Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

About Author
Dear Reader, My name is Anup Raman and I have been in the IT industry for almost 10yrs now. As a Microsoft certified systems engineer, I have worked with some of the biggest names in software industry over that time. My specialization includes core windows operating system troubleshooting and virus removal techniques. As a trainer, I have trained hundreds of aspiring technicians in the same field. Now I work as a freelance technical trainer and loves helping others solve technical problems through my writing on IT blogs and forums. In my free time, I am involved in social work for providing educational facilities to the under privileged children. A part of my earning from this book is dedicated to the cause of helping the children in need. This book is one of the topics in my recently released eBook Virus Removal Secrets Revealed. My inspiration for writing this book comes from some heart breaking experiences I had as a technician working with real customers. Seeing customers charged huge amounts for solving minor issues. Some of these issues are so minor that all it takes to solve them is just some basic steps that take no more than 10 minutes. Sometimes the customers were charged 100's of dollars for simple fixes they could have done themselves if they had the knowledge. I have seen people pleading for help with their computer issues but they did not have the money to get the paid service. In the worst cases, customer's ignorance is exploited and they are made to believe that there is some big issue inside the computer. Ultimately, they end up paying for the service because without the computer they can't make a living. This is just wrong. I have handled number of cases where customer contacted technical support because of suspicious activity they noticed inside their computer. By the time they contacted technical support and the cause was discovered, it was often too late. I remember at least 4-5 cases where the victim I was working with online contacted his bank on the other line and found out his entire bank balance had been wiped out.

Virus Removal Secrets Revealed is written concentrating on ordinary computer users with beginner to intermediate skill level. So this book is for all computer users using windows operating system irrespective of their skill levels. Virus Removal Secrets Revealed is power packed with lot of information and this will surely change the way that you look at computers. I can assure you, instead of looking for technicians or going online for information on how to fix issues, you will be equipped well with trying to fix issues on your own. If you find this book informative, you can buy my book on Virus Removal Secrets Revealed which can be bought from www.virusremovalsecretsrevealed.com. You will also be contributing for a social cause by buying this book. Regards and Wish You All The Best Anup Raman www.atechjourney.com

Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

Table of Contents
1. About Author ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2 2. Table of Contents------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3 3. Improve the speed of your computer------------------------------------------------------------------4 4. Computer configuration----------------------------------------------------------------------------------4 5. Software compatibility issues---------------------------------------------------------------------------5 6. Computer infections---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5 7. Startup Entries---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5 8. Security Software------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6 9. Temporary files--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6 10. Corrupted and Unused Services-------------------------------------------------------------------------7 11. Bad sectors and file system error----------------------------------------------------------------------7 12. Operating system------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8 13. Troubleshooting steps to improve speed of your computer---------------------------------------9 14. Remove temp files from the computer----------------------------------------------------------------9 15. Use disk cleanup to remove unwanted files---------------------------------------------------------10 16. Check task manager----------------------------------------------------------------------------------11 17. Check Add/Remove program in XP / Programs and Features in Vista/Windows 7-----------13 18. Remove the start up entries-------------------------------------------------------------------------14 19. Check the services---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------15 20. Clean the registry----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------17 21. Do a disk analysis----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------18 22. Disk Defragmentation--------------------------------------------------------------------------------20 23. DISCLAIMER & TERMS OF USE AGREEMENT----------------------------------------------------------------------------21

Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

Improve the speed of your computer

Over a period of time every computer experiences a decrease in performance. This can be attributed to variety of reasons such as the increase in load due to the presence of various programs installed in the computer, junk files which are created frequently or even the presence of computer infections. Many times we conclude that the slow performance of our computer is because of a virus infection. Not necessarily. There are other factors which might contribute to the slow performance of your computer. I will come to the troubleshooting steps after briefing you on the factors. Computer configuration Software compatibility issues Computer infections Too many startups Security software Services Bad sectors and file system errors Temporary files Operating system

