Hello, readers of the IT lessons site!
The first thing every beginner should know when sitting down at a computer is where you can store files on your computer and where you can’t.
If you do not learn simple rules, then many problems may arise later (searching for lost files, accidentally restoring deleted files, difficulties when reinstalling the system, etc.). But all problems can be avoided in advance, if you immediately understand how to clean up your computer.
With this lesson we are opening a new important section that will help you improve reliability and security of data storage.
How to clean up your computer?
Many computer users store data (their files and folders) wherever they have to: on the desktop, in the “My Documents” folder, right on the “C:\” drive... When there are few files, this is not a problem, but over time there are more and more files more and more: letters, reports, music, photographs, films... and the moment comes when you grab your head: “Where is that same file?”
As you know, it’s easier to put things in order once and then maintain them. But you need to sit down and think!!! Of course, you can say “I’ll sort it out later,” but such “later” rarely comes.
Please note that The order on the hard drive also affects the security of data storage.
Today you can change your life one step further in computer world, and IT lessons will help you with this. 😉
Remember just 4 rules from the IT lessons site that will help you clean up your computer and save dozens of hours in the future:
Rule #1: Drive C: not for documents!
Never store your files on system disk(diskC:\).
And, of course, I look forward to your comments on today's lesson!
Copying prohibited, but you can share links.
Windows is the most popular operating system in the world, and currently, according to Net Applications.com (http://marketshare.hitslink.com/), approximately 92% of people are running it. personal computers. Such an impressive figure clearly indicates that the developers of this OS really managed to create a reliable and easy-to-use system. However, as you know, the ideal is always unattainable, and therefore, with all the advantages of Windows, it can be made even more convenient by connecting a number of utilities from third-party manufacturers. It is such programs that will be discussed in this article.
Tidying up your Windows desktop
For many users, chaos reigns on the PC desktop: shortcuts, files, folders, images and web links are scattered across them, often without any logic. As a result, the simplest and quick way gaining access to data and launching applications - that is, from the desktop - in practice is not at all so fast, because most often it is not immediately possible to find the right one among the host of shortcuts. To make it easier to organize shortcuts, folders, files and links on your desktop, you can set wallpaper with colorful fragments and distribute shortcuts and other elements present on the desktop among them. In the future, this will help significantly save search time.
However, there is an even better way - use the Fences utility, free for non-commercial use (http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/; 9.03 MB; $19.95). With its help, it is easy to instantly restore order on your desktop by conveniently distributing chaotically scattered shortcuts into thematic blocks (Fig. 1). These blocks appear highlighted on the desktop and, of course, delimited, which allows you to quickly find the necessary elements. The easiest way to carry out such a desktop reorganization is to select one of the ready-made Fences layouts, as a result of which icons and other elements are automatically grouped depending on their category (programs, files and documents, folders, etc.). After this, you can manually adjust the position and size of the blocks, their name, transparency level and color, as well as a number of other parameters. If none of the built-in layouts appeal to you, then the developers also provide alternative way reorganize your desktop by designing your own layout. For such a layout, all blocks are created manually, and desktop elements are also manually distributed among them.
Rice. 1. The result of organizing your desktop using Fences
Along with shortcuts chaotically scattered across the desktop, clutter creates no less problems when working. open windows, switching between which in practice is not so easy if there are already more than five to ten (ten, of course, only in the case of a widescreen monitor) window buttons on the taskbar. And it also takes a lot of time to arrange windows on the screen so that they do not overlap each other. It’s not difficult to deal with these problems if you use free utilities such as WinSplit Revolution and GhostWin.
