Cleaning Up a Computer Tricks

What is the best tool to make computers faster?

I wish there was a simple answer to this but it is like asking, what is the best meal. Computers are very customizable and just want to give some hints on how to get it faster.

What software do I use?

Well, it depends on what I am thinking but I created a portable USB to take care of cleaning up other people's computers.

List of software's

GeekUninstaller [https://geekuninstaller.com/]

This is 100% my most favorite program to use when uninstalling. It can do applications as well as Windows apps. It also removes whatever is left in the registry.

CCleaner [https://www.ccleaner.com/]

One that I have been using for a while, and recently it has one of the best upgrades as you can see what drivers need updating.

BleachBit [https://www.bleachbit.org/]

A little newer but learned to like this one based on the number of things you can do with it

Disk Cleanup [Windows Built-in Cleaner]

We always forget that there are some things built-in that we should take care of.

Nvidia GeForce [https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/geforce-experience/]

This is only if you have an NVIDA graphics card. It also optimizes games and chooses between studio and gaming modes

Intel Support [https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/intel-driver-support-assistant.html]

We don't consider sometimes we need to update intel components which can really help

Removing the LCU files

LCU stands for Last Cumulative Update. It tends to sometimes get big. The compressed size is ~50% of the original size, which could be an alternative to flat-out deleting the files.

Huge LCU-Folder after latest Cumulative Update on Windows 10 1809MicrosoftLearn

Removing OEM Files

OEM files are a little more complex than LCU files because they are based on different manufactures and not windows itself. I have the code for it below.

Things to speed up computer

What is running on startup

Check for the programs that are running when you start the machine. Most apps set to run on startup by default

What is currently running

Check on task manager what is running. Top 3 ways to access the task manager.... Pressing CTRL + SHIFT + ESC Searching Task Manager Right-clicking Windows Icon in the corner and moving up about halfway

What Personal scripts have I written?

I have written a few and researched a few that are very useful and use with caution. It gets the job done and I have them on almost every computer I own how useful they have proven to be.

Cleaning Folders

The program cleans directories by removing all folders that do not contain anything. This is by taking advantage of Windows rm function.

for /f "delims=" %%d in ('dir /s /b /ad ^| sort /r') do rd "%%d"

Another good one

Found this software out there and thought it would be worth mentioning as it is a great software and clean.

Remove Empty Directories (aka RED)www.jonasjohn.de

Cleaning File Repo

Cleans the Driver OEM as there are a lot of them

@echo off
for /L %%N in (1,1,600) do (
echo Deleting Driver OEM%%N.INF
pnputil /d OEM%%N.INF
)

Maps Drive to file

For whenever I am moving over and need to verify all the files made it.

@echo off
REM Backtracking
for /L %%G in (1, 1, 10) do (
	cd ..
)
REM This is the path going to
cd Backup
REM Listing all the files and sub folders
dir /A /S > Demographics.txt
pause

Gpedit Enabler

I have no clue but it seems to be important so I am including it. I will research later what it does specifically.

@echo off 
pushd "%~dp0" 

dir /b %SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientExtensions-Package~3*.mum >List.txt 
dir /b %SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientTools-Package~3*.mum >>List.txt 

for /f %%i in ('findstr /i . List.txt 2^>nul') do dism /online /norestart /add-package:"%SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\%%i" 
pause

DISM Clean

Because DISM was causing me issues

Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup

Clearing Event Viewer

This is not my code and have added the acknowledgment at the top

:: Created by: Shawn Brink
:: Created on: August 15th 2016
:: Updated on: July 25th 2018
:: Tutorial: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/16588-clear-all-event-logs-event-viewer-windows.html


@echo off

FOR /F "tokens=1,2*" %%V IN ('bcdedit') DO SET adminTest=%%V
IF (%adminTest%)==(Access) goto noAdmin
for /F "tokens=*" %%G in ('wevtutil.exe el') DO (call :do_clear "%%G")
echo.
echo All Event Logs have been cleared!
goto theEnd

:do_clear
echo clearing %1
wevtutil.exe cl %1
goto :eof

:noAdmin
echo Current user permissions to execute this .BAT file are inadequate.
echo This .BAT file must be run with administrative privileges.
echo Exit now, right click on this .BAT file, and select "Run as administrator".  
pause >nul

:theEnd
Exit

Increase the Swap Memory

The swap memory is like, virtual RAM. So in a sense, you can add more RAM. How it works is when the ram starts to fill up, it will dump the contents into a segment of the hard drive that is allocated for the resources. I think it would be best to do 2x the size of the max ram in the computer. Anything is better than the default... 1. Click on "Type here to search" and search environmental variables. [edit the system environmental variables] 2. It should be on the advanced tab so click on the box settings in the performance section. 3. Click the tab at the top called Advanced 4. Click change in the virtual memory section 5. Deselect Auto paging and enter in your own selected amounts. 6. Click Set and Ok -> A popup should then continue 7. Follow instructions and reset now or later.

Finalizing

To finalize it will ask you to restart the computer. If not restart it anyways. Just a little why not step.

Any other tricks?

Of course, I have plenty of tricks. The thing is I can't share everything, that is why we have the internet.