The Best 20 Minutes You’ll Spend On Your Computer All Month
March 2nd, 2010
TechSpot is a Web site for PC technology news and analysis, but the best part of their site as far as I’m concerned is this incredibly comprehensive list of programs. It’s a terrific resource for helping your PC run more efficiently. Doing so is as easy as the proverbial 1-2-3. Here’s how:
1. Go to your Start Menu and then click “run.” Type “msconfig” and press “enter.” Click the “Startup” tab of the window that appears: You’re now looking at a list of programs that load when you start (or reboot) your computer.
2. It’s very likely that you can safely uncheck many of the programs in that list, which means that they won’t load upon startup, which means you’ll be running fewer programs you’re not using, which means your computer can focus on the things you want it to do, which means you’ll be running faster and more efficiently. Whew. But how do you know which programs to uncheck?
3. Look on the “Command” line and find the specific name of any specific startup item. For example: “jusched.exe.” Searching for “jusched” in the TechSpot database brings up a list of several items, one of which is this page, which is exactly the obnoxious Java update that keeps popping up on my screen. Unchecked. Obnoxious Java update messages gone.
It’ll probably take you about 20 minutes or so to review the items in your Startup tab and decide whether or not to leave them checked. I unchecked 14 programs on my desktop and 19 on my laptop, which is now running noticeably faster than before.