By using the WinSplit Revolution utility (http://www.winsplit-revolution.com/; 1.49 MB), you can quickly adjust the position and size of windows in the visible space of the screen to ensure more productive work with them. The screen can be automatically divided into several parts (from two to six), each of which will display user-selected windows (Fig. 2). Thus, you will no longer have to spend time dragging windows around the screen, and the screen's working space will be used more efficiently. It is obvious that the greatest benefit from this utility will be received by users working on modern widescreen monitors With high resolution, since the screen sizes of such monitors allow you to easily place several windows, allocating each of them its own piece of workspace. Managing the placement of windows using WinSplit Revolution is easy: you can arrange the windows you want in the desired way by pressing certain keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl + Alt + 1, Ctrl + Alt + 2, etc.) or by clicking on the buttons of the pop-up panel called up by clicking on icon in the system tray. Another good thing is that after restarting the computer, there is no need to restore the location of the windows, since the program (with appropriate settings) remembers the coordinates and sizes of windows on the desktop and restores them in exactly the same form after the reboot.
Rice. 2. Possible variant quick placement of working windows
with WinSplit Revolution
Proper organization of storing files and information, putting things in order on the computer, will make the use of the PC more productive and increase the efficiency of working on the computer. With proper organization of work on the computer, the user will save a significant amount of time that he spends searching for files; unnecessary data will be deleted from the computer.
Many users often encounter situations where it is impossible to find something on their computer. All the files are piled up in the folders, complete chaos reigns. I think many people are familiar with this. Not only are your files scattered in disarray, but your computer is full of duplicate files that take up significant disk space.
I have already been asked several times to write this article. Visitors watching videos on my YouTube channel, noticed that the desktop of my computer is practically free of foreign elements, and in Explorer, files and folders on disks are distributed in a certain order and have normal names. I am fulfilling my promise, albeit with a delay of a couple of years.
I often had to deal with folders: “New folder1”, “New folder2”, with files like: “111”, “123”, etc., some folders are empty. Similar files and folders have copies and are duplicated.
Searching in the Windows operating system to access the necessary data with unclear names, if there is a huge amount of it, will not help much. Dealing with the mess will take a lot of time.
In this article I will share my experience in organizing file storage on a computer. If you have your own ideas for organizing the storage and use of information on a PC, share it in the comments to this article.
If you are having difficulty finding the files you need, the free space on your disk is decreasing, and files and folders are gradually taking up space, you should start cleaning up your computer.
You will have to spend a lot of time on properly organizing file storage (in “difficult” cases, you can do this in several stages), but believe me, the time spent will be worth it.
In the future, when there is no more clutter on the computer, you will only have to distribute new files to the appropriate places (disks, partitions, folders, etc.). You will quickly find the desired folder, file or document, because you will understand where to look for them.
Carry out work on organizing storage and putting things in order home computer in approximately this sequence:
- Choice correct structure for storing information
- Removing duplicate files
- Distribution of files and folders
- Renaming files and folders to give them normal names
- Back up important data
Basic principles of information storage
Before you start putting things in order on your computer, you need to define for yourself the basic principles for organizing data storage.
All objects must be distributed into categories; in the future, all new objects must be distributed into previously created categories. The data storage structure must meet the following requirements:
- the created structure should be convenient and as understandable as possible
- changes shouldn't be chaotic
- it is necessary to maintain order in the selected data storage structure
As a result, unnecessary and extra files(since files are often duplicated), free up space on your PC and increase productivity.
Determining the order in which data is stored
Proper distribution of information on the hard drive increases the reliability of the computer. In most cases, the computer's disk space is distributed as follows: the Windows operating system, programs, and other important data necessary for the system are installed on the system local drive "C", and the second local drive is used to store user data.
Why are two sections needed? For greater safety and operational reliability. The system and data must be separated.
In the event of a system crash, you will not lose data located on another local drive (drive “D”). Because after reinstalling the system, only the data on the system drive “C” will be lost, everything else will remain intact and safe.
Therefore, it is advisable to have two or more local drives on your computer (for example, drives “C” and “D”). It makes sense to store your personal information on drive “D”: music, movies, photos, educational materials, software distributions, etc.
