Okay. It's time to fix your computer for good. You've always wondered how you can just make it work, right? You want to do what you want, when you want to do it, with a minimum of effort, right? Well this month, I'll tell you how to do it, guaranteed.
 

You've read my past articles (all on our website at www.pdxtc.com), and you run scandisk and defrag. You've freed up space on your hard drive and deleted unnecessary files. You've tried to keep your startup programs to a minimum, but you still have a computer that occasionally freaks out with illegal operations and various different kinds of crashes, right?

Well the truth is, if you're running Windows, it's just not going to do everything you want every single time unless you help it along. Your computer is probably trying to do too much all at once, through no fault of yours.

As I've said before, Windows is ALWAYS going to be a work in progress. If Windows was perfect, why would we need Windows 95 released four times in versions A,B,C,and D, THEN Windows 98, THEN Windows 98 Second Edition, and now Windows Millennium Edition?

Do you ever talk on the phone while watching TV? Do you ever talk on the phone while watching TV, while cooking dinner? Do you ever talk on the phone, while watching TV, while cooking dinner, while answering the front door? Do you ever talk on the phone while watching TV, while cooking dinner, while answering the front door, with your kids screaming? I hope you get the idea here. Many things that your computer can do just fine one or two at a time become difficult or even impossible as it tries to do them all at once. The speed of your CPU or the amount of RAM you have may not always make a difference.

Sometimes when you install a piece of software, unavoidable registry entries get made that integrate themselves into your Windows startup files. These can cause major conflicts, and cannot always be removed with the usual editing of your startup menu items through Start - Settings - Taskbar & Start menu like I showed you in "Speed it up, Buddy".

America Online, Microsoft Office, HP (and other) fax machines, antivirus programs, scrolling mice and trackballs and especially Real Audio, are just a few of the programs that everybody has, and that don't always play well together. Or, they may all run fine until you try to run that one new game or greeting card program, and then CRASH, you're frozen or "illegally operating".

Here's a tool that will help you completely take back control of what your computer is doing. It's built in to Windows 98 and Windows ME and it is the single best program you can run that will allow YOU to make all those decisions as to what runs in the background of your operating system at any given time. It's called MSCONFIG.

Go to the start button - go to run - type msconfig - hit OK. Now go to the far right tab marked startup. STAY OUT OF THE OTHER TABS unless you know what you're doing, please. Look at all that stuff! Can you believe it? Now, UNcheck EVERY SINGLE BOX in the startup area, and hit OK. Your computer will then ask you to reboot.

After rebooting, you'll notice immediately that your computer is running better than it has in months. Now it's completely up to you to go back into MSCONFIG and RE-check the things that you want to be there. Things like your Antivirus and your scrolling mouse may be important enough to you to check again so that they'll load on bootup, but most of the others are just not that important. Power profiles, task schedulers, and even the system tray are all not necessary, and your computer will run just fine without them. Keep in mind though, that if you don't recheck them, they won't work until you start them manually. Also, very important to note...If anything does not work after you've unchecked it, then you will need to recheck it and reboot your system. Also If you have a USB HP 3400 or 4300 scanner, don't uncheck them in MSCONFIG, or you will need to REcheck them AND reinstall the software to get it to work again.

By creating shortcuts on your desktop or tool bar, you can still have all these other applications just a click away without all the inherent conflicts that usually arise.

To create shortcuts, read "Shortcuts to Success". To figure out what some of these programs in your MSCONFIG startup even are, read "Letters, slashes and dots, oh my". Both are on our website. With a little bit of effort on your part, you can take back control of your computer, and use it the way YOU want, not the way the software designers want.

If this doesn't help you, then send me an e-mail, and I'll refund 100% of your money you paid for this article.

***update - 2004***

Spyware has become an enormous problem, and you need to be sure your computer is always 100% clean.

For more info - http://www.pdxtc.com/200201-spyware.htm

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