Computer configuration
Your computer might be slow because the computer configuration is less for the softwares that you installed inside the computer. I would assume that if you own a computer which is not more than 5yrs old, then it should have a decent configuration for a faster performance. Go back to the days when you bought this computer. Was it faster then? If it was, then you should have a computer which is capable of performing faster. If it was faster when you bought it, the next question is, why is it slow now? One of the possibilities is that you might be using softwares which are power hungry and consume a lot of processing power. Lets take this case, when I wanted to learn about Oracle programming 10yrs back. Oracle is a database software and the educational version of the software came in 3 CDs. Once I installed the software, my computer became slow as it requires a lot of processing power when running the software. I had to live with it as I wanted to learn Oracle at that time. But once I was done with Oracle, I immediately uninstalled it, which brought my computer back to its normal speed. The same happened to me when I installed Adobe Photoshop as well. My point is, sometimes the reason why your computer is slow is because you might be using software which is slowing down the computer. Adding some additional RAM memory might help, but not always. The only solution is to stop using that software or find alternative software which is less resource hungry and can do the same job for you. Or get a new computer which is more powerful. Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

Software compatibility issues

A lot of weird problems can be attributed to software compatibility or software conflicts. Slow performance of the computer can be as a result of software compatibility issues. Lets take this case. A user wants to install security software, but it failed to get installed in the middle of the installation process. First thing I noticed was that his computer is slow and taking time to respond. I went through the list of programs in add/remove program and noticed that he already had security software for which the subscription was over. He never tried to uninstall the old one before installing the new one. I uninstalled the software, restarted computer and installed the new security software. Not only was the installation successful, but it improved the computer speed as well. The above case is a common scenario with lot of computer users. When users buy a computer, they get complimentary softwares installed as a trial version or activated for a limited period of time. Once the subscription period is over, the complimentary software will stop working. Instead of removing the software which is not working, most users ignore the software and they might forget it over a period of time. Later they might install competing software similar to the complimentary software. When you install multiple softwares which are supposed to do similar functions inside the computer, there is always a possibility of a clash between them. This creates software compatibility issues. From my experience, the security softwares and printer softwares are the major culprits when it comes to slowing down computer performance. Remove softwares that are no longer used in the computer. Less software means fewer jobs for microprocessor to handle and less chance of conflicts between softwares.

Computer infections
Computer infections are a major reason for slowing down your computer. Virus removal steps mentioned in this package will help you take care of this problem.

Startup Entries
This is a major reason why a lot of users end up having a slow computer. Startup entries are those entries which get loaded when the operating system boots up. The reason why messenger window or other application window opens up after you get the desktop screen is because those entries are listed inside the startup. Imagine you have 10 startup entries in your computer. When you turn on the computer, the operating system loads itself and it will also load the 10 startup entries. This will create an additional burden on the computer to process these 10 startup entries which in turn slow down your computer. The only entries that are recommended to be in the startup are entries related to your security software and any entries related to wireless connection. The remaining entries can be removed. Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

Security Software
This might be surprising for many computer users. Sometime the security software creates more issues than the computer infection itself. These are the possible reason why security software gets corrupted. Security software constantly undergoes changes because it keeps updating itself to protect your computer against the latest infections. In the process of updating itself, the security software might get corrupted because of an improper installation or changes in the settings. Security software can get corrupted because of an attack from computer infections. Computer infections constantly attack security software which might lead to changes in software settings causing the software to malfunction. Having multiple security softwares can create software compatibility issues. If you have read the manual virus removal steps manual, by now you must be aware of loading points and why it is important for the infections to attack loading points. Since the loading points are very critical locations, every security software will try to take control of the loading points. Imagine if you have more than one security software. These security softwares will compete with each other to take control of the loading points which might result in conflicts or file corruption.

I have handled a lot of cases where customers complained about computer infections, even with 3-4 security softwares for protection. I am not surprised because the conflicts between the security software have rendered them useless and they may not be working properly. My suggestion is to use only one security software and go for reputable security software which comes as an Internet Security Suite. Internet Security Suite is a complete package which provides protection against all type of infections such as viruses worms, trojans, spyware, malware etc and also has an firewall to keep you protected from hackers. To name a few, Kaspersky Internet Security, Norton Internet Security, McAfee Internet Security all comes under this group.

Temporary files
Temporary files are files which are created automatically inside the computer for improving the efficiency and speed for processing information. Temporary files are created continuously whenever you use the computer. This is not bad as it improves the computer response when you use certain applications. But over a period of time, the number of temporary files increases in your computer which leads to less amount of free space. Sometimes some of these files might unnecessarily interfere with softwares or applications creating problem inside the computer. Also temporary files might contain leftover files from infections. So it is necessary that you need to clear the temporary files at frequent intervals.

Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

Corrupted and Unused Services

Services are executables used by applications to perform certain functions. If you type services.msc in the run window, it will open up a services list. Inside, you will find many services associated with windows operating system and applications that you installed inside the computer. More details about the services are mentioned under troubleshooting steps for improving the speed. Services when corrupt can slow down computer performance. Sometimes, it conflicts with other services causing the other service to malfunction.

Bad sectors and file system error

The hard disk is where all the data is saved inside your computer. We keep adding more files and applications inside the hard disk. After a period of time, the hard disk starts slowing down. The performance and speed of hard disk depends on a lot of factors: Type of file system used by the hard disk. Number of files and how it is arranged inside the hard disk? Attack from computer infections. Number of bad sectors inside the hard disk. Internal elements such as fluctuations in the power supply. Proper shut down of computer every time. Age of the hard disk.

These factors can lead to problems like Bad sectors: Information inside the hard disk is stored inside small sectors. When you shut down the computer abruptly without going through the proper shut down procedure, the read write head inside the hard disk will crash land on top of the sectors. This creates a damaged sector which makes the sector unusable for data storage. If you have any data already stored inside the damaged sector, the computer may not be able to retrieve it. In extreme cases, too many bad sectors render the hard disk unusable. That is why it is always recommended to shut down the computer properly when you want to turn it off. Also UPS is recommended, so that your computer wont shut down suddenly when there is no power supply. File system: A file system is a way to organize data inside a hard disk in an efficient manner. The operating system uses a file system to organize, save and arrange files for easy retrieval. If a file system gets corrupted, computer might become unresponsive as it cannot find the file saved inside the hard disk. A file system can get corrupted because of the frequent changes that we make on the computer or how we handle a computer. Computer infection is another major reason for corrupting file system.

Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

Fragmented files: Over a period of time, your hard disk will have a lot of files stored in it. These files are scattered all around the hard disk and not optimized to utilize available hard disk space which leads to slow performance of the hard disk. This can be fixed by doing a disk defragmentation.

Operating system
The operating system is another factor which determines the performance of your computer. Every operating system has a minimum requirement for running smoothly in a computer. An operating system can also slow down computer performance if its files are not running properly. The easiest way to find operating system corruption is by checking the operating system settings. My favorite way to check operating system status is by going to the control panel and checking the different tools listed there. Also check the services running inside the computer and check if these services are running fine. An easy way to fix a corrupted operating system is by doing a repair installation. It will repair the operating system without losing any data.

Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

Troubleshooting steps to improve speed of your computer

1. Remove temp files from the computer
Removing temporary files is very important as there is always a high possibility that you might find infected files in the temporary location. Certain viruses and worms keep replicating files and by default they create files inside the temporary folder. When the temp folders get filled with too many files, it will slow down the computer. Removing the files from this location can help in increasing the speed.

Go to these locations for removing the temporary files manually. a) Temp folder Temp folder contains the temporary files related to the Windows operating system. Select all the files and remove it. In case that you are not able to delete a file, leave that file and continue removing the next file. You may not be able to remove all files as some of the files are still used by the Windows operating system or some other program. Click Start Run type Temp

b) %temp% folder %temp% folder contains the temporary files related to the user account. If the user John logged into the computer using his user account, %temp% will show the temporary files related to his user account. Remove as many files as possible. Again, dont be upset if you are not able to remove all the files from that location as some of the files might still be used by some application and cannot be removed. Click Start Run type %temp%

c) Prefetch Usually there is no need to clear the files inside this location. But sometimes virus files hide inside it which might create problems later. So to be on the safer side, it is better to clear the files inside the location. Click Start Run type prefetch

Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

2. Use disk cleanup to remove unwanted files

This is the safest way to remove unwanted files from your computer. Open My Computer right click on any of the listed drives which you want to clean (usually C:\) Properties Disk cleanup

The windows that pop up shows the list of file categories to be deleted. You can check all and click on Ok at the bottom of screen. This will remove all unwanted files safely from your computer.

Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

3. Check task manager

To open Task manager, press Ctrl+Shift+Esc together Or Right click on Task bar, Click on Start Task Manager

Task manager shows the list of all processes running inside the computer. If any of these processes are corrupted, it may slow down the computer.

To make it clear, let me share this experience.

