journal features

fixing an old, slow Windows PC

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Tokyo, 2010.02.06

On three occasions recently, I've recommended some software for people struggling with a Windows PC that's become slow with age.

So I thought I'd share with everybody.

I've tried many of these packages, but these two are free, fast and easy to use. CCleaner (formerly Crap Cleaner) does a great job with maintaining the performance, stability, and usability of a PC. It cleans up the registry and temporary internet files and removes lousy software (usually installed by bad websites). It can also free up an enormous amount of space. Be sure to step through all of the different functions it's got.

Defraggler is for tuning the disk drive and repairing chunks of the hard drive that Windows has made unusable (this happens more than it should). It will take a long time on an older PC and should be left to run on its own, perhaps overnight.

I no longer recommend anti-virus software on a Windows PC because I find the overall abuse from the various software options to be worse than the relatively low risk of picking up a virus. I also no longer use malware-detection/removal software.

rand()m quote

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

—Michael Crichton