Before distributing data, please note the following: there should always be enough space on the system disk to work operating system and programs installed on the computer. Do not forget about the future (suddenly you install applications that take up a lot of disk space), and that there is free space on the system disk (at least 15-20%) necessary for optimal performance operating room Windows systems. Otherwise, once the free disk space is full, your computer will seriously slow down.
On the system drive “C” there are folders “Documents” (My Documents), “Desktop”, “Downloads”, which sometimes store a large amount of information. These directories can be moved to another partition hard drive. Personally, I don't do this, but only control the contents of these folders. I don't store files in the Downloads folder, but rather move downloaded files to permanent storage locations.
After installing a cloud storage application on your computer, the default storage folder is located on the “C” drive. If you use synchronization, all cloud data will be on the system drive.
If the cloud storage volume is large, optimal solution: Move the cloud storage folder to another local drive on your computer. In this case, your data from the cloud will not take up space on the system disk.
On my computer I move folders cloud storage to other sections. Read the article on how to transfer Yandex.Disk to another local drive.
On drive “D” of my computer there is a Yandex.Disk folder with a size of more than 200 GB, and on drive “E” there is a Cloud Mail.Ru folder with a size of 1000 GB. These folders are synchronized with cloud storage and contain important data for me. The folders are on the computer, so I have permanent access to these files, and even if the hard drive fails, I will not lose important information, because thanks to synchronization it will be saved in the cloud.
IN this moment, I have two installed on my computer hard drives: on the first hard drive there are two Local disks “C” and “D”, and on the second hard disk there is one Local disk"E".
Disks are used as follows:
- Local disk “C” (system disk)
- Local drive “D” (file storage)
- Local disk “E” (file storage)
Once you decide on your computer's drives, remove duplicate files.
Removing duplicate files
Removing duplicates will help weed out unnecessary copies of files, and unnecessary data will be deleted from the computer. Many computer cleaning programs have modules for finding and removing duplicates. To remove duplicate files, you can use specialized programs, for example, Auslogics Duplicate File Finder.
Cleaning up your desktop
Cleaning your desktop is the first step in the process of bringing order to your PC. The abundance of unnecessary data on the desktop can slow down your computer.
Some time ago, they brought me a laptop with the Windows 8 operating system. The laptop was terribly slow. There were a bunch of folders, shortcuts and files on the Desktop. There were a lot of photographs, some of the photographs were duplicated in different folders. I decided to see how much data is on the Desktop. It turned out that it was about 250 GB, which even shocked me a little.
It is convenient for users to run everything from the Desktop, however, then they are surprised at the slow operation of their computer. My suggestions for moving files to another drive or uploading data to cloud storage are often met with misunderstanding. Many people are too lazy to make an extra mouse click to access the necessary files.
The desktop is the place of work (this is not a random name). Nothing should distract you from work. Therefore, you should not place unnecessary elements on the Desktop, which may well be located in other places; leave here only a minimum of objects that are really necessary. After this, you will notice that your work efficiency has increased.
While working, various temporary data may accumulate on the Desktop: folders, files, documents. Follow a simple rule: after completing the work, remove all objects and move them to the appropriate places where they should be permanently stored.
Completed work on Word document(for example), move the document to storage locations for documents of that type.
There are only three objects on the desktop of my computer in Windows 10: the “This PC” and “Trash” icons, and the “Applications” folder. Using the “This PC” icon, you can quickly get into computer management, and the “Programs” folder contains shortcuts to the programs I use most often, most of which are portable. Sami portable programs located on drive "D".
You can do without such a folder for shortcuts. For portable programs, use the PortableApps.com Platform wrapper. Portable programs can be located anywhere on the computer, and they will be launched from the shell. The folder with shortcuts for portable programs can be moved to the Start menu in order to launch portable programs from there, along with regular applications.
Distribution of files and folders
Once you have decided on where to store files on your computer, you will need to distribute the files and folders across disks. First, move and sort the data that you understand, and leave what is not yet clear for the final stage of distribution.