Recently I got a pop up asking to install an update for Firefox web browser. I installed the update and continued working on my computer. Later I noticed that my computer was slow and was unusually taking a long time in responding. I opened the task manager and noticed that firefox.exe, which is the process associated with Firefox web browser, was consuming more than 400,000 k of memory. From my experience, I know that it should not consume that much memory. I right clicked on firefox.exe and selected end the process. It made my computer work faster as the memory used by firefox is cleaned up now. I restarted computer, opened Firefox and then checked task manager to find how much RAM memory is used by Firefox now. The result was almost the same. From this I concluded that when I did a Firefox update, it might have changed some settings or created a conflict with an add-on which corrupted the software. In order to fix it, I needed to re-configure the Firefox settings or re-install Firefox. Since it is a free software, I took the easy route. I uninstalled and reinstalled Firefox. My computer started working better than before.

Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

The above picture shows how the task manager looks. You can see the memory tab on the top. By clicking on it, you can arrange all the processes in ascending or descending order based on how much RAM is used by a particular process. If you find any service unusually consuming more memory, check if it is repeating the same even after restarting the computer. This will help us to determine if the service is corrupted or not. If it still takes lot of memory, then re-install or re-configure the application which uses that process.

Now you might have the following question:

How will I know if a process is using the optimum memory?

My answer is that there is no specific amount of RAM that is designated to be used by each process. If you feel that a process is slowing down the computer performance, this is what you need to do. Right click on the process and end the process which is consuming lot of memory. Then check to see if ending the process helped in improving the computer performance. Then restart the computer. Check the same process once again. Check if it is still consuming a lot of memory. If the result is yes, then uninstall the program and re-install it. 90% of the time you will get positive results.

Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

4. Check Add/Remove program in XP / Programs and Features in Vista/Windows 7

Go through the list of all programs. Remove programs which are not needed in your computer. As I mentioned before, less number of softwares mean less chances of software conflicts and less processing required, which leads to a faster computer. If you find a program that you know was used before and not used anymore, uninstall it. If you are not sure about a particular program in the list, dont take any risk. Check in Google to know more about the program. Investigate if it is something that you need now or in the future. Remove it if you dont need it. If you get a lot of pop ups or come across problems with your web browser behaving strangely, check if there is any tool bar installed. Not many people realize that toolbars can create a lot of problems to your web browser. I would only recommend having 2 of your favorite toolbars in your web browser. If you have more, there is more of a chance for browser related problems. Uninstall all the toolbars and then install just one or two toolbars which you would like to have. All the toolbars are free to download and it wont take much time. After removing the unwanted software, make sure you restart the computer. The computer will show the effect only after restarting.

Select the program you want to uninstall. Click on uninstall.

Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

5. Remove the start up entries

The easiest way to remove unwanted startup is using ccleaner. Download and install ccleaner from http://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER

The above picture shows the list of startup entries inside the tools section startup in ccleaner. In the above list, there are lot of entries that are not needed in startup. As I mentioned before, the only entries that needs to run in startup are entries related to security software or wireless connections. Select the unwanted startup entry and then click on Delete tab on the right. Another way to remove startup entry is using msconfig (as mentioned in step 13 in manual virus removal steps). It is always advisable to check for startup entries in msconfig as well because some of the infected entries are smart enough to hide from third party softwares like ccleaner, but might show up in msconfig.

Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

6. Check the services

To find the list of services, Click Start Run type services.msc

The above picture shows the list of services. The pop up window shows the print spooler property window which was opened by double clicking print spooler service inside the list.

You can see the service name, description, status and startup type. Right click on any of the service and then click on properties. This will give you the complete details of the service.

Under startup type, you can set a service to run as automatic, manual or disabled. Selecting automatic makes the service load automatically when operating system is loaded. Manual makes the service run only when it is required. Disabled will disable the service.

Under service status, you have the option to start, stop, pause or resume a service.

In services.msc, you need to look for services which are not used or needed anymore. A common problem I have seen in computers is that they still have services related to previous software still running. Usually the Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

main culprit is security softwares. When you uninstall any software, the service associated with it is automatically removed. But if the software is corrupted, the computer may not be able to remove the service associated with that program even after uninstalling. To fix such issues, you need to stop the service and then disable the service under startup type which will stop the service from unnecessarily interfering with normal function of the computer.

Finally, what you need to do is go through the entire services list. Find any service which is no longer used or needed in the computer. Disable the service. But make sure you dont disable any service which is related to the operating system.

Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

7. Clean the registry

We now know that the registry stores a lot of information related to software and hardware in your computer. The information stored inside the registry will keep building up. But when you uninstall a software, it may not necessarily remove all the registry entries associated with that software. Computer infections also try to add entries inside the registry in an attempt to corrupt the operating system. This way, the registry might carry too many junk and leftover entries which may slow down the overall performance of the operating system. Removing these entries manually is impossible. So it is better to use a registry cleaning software.

