So then, how to speed up your computer the easy way. Add more RAM. This is probably the single simplest, easiest way to boost your machine's performance. But it only works if you actually need more RAM. If you already have a gigabyte or two, you need a different solution or group of solutions.

And probably you ought to go through a full system tune-up. While some parts of a full scale "tune-up" can require additional software or some detailed guidance, here are a couple of things you can do which will improve your computer's performance.

First, when was the last time you defragmented your hard drive? True, It can be time consuming with today's large hard drives but you can always let it run over night. Assuming you have a PC running Windows look under Accessories and System Tools (or whatever it's called in your version of Windows) and find the Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter. Before you run either of these, it might be a good idea to run ScanDisk to check the disk for errors.

If you right click on the drive you want to work on in Windows Explorer and then chose Properties you should find the disk cleanup function under the General tab and ScanDisk (Error-checking) and Defragmentation on the Tools tab. Again, you should probably run error-checking (ScanDisk) first and then you may want to run the Disk Cleanup program before you use the Disk Defragmenter. The combination should give you more disk space and faster file access - unless the drive remains highly fragmented. This can happen when the drive is nearly full and there are files which can not be moved. The less free space there is on your drive, the more fragments will probably still be there and the longer the defragmentation process will take.

If you have unused programs or old unneeded files, uninstalling the programs you don't use and deleting the files you no longer need frees up disk space. So this might be something you'd want to do before any other step.

I used to be pretty hesitant about doing some of this tune-up stuff until I found a nice convenient package that specified the steps, in order, and walked me through it (plus provided access to additional programs that do some of the more complicated stuff). While I do provide tips and information here on how to make your computer faster, I also recommend and use Tiit Raag's Fast PC Secrets. This is a reasonably priced full range product, not just a Registry cleaner. It has extensive professionally produced step-by-step videos and PDFs with pictures (my personal choice, particularly after the first or second time I went through the cleanup process). And you'll be getting access to a number of programs which you'll definitely want to use as part of your system tune-up and clean-up.