A friend of mine recently bought a computer from PC World and asked me to take a look at it as he thought it should have been running faster than it actually was. He brought over the laptop that turned out to be a Compaq with a very good specification. When I switched on the computer it took an age to boot into a state where I had a usable desktop and there were a myriad of pop-up windows and dialogue boxes. Maybe I am just fussy but I want to switch on the computer and get into the desktop as soon as possible without being attacked by questions, confirmations, warnings and information. I also noticed that the system tray, the place with the icons near the clock on the bottom right, spanned almost a quarter of the task bar. It was loaded with every conceivable program and some that I had never seen before. Almost all of these programs were surplus to requirements. There was MSN on autostart, Yahoo on autostart, configuration utilities and programs. The majority of these programs were just time restricted demonstration versions that get installed by default when the computer manufacturer or PC World installs Windows on to it prior to shipping. There is nothing you can do about this bloatware but remove it yourself as all of these companies and computer manufacturers are paid quite well to ship computers in this state with the hope that you will delve into your pocket and fork out another several hundred pounds on software that you have come to depend upon. Computer says no.

When you buy a new PC or laptop one of the first things you need to do is go to control panel, add/remove programs and uninstall everything that is either a time trial program or is completely irrelevant. This includes uninstalling the 60 day evaluation of Norton Antivirus and MS Office. Before you remove Norton go to http://free.avg.com/ww.download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition and download it. It is a full anti-virus program without a time limit and receives regular virus updates free of charge. It also runs faster than Norton and doesn’t take as many of your resources. I have mentioned this previously but as it is free and as it works very well I thought I’d mention it again. With this installed you can now go ahead and uninstall Norton.

As for MS Office and MS Works, you don’t really need these for home use and why have them sitting there taking up disk space? A quick trip to http://www.openoffice.org and you can install a full office suite with no time limits, is Microsoft Office compatible and is completely free. This isn’t a functionally limited program either; lots of companies that I deal with are migrating from MS Office to this product.

Now you can uninstall the rest of the bloatware that came with the computer. Also, it would be a good idea to go through those utility programs sat in the System Tray and if you don’t use it on a regular basis, the monitor resolution changer for example, then go through the preferences and set it NOT to auto load. Every one of these programs is taking up a little of your memory and whilst it may not be a lot, it all adds up and they take a while to load in the first place making your computer seem slower than it actually is.

Once you have all these bloatware items removed then just keep an eye on what you’re installing and always prevent things like MSN, Yahoo, ICQ and Skype from auto loading. To keep your computer going at optimum speed just be careful when you install programs and take the extra few seconds to read the text before clicking the OK button.

New computers are not usually supplied with software CDs or DVDs, they normally have the restore disks actually on the Hard Disk inside your computer. It is always a good idea, if the option is available, to spend an hour or two creating the restore disks. You will usually find a program in the list that will do it for you and most new computers are supplied with DVD re-writers.