Ccleaner is the software of my choice. In the picture above, you can see it is currently doing a scan

But there are specialized softwares like registry booster, registry mechanic etc which are specialized software mainly for cleaning registry. Since there are 100s of them, make sure you use a software of good reputation and rating to clean the registry. Make sure to backup the registry before making the changes.

Check in www.youtube.com for how to use ccleaner. You will get a lot of video tutorials on how to use it. To see someone using it will boost your confidence in using the software.

Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

8. Do a disk analysis
Doing a disk analysis is very important. You can use the error checking tool to do a disk analysis. Error checking fixes the issues related to file system and bad sectors. When it comes to bad sectors, the tool will try to retrieve the files saved inside bad sectors and mark the area, so that your computer will not attempt to save anymore files inside these sectors. Open My Computer Error checking Right click on any drive that you want to do an error checking Properties Tools

The above picture shows the error checking tool Automatically fix file system errors fix problems with file system Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors fix problems with bad sectors.

I recommend you select both and then click on start. Sometimes it might ask you to restart the computer to start the scanning. Please restart it. There are many instances where I was able to fix slow performance issues just by doing error checking. Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

Issues when your computer freeze frequently without any warning can be fixed by doing a hard disk error checking. This might be because of bad sectors present inside the hard disk. The computer might freeze when you try to read information saved inside a sector which has gone bad. By doing an error checking, the computer will try to retrieve the files located inside the bad sector and save it in a different sector which is good. It will then mark the bad sector, so that computer will not try to save any more information inside the bad sector. Another issue which can be fixed by doing error checking is when certain files and folders suddenly disappear from your computer. I have experienced this issue on my external hard disk. One day I noticed that a folder which had almost 75 GB of tutorial files was missing in my external hard disk. 75GB of files in huge and there is no way, I could have deleted the files accidentally. When I checked the properties of hard disk, I noticed that my external hard disk space was still full which meant the data was still there. But it was not showing anywhere inside the windows explorer. I did an error checking on my external disk. Once the procedure was complete, I was able to view my lost tutorial folder. My explanation is that somehow the file system inside the external hard disk got corrupted. By doing an error checking, it fixed the problem.

Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

9. Disk defragmentation
Disk defragmentation is the last step to try, when you want to speed up the computer as this procedure takes time It depends on the speed of your computer and also the number of files that you saved inside the hard disk. By doing a disk defragmentation, all the scattered files inside the hard disk are arranged properly in order. This makes it easy for the computer to retrieve data from the hard disk much faster leading to an improved performance of the computer. It also optimizes the space used by the files inside the hard disk, thus creating more free space. To do a disk fragmentation, Click Start All programs Accessories System tools Disk defragmenter

Select the drive that you want to defragment. Analyse option will give recommendation if a defragmentation is needed Defragment option will defragment the drive

Hope this tutorial was helpful in understanding the reasons for slow performance of computer and how to fix it. If you follow these steps properly, I can assure maximum performance from your computer. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments. If you are looking for suggestions or help on any real problems in your computer, please mail me with as much details as possible on the issue. I will try to respond within 24-48 hours time to your enquiry.

Thanks, Anup Raman http://www.atechjourney.com/ anup.raman@atechjourney.com

Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved

DISCLAIMER & TERMS OF USE AGREEMENT

The information in this document is copyrighted. No part of this report may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval without express written, dated and signed permission from the author. This topic is one of the topics in the eBook package Virus Removal Secrets Revealed. Only this topic is given as a give away copy for evaluation.To know more about the book, please visit www.virusremovalsecretsrevealed.com. If you would like to contact us for help of feedback, please contact us via e-mail at support at anup.raman@atechjourney.com. You can also buy the product directly from www.virusremovalsecretsrevealed.com. Please note that much of this publication is based on personal experience and anecdotal evidence. Although the author and publisher have made every reasonable attempt to achieve complete accuracy of the content in this Guide, they assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Also, you should use this information as you see fit, and at your own risk. Your particular situation may not be exactly suited to the examples illustrated here; in fact, it's likely that they won't be the same, and you should adjust your use of the information and recommendations accordingly. Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if we use one of these terms. Copyright 2011 Anup Raman. All rights reserved worldwide.

Copyright 2011 Anup Raman All Rights Reserved