Phoenix IT Services

Just wanted to offer some advice about how to keep your system clean from junk files and viruses:

1) Disk Cleanup: Open My Computer > Right Click on the C: Drive > Click Properties in the drop down menu > Click on the Disk Cleanup button to the right of the pie chart > Confirm every checkbox is selected > Click OK.
2) Deep Virus Scan: Open your AntiVirus program > Begin a Deep or Full system scan (most antivirus programs label it as such) > Upon completion of the scan, take appropriate action. You should attempt to repair the file first; if that does not work, quarantine the file and record the name of the virus so you can research ways to repair it. If the file cannot be repaired, and you do not recognize the infected file, check with a trusted computer technician to see if you can safely delete that file.
3) Scan Disk: Open My Computer > Right Click on the C: Drive > Click Properties in the drop down menu > Click Tools tab > Click Check Now… button > Confirm both checkboxes are selected, indicating that Check Disk will Automatically fix file system errors and will Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors > Click Start button > Restart the computer, as instructed by the prompt > While the computer restarts, you will eventually see a message that states something to the effect of A Disk Check has been scheduled. Press any key to cancel. You of course do not want to cancel, so let the timer expire, at which time the scan will automatically start. Upon completion, the system will restart itself and bring you to the Windows login screen.
4) Disk Defragmentation: Click on the C: Drive > Click Properties in the drop down menu > Click Tools tab > Click Defragment Now… button > You can either Analyze the disk first to see how badly your hard drive is fragmented, or simply run the scan. You cannot do any damage either way, and no matter what the condition of your hard drive is, it will always be less fragmented than before you started the process.

If you cannot set aside up to 4 hours during the day to perform these tasks one after another, you can run any one of these tasks overnight, and check on the results in the morning. You do not have to run the next task immediately after the previous task, but it is very important that you follow this exact order of operations, and do not allow more than one task to occur at the same time as another, as it will probably slow your system to a crawl.