Is there any faux pas in my operational order concerning my weekly computer maintenance ?

1) Scanning for viruses and other malware.
2) Removal of old system restore points.
3) Cleaning with CCleaner.
4) Cleaning the registry.
5) Defragmentation of the registry.
---REBOOT---
6) CHKDSK & recovery of bad sectors of both HDDs. (ie: enough time to read Tolstoy's War in Peace)
7) File defragmentation.
---REBOOT---

Is there a way I could automate all of these steps with a batch file or with the help of a program ?

You could use the Scheduled Tasks function of Windows XP. You could probably set those tasks on separate times.

Go to Control Panel, and (in Classic View) double-click Schedule Task.

Hope you don't mind, that i ask this question here? So, how often you folks run a chkdsk (error checking) on your hard drives?

A standard ChkDsk scan every 1 to 2 days. A full ChkDsk scan once every 1 to 3 months.

Do you run it on all your hard drives (if you got several), or just on one where OS is?

Standard ChkDsk gets ran on all of them (just have C: and D:) because that's how I have the batch file configured when it reboots the system.

Full/Thorough ChkDsk is typically only ran on drive C: with the OS during that every 1 to 3 months checkup, and at the maximum twice per year on my secondary hard disk.

I'm a little embarrassed to ask, but where is "ChkDsk" and how do you access it?

1. Open My Computer.
2. Right click each hard disk(s) or hard disk partitions one at a time
and select 'Properties'
3. Next click 'Tools' and under 'Error checking' click 'Check Now...'
4. In 'Check disk options' select 'Automatically fix file system errors'
5. Click Start

Repeat steps 4 and 5 for each hard disk(s) or hard disk partitions.

Windows will ask for a restart when scanning C drive, so perhaps do it last, and restart as soon as possible after.

Andavari stated: "A standard ChkDsk scan every 1 to 2 days. A full ChkDsk scan once every 1 to 3 months."

Are both of these options available in the above routine?

Yes they are. Option 2 checks for bad sectors too, so it's much longer scan.

Before step 4 - cleaning the registry - I would definitely make a registry backup, using ERUNT.

Is it possible with Scheduled Tasks to make an anti-spyware program lauch itself and start scanning right after the anti-virus has finished, or will I need to mesure the amount of time taken for the scan of the latter ?

Added to my "to do" list. Thanks.

How do you remove old restore points?

You all do this all weekly?
Seems like a waste of time to me. I doubt you would see any difference between doing this monthly or even ever 3 months or so instead of weekly.

The only thing I may do weekly is make back ups(just copy and paste files onto an external drive) and run CCleaner. I have registry mechanic which might use to clean up/compact my registry when I think about it.(which isn't close to weekly or even monthly...) Just have your AV scan automatically and then maybe run a spyware scan every now and then if you think you need to.

All I really do on a very regular basis is run ChkDsk, Defrag, and I just started scanning for viruses a couple times a week. Some people can get by only defragging once a month, or twice a year but when working with audio files at the frequency that I do the hdd does get fragmented.

Yes, you should defrag on regular basis. If you defrag very rarely, disk can get highly fragramented, and there for defragging takes a lot of time and disk gets under lot of stress, which in worst case may lead to possible hard drive failure (or possibility for failure is higher).

If you don't EVER defrag, then your system performance really goes down in long run.

From my experience this isn't true. I have computers running windows 98 that still have the first HD I put in them.
I'm not saying you shouldn't ever defrag, what I'm saying is that doing so weekly is a waste of time.

I'm not saying, that you should defrag weekly, but once every couple of months or monthly. Or atleast twice a year. How much disk gets fragmented, depends. If you i.e. install/uninstall lot of programs, you should defrag more often.

Right click on the icon of the HDD in which Windows is installed in My Computer ---> Propreties ---> Disk Cleanup ---> More Options ---> System Restore "Clean up...".

Not too sure if Scheduled Tasks will do that, but you can (if your program allows you to do this) set your Anti-Virus and Spyware Programs to run at certain times at certain points of the day, week, or month. Alot of programs allow you to specify certain times to scan.

True!

There's something else to also keep in mind:

• Let them do all the maintenance whilst you sleep, so they aren't hogging your computer when you'd like to use it!
• Have the anti-apps (antivirus, antispyware) programs look for updates 30 minutes to 1 hour before they start scanning.
• Make sure each actually has time to complete the scan, so keep the scans a good 30 minutes to 1 hour apart from each other.

I agree. FYI, I used to defrag really often, weekly or oftener, in an effort to make the computer run faster. Nowadays I pretty much follow the advice of the OEM defragger, if it says no need to defrag, I don't. Frequent defragging didn't speed up much, infrequent defragging doesn't seem to hurt.

I was wondering if anyone cleans out the Prefetch Files?

To access these, you enter C:\Windows\Prefetch. You can safely delete all of these files, or at least I have been doing this for about 5 years.

As I understand it, these files build up and can slow down the PC. Someone told me about 5 years ago that these should be deleted once in a while. I delete them a couple of times each year.

Any thoughts on the removal of these?

Yes, you should delete them once a while, but not TOO often, because then they lost their actual purpose. As far as i know, prefetch files are used for quicker accessing to applications (faster launch). Actually benefit of prefetching is very minimal and in long run it can slow things down. That's why it's good to delete those files once a while.

I personally have disabled prefetching completely, because benefit is so minimal and because it actually "eats" some memory. Here's guide to disable/modify prefetching: http://www.tech-recipes.com/windows_tips1285.html

wow, you guys are hardcore neat freaks, eh? your computer has to be 100% error free / 100% defragged at any given time?

i don't defrag / chkdsk very often.. maybe when i have a little extra tme on my hands, and/or i'm bored and have nothing better to do. on average, i do it once every 40 days or so, and my computer runs fine..

i think some of you guys are a little obsessive compulsive

I defrag less often than I used to, now, but download/move/delete files fairly often, trying out different software, playing around with tweaks etc. So about every two weeks I do a boot defrag with Bootvis, and a full defrag with JKDefrag. This is following a scan/check disk. CCleaner gets used at the end of every browsing session. Avast! and SpywareTerminator auto-update, Comodo Firewall, Firefox and Windows are set to advise me of updates but don't download them, all other applications (SAS, Asquared, AVG AS,SPybot, PG2, the printer, the camera editing program, Java, and Flash player, I update about weekly or two-weekly. Error messages generally only occur following an ill thought out tweak, and are usually explainable. Those that aren't, or recur, I ask for help on a forum like this one. Why should anyone put up with frequent error messages/things not working as they should?
Every two weeks or so it gets a full virus scan, one or two full spyware scans, and a rootkit scan.
I used to be a bit obsessive compulsive, I guess. Now I'm much more relaxed about it. I believe that to learn to un-f### something, you have to partly f### it up a bit first.

[Edit] my computer runs fine, too.

I wish that were true, but sadly it isn't - don't forget we're using something buggy called Windows. Although the slightest error if reoccurring and annoying is enough to have me format the hard disk if I can't find a solution to fix the problem and I've ran into some brick walls before with an erroneous or rare error/problem with no possible fix.

How often do you folks check hard drive(s) S.M.A.R.T. info, to see if it's ok? It's kinda a little obsession to me and i check (almost) every day.

Offtopic question: Is there any obsessions with computer, that you have to do/check every single day?

I once had a copy error in a program I use for backup CeeCee. It took awhile to get it sorted and even now when I make a copy I always check the log to see if there is an error.

It could be a mild form of OCD.