Windows 8 Maintenance!
Welcome to the Windows 8 section
Here we will be looking into the following tasks :-
1) Removal/Installation of programs
Removal/Installation of Programs
Whether you’ve picked up a new program or you want to purge an old one, the Windows 8 Control Panel’s Programs category handles the job fairly well. One of its categories, Programs and Features, lists your currently installed programs. Click the one you want to discard or tweak.
How to remove apps and programs
Removing an app from your computer doesn’t take much effort. Right-click the app’s tile from the Start screen; when the App bar rises from the Start screen’s bottom edge, click the Uninstall icon, shown in the margin.
To remove an unwanted desktop program or change its settings, head for the desktop’s Control Panel by following these steps:
Right-click in the screen’s bottom-left corner and choose the Control Panel from the pop-up menu.
When the Control Panel appears, choose Uninstall a Program from the Programs category.
The Uninstall or Change a Program window appears, listing your currently installed programs, their publisher, size, installation date, and version number.
To free up disk space, click the Installed On or Size column header to find old or large programs. Then uninstall those forgotten programs you never or rarely use.
Click the unloved program and then click its Uninstall, Change, or Repair button.
The menu bar above the programs’ names always displays an Uninstall button, but when you click certain programs, you may also see buttons for Change and Repair. Here’s the rundown:
Uninstall: This completely removes the program from your PC. (Some programs list this button as Uninstall/Change.)
Change: This lets you change some of the program’s features or remove parts of it.
Repair: A handy choice for damaged programs, this tells the program to inspect itself and replace damaged files with new ones. You may need to have the program’s original CD or DVD handy, though, because you’ll need to insert it into your computer.
When Windows asks whether you’re sure, click Yes.
Depending on which button you’ve clicked, Windows 8 either boots the program off your PC or summons the program’s own installation program to make the changes or repair itself.
After you delete a program, it’s gone for good unless you kept its installation CD. Unlike other deleted items, deleted programs don’t linger inside your Recycle Bin.
Always use the Control Panel’s Uninstall or Change a Program window to uninstall unwanted programs. Simply deleting their files or folders won’t do the trick. In fact, doing so often confuses your computer into sending bothersome error messages.
How to install new programs
Today, most programs install themselves automatically as soon as you slide their discs into your PC’s drive or double-click their downloaded installation file.
If you’re not sure whether a program has installed, go to the Start screen and look for its tile, usually toward the far right edge. If it’s listed there, the program has installed.
But if a program doesn’t automatically leap into your computer, here are some tips that can help:
You need an Administrator account to install programs. (Most computer owners automatically have an Administrator account.) That keeps the kids, with their Limited or Guest accounts, from installing programs and messing up the computer.
Downloaded a program?
Windows 8 usually saves them in your Downloads folder, accessible by clicking your username on the Start screen. Double-click the downloaded program’s name to install it.
Many eager, newly installed programs want to add a desktop shortcut, a Start screen tile, and a Quick Launch toolbar shortcut. Say “yes” to all. That way you can start the program from the desktop, avoiding a trip to the Start screen. (Changed your mind? Right-click any unwanted shortcuts and choose either Delete or Unpin to remove them.)
It’s always a good idea to create a restore point before installing a new program. If your newly installed program goes haywire, use System Restore to return your computer to the peaceful state of mind it enjoyed before you installed the troublemaker.
Disk CleanUp Tool
Delete files using Disk Cleanup
You can use Disk Cleanup to reduce the number of unnecessary files on your drives, which can help your PC run faster. It can delete temporary files and system files, empty the Recycle Bin, and remove a variety of other items that you might no longer need.
To delete files
The following procedure deletes files associated with your user account. You can also use Disk Cleanup to delete system files on your PC.
Open Disk Cleanup by swiping in from the right edge of the screen, tapping Search (or if you're using a mouse, pointing to the upper-right corner of the screen, moving the mouse pointer down, and then clicking Search), entering Disk Cleanup in the search box, tapping or clicking Settings, and then tapping or clicking Free up disk space by deleting unnecessary files.
In the Drives list, tap or click the drive that you want to clean up, and then tap or click OK.
In the Disk Cleanup dialog box, on the Disk Cleanup tab, select the check boxes for the file types that you want to delete, and then tap or click OK.
In the message that appears, tap or click Delete files.
To delete system files
The following procedure deletes system files on your PC. This option, in addition to cleaning up the files associated with your account, allows you to delete previous Windows installations, Windows Defender files, and Windows upgrade log files that you might no longer need.
