Please find below instructions for some things that you can do to keep your computer happy. Like a car, your computer likes a little bit of preventative maintenance every once in a while to keep humming along.

There are two programs that your computer will run for you if you ask it. These are called Scandisk and Disk Defragmenter.

Scandisk is a program that searches your computer's hardrive for problems and then fixes them. Computer hardrives often develop small errors about which you usually don't know. If left unchecked these can develop into larger problems that might affect your computer's ability to function normally. Scandisk can diagnose these problems while they are still in the "fixable" stage.

Disk Defragmenter also looks at your hardrive. Its main function is to clean up the data on the hardrive so that it works more efficiently. Like Scandisk, Defragmenter is good at identifying and fixing problems before they get serious.

Both of these can be found on your computer by doing the following:

-Click on the Start button
-Choose Programs - Accessories -- System Tools

You should see Scandisk and Disk Defragmenter now. (You may see one or two other things here also, depending on your computer.)

To run Scandisk:

1) Click on the choice for Scandisk

2) A Window will open. You have two choices- Standard and Thorough. You should generally choose Standard: it only takes a minute to run and it usually does enough work. If it can't solve all problems it will tell you what other steps to take. Thorough usually takes 20 minutes and longer to run, during which time you can't use your computer.

3) You should also click in the small box labelled "Automatically Fix Errors." This will tell Scandisk to solve problems without making you do it.

4) Now click on the Start button within this window. Scandisk will start running. The Standard mode should only take a moment or two. If it doesn't find any problems you will get a little window telling you that "Scandisk did not find any errors on this drive." Click on the close button in this window, and then on the close button in the Scandisk window and you're done!

To Run Disk Defragmenter:

1) Click on choice for Defragmenter

2) A Window will open. It will say, "What drive do you want to defragment?" and have a choice in the middle highlighted in blue. This choice should be your harddrive. It should say something like, "Name (C:)." Did you know that your drive had a name? It does! What it is isn't important. You should be sure, however, that it has (C:) after it.

3) Click on OK in this window.

4) After a short pause, another small window will appear. It will say something like, "Drive C is 3% fragmented. You don't need to defragment this drive now. If you want to defragment anyway, click Start." If your drive is anything less than 10% fragmented, there really isn't any reason to run Defragmenter. If so, click on the Exit button.

5) If your drive is fragmented, or you would just like to run the program anyway, click on the Start button in the window. Another little window will open, with some pretty animation. It will run for a few minutes, depending on how large your drive is. (If it looks like it's going to take longer than you want, click on the Stop button to halt the process.)

6) When it's finished, it will ask you if you want to quit. Click on Yes. That's it!

There is another program that your computer should have on it. This program cleans up deep problems within Windows95. You find this program using the Windows Explorer. It's located in: "C:\Program Files\RegClean." The program is named "RegClean.exe." Double click on this. A window will pop-up with a wrapped present on it. The program will already be running at this point. It begins by taking a look at your system. This takes a few seconds to finish. When it is done doing this, there will be a button at the bottom of the window labelled "Fix Errors." Choose this. The program will work again for a few seconds and then be finished. Choose exit when it's done. You should actually run this program 3 or 4 times in a row to make sure that it hits all the problems.

[Note: if you can't find RegClean on your system, let us know and we can install it for you.]

There are a few things that you can also do for your computer that will make it happier.

1) There are often a large number of what we call "tilde files" hidden on a computer. These are temporary files that the computer creates while doing something else. Unfortunately, these files tend to hang around long after they're needed, cluttering your hardrive and sometimes causing problems. It's a good idea to delete them about once a month.

These troublemakers can be found using Windows Explorer. They are located in the c:\windows\temp directory. In this location you can find anywhere from 1 to a gazillion files that start with a "~" (a tilde). Often they will also end in a "tmp" extension. Delete 'em. Your computer doesn't need them anymore. Every once in a while, your computer will still be using one of these files. If so, you will get a message that says, "Cannot delete ~file.tmp. Access is denied." If you get this message, just don't delete that file.

You may also have on your computer a number of files that end with ".chk." These files can also be safely deleted. They can be found right in "c:\."

2) While we're on the subject of deleting, you should also remember to keep track of your Trash and Out mailboxes in Eudora. They get bigger and bigger until you explicitly empty them. Overly-large mailboxes drag Eudora down, until it slows to a crawl.

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