How to maintain a healthy Computer System at home or work Environment?

While I worked with my previous company as a Support Analyst, I had a job routine to be carried out every morning upon arrival in the office which was usually twenty to thirty minutes before normal work start time. These included waking up the main Network central printers which usually went into sleep mode after two hours of idle time, followed by getting rid of any paper jams, checking of ink, and drum levels to make sure it could carry the entire day's print commands. I repeated these same tasks for the six HP MFP M880 we had. From this section, I dive straight into the conference room, it was usually used every morning and here I ensure the presentation smart board and video conference equipment is set up, tested, and confirmed they could connect to our offshore platforms including the Rig. Once this side is cleared the last but not the least thing to check is the intranet, most of our business applications were only accessed via the intranet and thus, it was always important the intranet was available and accessible by end-users. Now having checked all these, if there was any problem, it was immediately reported to the competent authority or IT Specialist involved. Why I mentioned all this is based on two key factors; Consistency and Efficiency which can only be attained through maintenance, routine checks, etc. It was all geared towards ensuring a smooth work experience with healthy equipment.

Basically, every tech electronic equipment such as PCs specifically requires some degree of maintenance to enable them to work efficiently and consistently as from the day of purchase. when a new computer has been bought, all it has is just a pre-installed Operating System and over time as more and more applications are being installed and the PC accesses the internet, files are auto-downloaded, applications are updated, dumb and temporary files are created, the PC bugs up and starts slowing dowing down. This of course means, something has to be done to ensure that even though this PC has all these system files, folders, and applications, it can still keep up with speed for nothing sucks like having to click an icon and then wait for minutes to get a response especially when you are on haste. For the most part of it, you are probably sure of having sufficient RAM memory, but still not sure of why the sluggish nature? In this article, I will share with you tips on how to maintain a healthy computer system both on your home or personal computer and the case in a Work Environment.

How to Maintain a Healthy Computer System? Personally, I have grouped the things I do to ensure a faster PC into categories that are Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. If you are tech support like me, there are chances you are already doing that. This is very important as it keeps you abreast of the current state of your PC(s) and if you are looking forward to work in a company or an organization. there's a high probability you will be doing this. For job seekers, expect questions like, "How do you intend or what are the things you intend to be doing for us?" If this is asked, they may be technically asking you to give a routine. this post should provide some of those answers.

For daily activities, 

- Clean all temporary and dumb files as well as the cache memory. In computing, a cache is a hardware or software component that stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster; the data stored in a cache might be the result of an earlier computation or a copy of data stored elsewhere. However, Cache memory is an extremely fast memory type that acts as a buffer between RAM and the CPU. It holds frequently requested data and instructions so that they are immediately available to the CPU when needed, all the same, it is junk, when it accumulates, it occupies space and causes the PC to slow down. you can use a third-party cleaner such as CCleaner which is my recommended type or use windows built-in cleaning tool(Disk Clean up). to access this, press Win + R to open the Run dialogue box then type cleanmgr.exe. it automatically pops up a dialogue box with a drop-down arrow to select the drive you want to clean.

Often times, the disk cleanup utility omits certain junk folders to clean so I prefer to do it manually by going to local disk C- windows - temp. It's, even more, easier with windows 10, just type temp on the search bar and choose "delete temporary files" under settings. it scans and automatically checks out all that needs to be removed.

- Run Scans which could be virus and malware scans

- Update Anti-virus software and definitions if available

- Run backups:

- Update operating system patches: Patches reduces the likelihood of system crashes and security breaches. keep in mind that an effective patch management process can close vulnerabilities before malicious users or worms have an opportunity to exploit them and Patches can apply to nearly every facet of your infrastructure, including operating systems, desktops, routers, servers, office software, etc.

-Additionally and randomly, If connected to the internet. I always check background activities to ensure my PC is not communicating or opening other sessions with the outside world from what I know. I do this by typing Netstat in the command prompt.

For weekly activities:

Perform/ run disk defragmenter: Disk defragmentation takes all the pieces of each file and stores them in one place. It also makes sure programs are each in one place, and that unused space on the hard disk is altogether. This is because of the hard drive stores data in a continuous process irrespective of file types. this particular tip can be scheduled to run automatically based on the time and date you set. and it does depend if you want it to run daily but for me, I like it weekly. To open the disk defragmenter in Windows 10, just type "defragment and optimize drives" A run dialogue box as the one below pops up

- Keep track records of your maintenance schedule, It helps you understand your system(s) better. likewise, it enables you to plan the week ahead if you work for an organization. As an aside you may be as well required to produce weekly and monthly reports. this will include highlights about major activities you carried out on your systems in the course of the week or month

Run a complete network Scan, this major scan checks every device attached to the network. why this can't be done regularly is because it can flood the network causing instability. that's why it's preferable it's been done during weekends or when the network is less busy with users and devices.

For Yearly activities: Reformat your system(s): Formatting the hard drive or the computer is the only way to get it working. It's usually the last option when trying to resolve a very complex software problem. Formatting the system removes all the files and errors and restores the computer to a blank state. It is almost always followed by the installation of the operating system which means that the user would be able to use a fresh system. the advantage of formatting is that it will clean the hard drive/SSD of any virus/malware that wasn't detected by the AV, and formatting will erase all the data thus making the drive perform like a new one. You can either do a clean format or perform an upgrade with the option of checking either "keep my files" or "remove everything" for the case of Windows 8 and above.

Keep in mind that in work environments such as a company or organization. Formatting is an option generally to be agreeable by the entire team and not a personal decision. the formatting option is always the last option when trying to resolve a software issue. Data is very important though it can always be recovered after a format it's very important to have it backed up before any major maintenance. However once in a year, it's important to have a restructuring of an entire IT infrastructure, Systems, and Network inclusive.