Let Windows take care of Windows

I am not against computer maintenance, but IMHO some people are trying way too hard to be better than Windows in taking care of Windows, thereby creating never ending problems for themselves

Why not intervene only when it's really necessary?

The 'really necessary' requires a judgement call, of course, but "if it's not broken, don't fix it" ought to be a sensible dividing line, no?

I 100% agree with this statement.

Haydon said:

some people are trying way too hard to be better than Windows in taking care of Windows

Click to expand...

The reason for that is also Windows, which in the past hasn't done a good enough job. It still continues to leave behind a lot of junk which can be safely removed.

I have always used CCleaner to clean a lot of stuff on my laptop without any problems whatsoever. However, when I did the same on someone else's computer, it refused to boot, and I had to do a clean install. That probably explains why Windows doesn't want to do this stuff on its own because of the potential of breaking something. And much of those stuff, over time, do have a tendency to impact performance. That explains why people still look for 3rd party system maintenance tools.

Haydon said:

I am not against computer maintenance, but IMHO some people are trying way too hard to be better than Windows in taking care of Windows, thereby creating never ending problems for themselves

Why not intervene only when it's really necessary?

The 'really necessary' requires a judgement call, of course, but "if it's not broken, don't fix it" ought to be a sensible dividing line, no?

Click to expand...

I generally let Windows take care of Windows. Especially with 3rd party tools, I only break them out when I have something that is truly broken and other methods to resolve it have been exhausted without success.

The thing with enthusiasts is that if they believe there is performance to be gained by doing something, they will often times try to take it. Even if they cannot really quantify the gain, if common sense says system resources are less utilized, it means that performance must have also increased.

One of the reasons I prefer Windows over a certain fruity operating system is the fact that I can tweak it to work the way I want it to, instead of being forced to do things the way the manufacturer thinks I should. Most users stick with the setup out of the box and that's fine but not for me. Certainly, some people screw up their computers, but I think most tinkerers come out ahead of the game, or at least learn something.

I agree up to a point. However, letting Windows take care of Windows IS a good plan.

But when we get old and crotchety, it our "right" to make Windows better than the designers did.




Starting at 00:40

I agree with @TheMystic I do a clean with CCleaner every 2 or 4 weeks depending on use. Norton does an automatic clean up. I don't agree with too much cleaning as you end up deleting or changing something you want. and at the end of the day, with modern HDD and SSD no one is short of space.

bronskimac said:

One of the reasons I prefer Windows over a certain fruity operating system is the fact that I can tweak it to work the way I want it to, instead of being forced to do things the way the manufacturer thinks I should. Most users stick with the setup out of the box and that's fine but not for me. Certainly, some people screw up their computers, but I think most tinkerers come out ahead of the game, or at least learn something.

Click to expand...

Apple follows the philosophy of providing a secure platform to get things done. For them, gadgets are just a tool to get work done, and not something to play with (and waste time).

One of the disadvantages of providing too much flexibility is the amount of time people spend tweaking things to their liking, and if something breaks (which inevitably happens), more productive time lost in repairing/ restoring it. All that is minimised when you are limited in how much you can tweak the OS.

Agree, sometimes some of the things they do is indeed super annoying and unjustifiable.

Back when machines only had 2GB of RAM and 500MB of ROM, you had to keep 'em lean and clean, but nowadays..., pffft!
I investigate when things feel sluggish.

The Apple method also provides consistency, so app developers and such can expect for the most part that everybody is running the same and the experience will be the same. It generally benefits their ecosystem.

pparks1 said:

The Apple method also provides consistency, so app developers and such can expect for the most part that everybody is running the same and the experience will be the same. It generally benefits their ecosystem.

Click to expand...

I see it as locking their users into their ecosystem.

It is what it is. People gone do what people gone do. If someone asks for help, il give it if I can. But you can only lead a horse to water.

If people are breaking things on purpose or just touching things for the sake of touching things and then asking for help then that's what they gonna do. Nothing will change how forums have been forever. It's nothing new

I'm very reluctant to use 3rd party "Cleaners and enhancers" for basic Windows maintenance starting with W7. Most of them work thru registry and registry use has changed since XP, lines and settings are not read sequentially but branched so any "extra" entries are just ignored.
Instead of constant cleaning I relay on prevention, Using Revo Uninstaller to cleanly uninstall any programs, even Store APPS are uninstalled with no residue on disk or in registry. Uninstalling programs thru Control panel leaves uninstallation on the mercy of program's developer and they are most often pretty sloppy leaving bunch of files all over the place.
For disk cleaning I mostly use Disk cleanup from disk properties and with latest windows from Settings Only exception is UnCleaner, UnCleaner. Get the software safely and easily. a delightful little program which I fire couple of times a week or after large amount of file deletions. It finds and delete up to couple of hundred MB which no other program finds.
Speaking of disks, HDDs don't fragment easily since NTFS and even FAT32 and for SSDs it doesn't matter, let maintenance take care of them. Since W7 Sp1, windows are SSD aware and will use optimize routine in best way.

Hi folks
For 90% of users that's fine -- Windows is really a complex system and way beyond the scope for average even if competant computer users -- even if they excel in other fields such as Medecine and Engineering etc. However Human history is full of examples where people have said "Surely we can make this work better or do more things" etc.

If people didn't do this perhaps we'd still be using Abacus for calculations, chopping down trees for heating and only the privileged would have any even passable if slow transportation system using horses. Communication long distance of any type would be impossible.