On the disk for storing files, create folders with clear names, for example, “Music”, “Video”, “Photos”, “Documents”, etc. Within these folders, other folders will be created to sort files based on specific criteria.
Create a strict hierarchy of folders in order to clearly understand where everything is.
Let's say you have a lot of photos, videos, and music on your computer. Transfer all multimedia files to the disk that you will use as storage.
The Photos folder will contain individual photos and folders of photos. Group pictures according to certain criteria, for example, the time of shooting, place the photos in folders named according to certain parameters, for example, in the “Sea holiday in such and such year” folder. I recommend always adding dates to folders with photos so that you can easily find the photos you need.
In the “Music” folder, place all the music files that should be divided into categories (folders) by artist name, album title, music genre, etc., depending on your preferences.
Do the same with films, documents, and other files. During the investigation, you will find many unnecessary files that should not be stored on your computer.
An example of folder distribution on my computer. Several folders with clear names have been created on drive “E”. The “Music” folder contains several folders with audio files, including the “80s Disco” and “Foreign Performers” folders. In the “Foreign Performers” folder there are folders named after the names of the performers and the names of the groups.
Program files are organized into folders named according to specific categories.
This logical structure will help you quickly and easily find the file or folder you need.
Clear names of folders and files
It is very important to always adhere to the rule: folders and files must be given clear names. Names should be clear to anyone.
Even if you don't have time to give a meaningful name at the moment, take the time to name the file or folder with a meaningful name after you're done. This will save a lot of time that will have to be spent searching the desired file or folders.
If there are a lot of files on your PC with unclear names, renaming will take quite a lot of time. Complete this work in several stages.
Putting your programs in order
Pay attention to your computer software, remove everything unnecessary programs and games. Look at mailboxes Email, it may need to be cleaned.
Clean up your browsers. Remove unnecessary extensions. Deal with your bookmarks: check your bookmarks (it happens that sites cease to exist), group or conveniently distribute the bookmarks in the window visual bookmarks. If you have a lot of bookmarks in your browser, group your bookmarks into separate folders with short, clear names in the bookmarks bar.
Cleaning and defragmenting your computer
After finishing cleaning up, clean your computer of temporary and junk files. When you move large amounts of files, a lot of temporary files appear on your computer. Remove unnecessary files by using Windows tools, or using a specialized program, for example, CCleaner.
After this, defragment your computer in order to collect the fragments of files in one place on the disk. With significant data movement, the degree of file fragmentation will seriously increase. Performing defragmentation will streamline the distribution of files on the computer and increase the speed of the system.
Save important data with backup
To securely save information, back up your system or important data. By using Reserve copy system to another drive (preferably an external one) HDD), you will save the state of the system at the time of archiving.
If the operating system crashes, perform Windows recovery from backup copy. In the event of a hard drive failure, the system or other data from the backup can be restored to a new drive.
For backup, you can use the Windows operating system tool or specialized programs: Acronis True Image (yes free version- Acronis True Image WD), AOMEI Backupper, etc.
Constantly maintaining a certain order
After distributing files, maintain order on your computer, place new files in previously created categories, or create new ones. After completing your daily work, distributing files and folders to permanent locations will not take much time.
Conclusion
Putting your computer in order to properly organize data storage on your computer will seriously improve your work efficiency. Files and folders will be distributed across the computer's disks in accordance with a certain structure, the user will quickly find the necessary data.
Ivan Afanasiev
The active life of a computer involves the use of various software. A significant part of the life of programs occurs in system registry. It remembers the files you open, the correspondence between file types and the applications responsible for them, and personal settings. Not to mention, of course, important system information about drivers, starting services, the need to download a particular program, settings for various menus, and so on. During the installation and removal process, programs leave traces of their existence, which, accumulating, slow down the operating system, forcing it to access files that no longer exist.
