)