I have not used a Windows PC in years until a couple months ago my wife decided to step away from Xbox. She went and dumped a lot of money on a gaming PC. Now I have been using Macs for a while and I use CleanMyMac X to keep the clutter down and running smooth. Is there a program similar to this or a program suite you recommend to keep this PC running good? Thanks everyone.
Those sorts of programs are 99.9% placebo. All modern OSes maintain things just fine without any help from any other program or action of the user. The only thing to “clean” is software you install that you don’t use any more. Removing other things (such as registry entries) are more likely to cause harm than provide any help. Windows comes with a completely sufficient malware protection, so that is also something else to avoid trying to add. This 4th gen Intel PC I am using was on Windows 7, and has upgraded through 8, 8.1, and various versions of Windows 10 (1507, 1511, 1607, 1703, 1709, 1803, 1809, 1903, 1909, 2004, 20H2) and it still runs pretty identically today as it did back in the beginning (in 2014.)
I haven’t used any software to clean Windows in about a decade.
The best way to keep it running smoothly is not to keep installing junk on it. That is where a lot of people fall down, they keep installing every “latest” trendy app they can find on the device and it bloats up the registry and fragments the drive (less of an issue with SSDs these days). If you don’t keep installing cruft on the machine, it won’t need regular cleaning.
My 2016 laptop and 2017 desktop both still run smoothly, but I have installed maybe 2 new applications in that time and deinstalled 3.
I agree. My Windows PC runs faster now that I how I have re-installed Windows on it and not installed a bunch of apps I was testing. I’m currently using my Macbook Pro as it’s just my preferred computer but both work fast.
I echo this, and will relate my experience as well.
I had a PC that got in 2015 with Windows 8.1. Almost immediately, the announcement of WIndows 10 came about, and come July, I installed the Windows 10 in-place upgrade. It was absolutely flawless. And up until March 2020 (when the power supply died) - I installed every Windows update and not once did I have any issues. I was even one of those who moved My Documents folder to a different location (which was supposedly the root cause of some upgrade issues for one or two of the updates). WIndows 10 has been the most solid and stable version of Windows I’ve ever used.
Now, I occasionally have installed less-than-stable software. But I’ve always been able to get it removed. Microsoft, from my perspective and experience, got WIndows 10 correct. I understand others have had different experiences. But I wanted to give mine as an example of how well it has worked for me.
I do a full format twice a year to de-crapify my system. Probably a bit much for most people, but I think it’s the easiest way. Also really good way to ensure you’re storing things properly (not stuck on a single system in your house).
As long as you monitor the programs/apps that you use including the ones that are running in the background, you’re good.
There are times that antivirus software could make your OS slow down, so try to install at least one antivirus software if you feel that Windows Security is not enough.
Seems to be that Windows is perceived as exactly as it was the way it was back in Windows XP time and nothing has changed or has been changed/improved since. That is the farthest from the truth, MS has been making improvements starting in Vista, Windows 7, etc. You don’t need to do a lot anymore as far like you needed to maintain Windows in early versions of the OS.
You don’t need to manually often defrag, you don’t need to solely focus on 3rd party AV and manually maintain it for security as the only defense for keeping secure. You don’t need a third party AV software installed anymore. Apply security patches for the OS which is usually done automatically in Win 10 anyway, and keeping your browser current and up to date and set it. I have only done the latter and on all my machines I have not had a third party AV installed in over a decade now and all my Windows machines have been running fine with no issues since and with no infections. As people have said Windows itself is configured by default and is built in to 100% better maintain itself than it did back in Win XP,/early Vista time frame and just consider the source of the software you install and you trust it and you need it.
I think a key problem with Windows that has been under-discussed so far is startup junk that is installed by software you install. I will recommend Autoruns from sysinternals. It’s a small free utility that scans the registry and shows you everything that is configured to load when the computer starts, including shell extensions, and delete them if you want.
You have to be careful in there because it shows you everything, and turning off some of those things will probably break Windows. You can tell it to hide windows entries or all Microsoft entries to more easily find the third party junk (although there is a lot of Microsoft stuff I would consider junk too).
And for those who like this kind of thing, there is also ShellExView and ShellMenuView from Nirsoft, which specifically look at shell extensions and shell menu behaviour. I usually find third party software adds garbage to my context menus that I will never use, so these utilities can help you disable them.