How to Clean Up a New Computer
- 1). Click "Start" and "Control Panel." Look for the section labeled "Programs" and click "Uninstall a program." This will bring up a list of installed programs as well as a utility to uninstall.
- 2). Decide which default programs to uninstall. For example, AOL is installed on many computers by default, but if you do not use it for your Internet service, you should remove it. Similarly, free software trial versions will not work once the trial period ends, so should be removed. Refer to the list below for unwanted software, also known as Bloatware, that can be removed:
AIM
AOL
BigFix
Compuserve
Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo (trial)
Corel Photo Album 6 (trial)
Corel Snapfire Plus (trial)
Corel WordPerfect (trial)
Dell Search Assistant
Dell URL Assistant
Earthlink
Get High Speed Internet!
HP Rhapsody
McAfee (trial)
Microsoft Office Suite (trial)
MusicMatch Jukebox
NetZero
Norton (trial)
Orange Internet
Pc-cillin Internet security
Quickbooks (trial)
Roxio
Sonic
Trend Micro
Vongo
Wild Tangent - 3). Delete the programs you have chosen by double-clicking on them. A dialog box will come up asking for your confirmation. The program will then uninstall.
- 4). Reboot your computer once you have uninstalled the programs you no longer want, then download and install an anti-virus program of your choosing.
- 5). Reboot your computer. Click "Start" "All programs," then the "Accessories" folder, and open "System tools." Click the "Disk Defragmenter" icon and press the "Defragment disk" button. Keeping your disk defragmented ensures that the files on your hard drive stay together, which provides quicker loading times of your operating system and programs.
- 6). Allow the defragment tool to finish. Your new computer is safer, quicker to load, non-intrusive, and, last but not least, clean.
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