Open Disk Cleanup by swiping in from the right edge of the screen, tapping Search (or if you're using a mouse, pointing to the upper-right corner of the screen, moving the mouse pointer down, and then clicking Search), entering Disk Cleanup in the search box, tapping or clicking Settings, and then tapping or clicking Free up disk space by deleting unnecessary files.
In the Drives list, tap or click the drive that you want to clean up, and then tap or click OK.
In the Disk Cleanup dialog box, tap or click Clean up system files. Administrator permission required You might be asked for an admin password or to confirm your choice.
In the Drives list, tap or click the drive that you want to clean up, and then tap or click OK.
In the Disk Cleanup dialog box, on the Disk Cleanup tab, select the check boxes for the file types that you want to delete, and then tap or click OK.
In the message that appears, tap or click Delete files.
The More Options tab is available when you choose to clean system files from your PC. This tab includes two additional ways to free up even more space:
Programs and Features. This option opens Programs and Features in Control Panel, where you can uninstall programs that you no longer use. The Size column in Programs and Features shows how much space each program uses.
System Restore and Shadow Copies. With this option, you can delete all but the most recent restore point on the drive.
System Restore uses restore points to return your system files to an earlier point in time. If your PC is running normally, you can save space by deleting the earlier restore points.
In some editions of Windows, restore points can include previous versions of files, known as shadow copies, and backup images. These files and images will also be deleted.
Using Disk Defragmentation
Optimize your hard drive
Windows has the tools you need to optimize the drives in your PC. The types of optimization include:
Defragmenting: Rearranges fragmented data so a drive can work more efficiently.
Trim optimization: This process informs the backing storage which blocks of data are no longer in use. This allows the storage to optimize space and performance for future use.
Slab consolidation: Used primarily in thinly provisioned drives, this process rearranges data from sparsely populated slabs to densely populated slabs.
The type of optimization the drive needs depends on the drive. In each case, Windows automatically chooses the optimization that’s right for your drive.
How to optimize a drive:
Open the Search charm, enter Defragment, and then tap or click Defragment and optimize your drives.
Pick the type of drive you want to optimize under Media type in the Optimize Drives dialog, and then tap or click Optimize.
Follow the on-screen instructions.
Optimizing a drive might take from several minutes to a few hours to finish, depending on the size of the drive and degree of optimization needed. You can still use your PC during them optimization process.
Run Error Checking Utility
Disk Error Checking in Windows 8
Users of Windows 8 may have noticed that Disk Error Checking is a bit different from the earlier versions of Windows. Checking your hard disk, every once in a while for errors - usually caused due
to improper or sudden shutdowns, corrupted software, metadata corruption, etc, – in Windows 7 and earlier is always a good practice as this can help solve some computer problems and improve
the performance of your Windows computer.
Disk Error Checking in Windows 8
In Windows 8, Microsoft has redesigned chkdsk utility - the tool for detecting and fixing disk corruption. In Windows 8, Microsoft introduced a file system called ReFS, which does not require an offline chkdsk to repair corruptions – as it follows a different model for resiliency and hence does not need to run the traditional chkdsk utility.
The disk is periodically checked for file system errors, bad sectors, lost clusters, etc, during Automatic Maintenance and you now no longer need to really go and run it. In fact, Windows 8 now even exposes the state of the file-system and disk via the Action Center or under the Drive properties in File Explorer. If potential errors are found, you will be informed about it. You can continue to use the computer, while the scan is carried out in the background. If errors are found, you may be prompted via a notification to restart your computer.
If you wish to nevertheless manually run a scan, you can do so. Earlier you had to schedule Disk Error Checking for the system drive and for drives which had files or processes or folders opened. In Windows 8, error checking starts right away, even on the system drive – and it longer needs to be scheduled at start-up. Only if some errors are found, will you have to restart to let Windows 8 fix
the errors.
To begin the scan, right-click on the Drive which you wish to check and select Properties. Next, click on Tools tab and under Error checking, click on the Check button. This option will check the drive for file system errors.
If the system detects that there are errors, you will be asked to check the disk. If no errors are found, you will see a message – You don’t need to scan this drive. You can, nevertheless, choose to check the drive. Click on Scan drive to do so.
The scanning starts. Depending on what and how many errors your system has on it, this operation could take a few minutes or a few hours.
On completion, Windows 8 will display a message. If no errors are found it will say so.
If errors are found, you will see the following message:
Restart your computer to repair file system. You can restart right away or schedule the error fixing on next restart.
When you click on Show Details, the Event Viewer sopens, showing you the relevant log.
In Windows 8, Microsoft has made the Disk Error detection and correction of file system errors less intrusive, so that users can carry on working at their computers without worrying about such error.
