Setting Up a New Computer
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You have a new computer? Great! It’s fast. It’s strong. It’s able to leap tall web pages in a single bound. But you and I both know that given some time your speedy little machine is going to slow right down kind of like grandmother driving on Sunday afternoon.
There’s all sorts of programs out there to help keep your computer fast and there are all sorts of registry editors to help restore a computers speed but in the end, if your computer is going to be used, it’s going to slow down. It might take 6 months or it might take a year, but sooner or later you’re going to wonder what happened to the speed of your computer.
The time to take action is now, when your computer is new, when you don’t have all sorts of things installed on it.
So what do you do? Here’s a step by step guide.
Make sure you have two partitions on your hard drive (not counting any hidden “recovery” partitions). If you don’t have two partitions, you’ll need to create that. This isn't an easy task, but it can be done. For instruction on how to create a partition, click here.
Remove any and all unwanted software that came with the computer. You can use the default “uninstall a program” function of your operating system, but that doesn’t always uninstall a program completely. I recommend that you download and install Revo Uninstaller to get the job done. They have a freeware and a professional version. I’ve had no trouble with their freeware version.
Change the default location of your Documents and Settings folder. If you’re not sure how to do it, there are plenty of web sites that explain how to. Just type “how to change the default location for my documents” in your search bar and you’ll find all sorts of answers. Basically you want your Documents, music, photos, etc, to be stored on your secondary partition.
Put all documents, photos, drivers, and anything else that you don’t want to ever lose on your secondary partition. Think of the secondary partition as your storage partition and your primary partition as your operating partition.
Install any updates to your operating system and anti-virus. Make sure you “activate” any programs that have been installed and paid for. Once you have everything the way you like it, you will need to install one more program that will basically make a backup of everything on your primary partition and copy it to your secondary partition. The program I use is Macrium REFLECT. When you go to make a copy of the primary partition, and it asks you for a backup destination, by default it will be set for “local hard drive” but you’ll need to click where it says “browse for folder” and select a place on your secondary partition.
Check here to learn How to Use Macrium Reflect.
Once this is done, you will have removed all unnecessary programs, installed updates, set up your documents on a secondary partition and made an image of everything on your primary operating partition backed up on your secondary partition. Now you go ahead and use or abuse your computer. Imagine 6 months or a year going by. Your computer is starting to slow down. You wonder why, when you open your web browser, instead of taking 1 second to start up it takes 12 seconds. No problem. Here is what you do.
If you haven’t already done so, you start up Macrium Reflect and create a recovery disk. Then you start your computer up from that recovery disk. Once the computer starts up, you will be able to find that image of the primary partition that you made before and have the software restore it to your primary partition.
What does this do? It basically puts your system back to the way it was when you first made that backup. What you’ll need to do is re-install any programs that you added since you first backed up your primary partition and you’ll need to update any programs that usually require updates (such as anti-virus or operating system). Once the updates are done and once any new programs are reinstalled, then I just create a new disk image of the primary partition (backing it up on the secondary partition again) and now I’m ready for the next time the computer slows down.
Sounds complicated, but once you’ve done this a couple of times it’s really easy and rather painless. In about one hours time your slow computer will be lightening fast again, and the neat thing is you don’t have to back up any documents in the process since they are in a partition that doesn’t get disturbed.
One word of caution: there are a few programs that keep data files on the primary partition. You’ll need to watch for those and you may need to back up the data from those programs before restoring the partition. One example is a program I use called “powerchurch”. It doesn’t allow me to store the data files on a secondary partition - so I have to make sure I backup the data manually on that one. But that is rare. Almost every program now allows you to choose where you want to keep your data. Always select a place on your secondary partition and then when it comes time to redo your primary partition, your data is safe.
There’s all sorts of programs out there to help keep your computer fast and there are all sorts of registry editors to help restore a computers speed but in the end, if your computer is going to be used, it’s going to slow down. It might take 6 months or it might take a year, but sooner or later you’re going to wonder what happened to the speed of your computer.
The time to take action is now, when your computer is new, when you don’t have all sorts of things installed on it.
So what do you do? Here’s a step by step guide.
Make sure you have two partitions on your hard drive (not counting any hidden “recovery” partitions). If you don’t have two partitions, you’ll need to create that. This isn't an easy task, but it can be done. For instruction on how to create a partition, click here.
Remove any and all unwanted software that came with the computer. You can use the default “uninstall a program” function of your operating system, but that doesn’t always uninstall a program completely. I recommend that you download and install Revo Uninstaller to get the job done. They have a freeware and a professional version. I’ve had no trouble with their freeware version.
Change the default location of your Documents and Settings folder. If you’re not sure how to do it, there are plenty of web sites that explain how to. Just type “how to change the default location for my documents” in your search bar and you’ll find all sorts of answers. Basically you want your Documents, music, photos, etc, to be stored on your secondary partition.
Put all documents, photos, drivers, and anything else that you don’t want to ever lose on your secondary partition. Think of the secondary partition as your storage partition and your primary partition as your operating partition.
Install any updates to your operating system and anti-virus. Make sure you “activate” any programs that have been installed and paid for. Once you have everything the way you like it, you will need to install one more program that will basically make a backup of everything on your primary partition and copy it to your secondary partition. The program I use is Macrium REFLECT. When you go to make a copy of the primary partition, and it asks you for a backup destination, by default it will be set for “local hard drive” but you’ll need to click where it says “browse for folder” and select a place on your secondary partition.
Check here to learn How to Use Macrium Reflect.
Once this is done, you will have removed all unnecessary programs, installed updates, set up your documents on a secondary partition and made an image of everything on your primary operating partition backed up on your secondary partition. Now you go ahead and use or abuse your computer. Imagine 6 months or a year going by. Your computer is starting to slow down. You wonder why, when you open your web browser, instead of taking 1 second to start up it takes 12 seconds. No problem. Here is what you do.
If you haven’t already done so, you start up Macrium Reflect and create a recovery disk. Then you start your computer up from that recovery disk. Once the computer starts up, you will be able to find that image of the primary partition that you made before and have the software restore it to your primary partition.
What does this do? It basically puts your system back to the way it was when you first made that backup. What you’ll need to do is re-install any programs that you added since you first backed up your primary partition and you’ll need to update any programs that usually require updates (such as anti-virus or operating system). Once the updates are done and once any new programs are reinstalled, then I just create a new disk image of the primary partition (backing it up on the secondary partition again) and now I’m ready for the next time the computer slows down.
Sounds complicated, but once you’ve done this a couple of times it’s really easy and rather painless. In about one hours time your slow computer will be lightening fast again, and the neat thing is you don’t have to back up any documents in the process since they are in a partition that doesn’t get disturbed.
One word of caution: there are a few programs that keep data files on the primary partition. You’ll need to watch for those and you may need to back up the data from those programs before restoring the partition. One example is a program I use called “powerchurch”. It doesn’t allow me to store the data files on a secondary partition - so I have to make sure I backup the data manually on that one. But that is rare. Almost every program now allows you to choose where you want to keep your data. Always select a place on your secondary partition and then when it comes time to redo your primary partition, your data is safe.