No computer problem is more annoying than having a crash right in the middle of an operation. Second to that would be to have a sluggish or even downright slow computer. If these problems sound at all too familiar to you, you’ve come to the right place. Lets see if we can determine what the problem with your problem computer is.

Standing between us and a superbly operating computer is spyware and viruses. These two troublemakers are similar to one another. Viruses take a different track in the way they attack a PC. Viruses are out to get your computer only. Spywares mission is to get information about you; it just happens to cause your computer to act up as it goes about its evil work.

You Must be Virus Free

If you happen to have a virus scanner installed on your computer, run it. Don’t worry if you had it set up to an automatic scan, this virus scan will be our starting point. If you think your virus scanner may not be the best or if you dont have one at all, Google something to the effect of “free virus scan,” you will be overwhelmed with offers. Of course, if viruses are found, you will have to pay to activate the virus cleaning function of the scanner.

At this point you know you are virus free because you either removed all the viruses the scanner found or you didn’t have any in the first place. Now ,lets go after spyware. If you have a spyware scanner, run it now. If not, do a search for free antispyware scan or something similar. You will find there are no shortages of options available.

Making Sure We Clear All Problems

If you have never done a spyware scan before, don’t be surprised if you find spyware. This is even if you have been doing regular virus scans. If you have to pay to activate the spyware remover part of the software, it’s still a great deal to save your computer and your identity from being stolen. However, one word of caution; don’t mess with those tools that advertise themselves as “free spyware cleaners,” they are unreliable and may cost you a lot more in the long run.

Okay, so we are spyware and virus free! That’s a great thing but we have a little further to go. Now we need to have our operating system scanned for registry corruption. Once again, if you have a registry cleaner, use it. If you don’t have one or you are not confident in yours, do a search engine search for free registry scan or something of that nature. Pick one out and let it scan your registry. If you have registry corruption, buy the registry cleaner. They are a very useful tool to have. Make sure its a good one you’re getting and don’t use a free one. They will not protect you against registry corruption.

Registry Corruption is not as Evil as Spyware but it Can Damage Your OS

Registry corruption can get in the way of an operating system so much it can make the OS incapable of loading into the hard drive at startup. This means it is just about impossible to keep a computer running at full tilt without having a registry cleaner installed on a computer these days. While this may not have been the case a few years ago, it is today because Windows XP and Vista are so much more easily corrupted.

If you followed along with the procedure in this article, your computer should be back up to speed and running well again. However, even if no improvement is apparent in your computer, you took care of some things that were working against it.

A computer that still isn’t up to par at this point needs attention at a repair shop. Or maybe there is one more thing you could do. Open up your task manager and look for a program that is using your entire computers strength. If you find such a program, close it. If it is ever necessary to use it you can open it when you need to.