This problem does not depend on the quality of the software products. When uninstalling, only what was recorded during installation is deleted. The uninstaller simply does not know about what has already appeared during operation. The situation is even worse with large software packages, drivers, browser add-ons, and games. Much of the above does not imply that the installation process is reversed, or, having installed the libraries in the system registry section, it is not possible to remove them. To rid the operating system of unnecessary actions and links to non-existent programs, the registry must be cleaned.
Historically, from the moment such a need arose to the present day, programs that optimize and clean the registry have evolved towards the most user-friendly interface and almost automatic activity. This approach allows the user not to be afraid of ruining something by pressing an unfamiliar button.
Carambis Registry Cleaner is one of the simplest and most effective tools for maintaining your operating system. All your actions practically come down to pressing two buttons - starting a scan and correcting the errors found. Of course, for more experienced users there are additional features and the ability to get detailed information. Let's look at an example of how this works.
Registry scan
When you first launch the program, it immediately begins scanning the registry for errors. In the future, you can run the scan yourself or set up a schedule for regular scanning.
List of errors
All errors found are conditionally grouped by type of problem or by the name of the application to which the registry branch belongs. For example, file association groups are registry entries that associate document types with the programs that open them. When you uninstall the program, the links remain, but the computer continues to try to show such files an icon icon from a non-existent file. Another common problem is MRU (Most Recently Used) links. When you open a file, most programs store it in a special list to make it easier for you to open it again. If the file is deleted, the link to it will remain and will interfere. Naturally, there are more serious mistakes, such as registration records for defunct system classes and libraries that Windows tries to load every time the computer is turned on.
Bug fix report
Patch history
The essence of fixing the registry comes down to simply deleting incorrect lines. Each work session is saved in a log, in which all changes made are remembered, so that if something happens, deleted registry branches can be restored back. Although, as a rule, unforeseen situations do not happen, such programs, if you use a high-quality product, work accurately and take into account all the features of the operating system.
Program settings
Since the program is aimed at an inexperienced user, there are not many settings in it. You can configure the program to load with Windows and schedule the registry check. The ignore list tab contains a list of registry branches that you know you shouldn’t touch. But this is a function for more experienced users.
In addition to cleaning and fixing the registry, Registry Cleaner will help you optimize it at the file level. Technically, the registry is a database stored on disk in several files. Due to the fact that programs actively use it, the registry, like any other file, is gradually defragmented. That is, during the process of deleting and writing data, pieces of the file end up in different places on the disk. The system has to piece it together to read it, and the more the registry is defragmented, the longer it takes, and the slower the computer runs. Unfortunately, in trial version Registry Cleaner optimization function is blocked, it was not possible to get Carambis support to solve this problem, so as an alternative we will consider an equally useful and free utility from ChemTable Software - Registry Life.
Registry Life is intended for absolutely similar purposes as Registry Cleaner. Perhaps the interface is just a little less friendly. The program checks and fixes problems in the so-called logical structure - these are, in fact, branches and registry entries that “lead to nowhere.”
Registry scan
Search and correction are carried out practically in closed mode. First, the program scans something, then displays a message about the number of errors found with one single “Fix” button. Then he corrects it and says that everything is “Ok”. Of course, you can see what she found there, but it is presented in the same form as it is stored in the registry, so even an experienced user cannot understand what this or that entry refers to. Nevertheless, after the correction, I was able to successfully reboot and the system did not “stumble” on anything. A change log is also kept here, and all operations can be rolled back.
Registry defragmentation
Under optimization physical structure This involves defragmenting registry files and reducing the space they occupy by optimizing the use of disk space. When you start this mode, the program scares you with scary messages about the need to close all programs and restart the computer. After this, the desktop is blocked and the sacrament begins.
Report after defragmentation
All processes also occur behind the scenes inside the utility; it was probably possible to make a visualization with moving squares, as in a regular defragmenter, but, strictly speaking, there is no benefit from this. A picture with squares is shown at the end of work, before rebooting. It shows how bad the registry structure looked before and how beautiful it became after. Since the program was tested on a fairly fast computer with a recently installed OS, it was difficult to feel a significant difference in performance. It probably loaded faster, considering that I have a lot of programs in startup that usually don’t load very quickly.