I'm always greatful to people here ( @Edwin !!!! tweaker extraordinaire) who display ways to get Windows working decently and in all sorts of ways that one wouldn't have thought possible - whether or not it's "officially sanctioned by Ms or not". I'm glad Windows isn't so locked in as Apple's IOS even if in some cases the Apple OS is a lot easier and friendlier to use.

One thing I never had a clue about was how to use vhdx physical files -- but from posts from others - particularly by @NavyLCDR has given me a lot more flexibility in using all sorts of Windows releases with minimal hassle of backing up entire HDD's and restoring just to mess around with multi-boot systems.

Yes there are annoyances such as overwhelming amount of bloatware on standard installations but even that can be "adjusted".

As a regular Linux user - yes Windows is mega complicated to tweak compared with Linux but thanks to people on these boards it can be done hugely successfully too -- and I'm sure Ms takes notice eventually even if it's not obvious at first look.

Cheers
jimbo

CountMike said:

I'm very reluctant to use 3rd party "Cleaners and enhancers" for basic Windows maintenance starting with W7. Most of them work thru registry and registry use has changed since XP, lines and settings are not read sequentially but branched so any "extra" entries are just ignored.
Instead of constant cleaning I relay on prevention, Using Revo Uninstaller to cleanly uninstall any programs, even Store APPS are uninstalled with no residue on disk or in registry. Uninstalling programs thru Control panel leaves uninstallation on the mercy of program's developer and they are most often pretty sloppy leaving bunch of files all over the place.
For disk cleaning I mostly use Disk cleanup from disk properties and with latest windows from Settings Only exception is UnCleaner, UnCleaner. Get the software safely and easily. a delightful little program which I fire couple of times a week or after large amount of file deletions. It finds and delete up to couple of hundred MB which no other program finds.
Speaking of disks, HDDs don't fragment easily since NTFS and even FAT32 and for SSDs it doesn't matter, let maintenance take care of them. Since W7 Sp1, windows are SSD aware and will use optimize routine in best way.

Click to expand...

Yep - I have lost count of number of posts where a user disables things, services etc., and ends up breaking Windows.

A few years ago, automatic updates on Windows just after initial releases did cause a lot of issues e.g. start menu freezing, updates just not working, lots of crashes. However Windows 10 (and 11 as really 10 with new GUI) has come a long way, and I cannot remember any serious issues with release versions. Even Insider versions are more robust.

Anyway, site mantra is "make regular image backups" is always best advice regardless if you "TINKER" or let Windows do its job.

jimbo45 said:

... tweaker extraordinaire

Click to expand...

I don't always do things properly, but, hell yeah, I'll take that title!
Edwin Doe, PhD, T.E.

I literary just rebooted after I used Glary Utilities to remove some startup apps and services. Startup time before 2 minutes 30 seconds, this startup 30 seconds.

bronskimac said:

I literary just rebooted after I used Glary Utilities to remove some startup apps and services. Startup time before 2 minutes 30 seconds, this startup 30 seconds.

Click to expand...

But that should give you some interest in learning more about Windows? You can very easily do things like that on your own without any tools added to Windows. Myself I enjoy playing with Windows, but as I get older I don't play with it nearly as much as I used to. Been doing it for thirty years as a career, so perhaps that's why I don't play with it as much as I used to.

Ghot said:

But when we get old and crotchety,

Click to expand...

Yep. That's me. I tweak things ONLY when my computing experience is made less productive by new fandangled changes MS makes that they think is better but do not give us an option of changing to meet our needs.

Don't for one minute think MS doesn't expect some users to make these changes. If they didn't they could lock this OS down tighter than a jug. They know the majority of users accept whatever changes they think we want, but they also know folks like @Brink can come up with workarounds. Don't think either, that Brink doesn't test these workarounds before he releases them here.

Where one gets in trouble is willy-nilly making boo-koos of changes that conflict with each other and then adding a third party app that complicates matters further.

As far as using some sort of maintenance program, I'm a firm believer in it. Why would I want a ton of junk and temporary files garbaging my system. Most commercially built systems these days come with a relatively small C: drive and it doesn't take long for the crap to eat up the space.

With all my files on a secondary drive, my windows installation so far uses 86 gb of 235 gb available space. This will only grow with time so I make every effort to keep my boot drive clean as I go.

glasskuter said:

Yep. That's me. I tweak things ONLY when my computing experience is made less productive by new fandangled changes MS makes that they think is better but do not give us an option of changing to meet our needs.

Don't for one minute think MS doesn't expect some users to make these changes. If they didn't they could lock this OS down tighter than a jug. They know the majority of users accept whatever changes they think we want, but they also know folks like @Brink can come up with workarounds. Don't think either, that Brink doesn't test these workarounds before he releases them here.

Where one gets in trouble is willy-nilly making boo-koos of changes that conflict with each other and then adding a third party app that complicates matters further.

As far as using some sort of maintenance program, I'm a firm believer in it. Why would I want a ton of junk and temporary files garbaging my system. Most commercially built systems these days come with a relatively small C: drive and it doesn't take long for the crap to eat up the space.

With all my files on a secondary drive, my windows installation so far uses 86 gb of 235 gb available space. This will only grow with time so I make every effort to keep my boot drive clean as I go.

Click to expand...

Some programs that are supposed to clean junk up introduce more junk, so you end up cleaning junk by adding junk. Vicious circle. Disk cleanup is already there and is capable of cleaning junk made by windows itself and updates. Even if you don't do it manually automatic maintenance will do it for you at some time. Windows.old for instance is deleted after 10 days. Storage sense does that and more. For 3rd party junk, prevention including proper uninstall program is the key.