The Registry is the Windows operating system is where information is stored that is required to open programs and connect to hardware components. When you install and uninstall software and just using your computer will cause the registry to begin to fill up with unnecessary items that will slow down its performance. You can find software programs to download that you can use to clean your registry. You can also download the Free Windows Live registry cleaner.

The Windows registry cleaner will scan your computers registry locating the things that can be safely removed. You have the option to remove them all or select the items you want to remove.

Completing virus scans of your system is also important to ensure your computer runs properly.

Errors on your computers hard drive can cause slowness or even complete system failure. It is important to scan your computers hard drive for errors and fix them. The Error Checking utility that is in the operating system that Microsoft will perform this process for you.

Once you have run the Error Check utility run the Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter utilities. This will ensure the integrity of the files that are stored on the hard drive.

As time goes by bad sectors develop on the hard drive of your systems. These bad sectors can slow down your systems processor when they are encountered. The above utilities scan the hard drive for these bad sectors as well as looking for file system errors and misplaced files or folders. Running these utilities weekly is recommended if you use your computer daily.

When you computers hard drive has errors on it you can experience anything from slowness to complete system failure. That is why it is important to routinely scan your computers hard drive for errors and fix them. Microsoft provides the Error Checking utility that will do this process for you.

You should run the Error Check utility along with the Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter utilities to ensure optimal performance of your PC. The procedure will verify the integrity of the files that are stored on the computers hard drive.

When the processor encounters bad sectors it is slowed down and may not be able to read or write to these sectors. Running these utilities will look for file system errors and also see if files or folders are misplaced and will fix what it finds.

Performing a registry scan can also find errors causing your computer to run slow. Many computer errors related to computer files such as DLL, EXE, and Driver files occur due to corrupt and invalid entries in the registry. In order to operate on your PC, these files need to make entries in the registry. Because of this, your system may slow down dramatically if your registry is damaged or unstable due to unwarranted growth, and you may also encounter several computer errors.

To prevent and fix problems in the registry, you must perform regular registry scans to detect and remove all unwanted data from it. You can do this easily and quite economically with the help of a reliable registry cleaner tool. Using an advanced registry cleaner tool that will perform several registry maintenance tasks, such as scan and repair several registry and computer errors, remove malicious virus and spyware registry data, perform registry backup, and defrag the registry.

Some people have reached the stage where they have been using the options of Disk Cleanup as well as the Disk Defragmenter quite regularly. For them the next step should be to check the integrity of various files saved on their hard disk. This can be done by running an error checking utility. The more you use the hard drive, the more it is likely to suffer from bad sectors.

Bad sectors are sectors that may have got affected permanently by a virus. This leads to dramatic slowing down of the performance of the hard disk. Sometimes it may become difficult for you to save the data properly as you are working on a document or worksheet. The moment this occurs use the error checking utility to scan the hard drive so that bad sectors on the drive can be identified and closed. The utility checks if certain files residing in certain areas have been misplaced. It is a good idea to run this scan once a week especially if your usage is high.

Another factor that slows down PCs is a spyware. A spyware can be injected into your PC anytime if your PC is not scanned regularly. Often various businesses use such programs and send them to individual PCs so that some private information such as your name or telephone number can be obtained. Once that is done you will notice that you start getting calls from all kinds of agencies and companies. So make sure you use the safety scan to remove spyware.