Everything is fine now
As a result, we can say that it does not matter which program to use for computer prevention, the main thing is that it is a reliable manufacturer specializing in such utilities. For data security, longer computer life, and personal comfort, it's worth buying good set for system maintenance and apply it regularly. Then there will be fewer freezes, your nerves will be in order, and your computer will serve you faithfully for many years.
Even a superhero cannot cope with the computer rubble that has accumulated over the years in one sitting. No, here you need to take a completely different approach: small but constant steps that will ultimately lead to victory. And to make them easier, it is better to attach them to some constantly recurring and inevitable events.
1. Set up one service every week
Reports of hacking of popular services appear with alarming regularity. Developers respond by constantly fixing vulnerabilities and adding new security settings. All you have to do is find a little time and turn it on in Google, activate it in Facebook, LastPass, and so on.
Each week, choose a service or app that you use regularly and spend some time setting it up, paying particular attention to privacy options. I am sure that as a result you will discover several new interesting features, and you can also make your work on the Internet more secure.
2. Remove one item from your desktop every time you turn on your computer.
The desktop is a great place to temporarily store documents, files or program shortcuts. Keyword- “temporary”.
If your desktop has turned into a dump in which it is impossible to find anything, this is not the case. In this case, you need to make it a rule to get rid of one element every time you boot your computer. Files go to the clouds, documents go to work folders, watched movies and music go to the trash, and shortcuts go to favorites.
3. Unsubscribe from one newsletter daily
Personally, I have to register on a huge number of sites to test services and programs. And each of them considers it their duty to start bombarding me with letters about their updates, new features, discounts and other events. As a result my Mailbox just inundated with letters, most of which I would prefer never to see.
All this is possible and necessary. However, immediately taking the time to remove yourself from all mailing lists is quite problematic. So I try to get rid of at least one unwanted sender every day.
4. Organize your photos
After the appearance of more or less decent cameras in smartphones, we began to generate simply a gigantic number of pictures. However, taking beautiful photos is not everything. It is advisable to upload them to one of the cloud storages, provide titles, indicate the people depicted on them and the location of the shooting. Then your photo archive will truly become a repository of memories, and not just a dump of pictures.
Most often, the work of organizing a photo archive involves performing many monotonous actions that do not require much brain strain. Therefore, it is best to do it at the very end of the day, when you are already tired. At the same time, remember the happy moments of your life and relax.
5. Check one link from your favorites every time you open your browser
Many people have the habit of immediately sending the find to their favorites when they discover an interesting site or article on the Internet. Gradually, so many elements accumulate there that it turns out to be absolutely impossible to find “that same article.”
There are two ways out of this situation. Radical - just close your eyes, delete all the content of your favorites, and turn to Google every time to access the necessary sites. And conservative - still try to put order in the bookmarks.
This is not as difficult to do as it seems if you process one link each time you launch the browser. In less than six months, you will only have useful resources that you really need.
6. Read books, not news
On the one hand, we all constantly read something: news, forums, Twitter and Facebook. On the other hand, this reading is not at all beneficial, unlike reading real literature.
Therefore, it is necessary to develop a habit that will help you gradually replace “wrong” reading with “correct” reading. Make an agreement with yourself that before visiting Facebook, Twitter and other hot spots on the Internet, be sure to read a couple of pages of a book. At first it will be unusual, but then you will get used to it. And it turns out that serious literature can be much more exciting than cats on social networks.
7. Use calendars and reminders
Remembering all these tips can be quite difficult for today's busy person. And why do this if there are so many different calendars and task managers? Just enter the tasks you need into your favorite planner, and you won’t forget when and what needs to be done.
Do you have your own signature tricks that help deal with constant computer problems?
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