Upgrading & Fixing Laptops DUMmIES

Doing a full cavity search ..................................................................

The third essential utility is some form of system tune-up. Like it or not, your

computer software is under regular assault from any or all of these sources:

Viruses sent your way by e-mail or over the Internet

Malware or adware that forces its way onto your machine from the Internet

Corruption caused by electrical surges or a mechanically failing hard drive

Improperly written or poorly behaving software that may change the

operating system’s setup and driver files

Crashes that cause an improper or incomplete system shutdown

Any of these problems and others can cause errors in the Windows Registry

(a collection of instructions and settings that sets much of the personality of

a system). These problems can also damage program files, file attribute

tables, and other indexes necessary for proper operation.

The solution is to use — on a regular basis — a system utility that examines

the Windows Registry and repairs or restores it to a previous properly config-

ured state. By this point in this chapter, you should guess that I recommend

use of Norton SystemWorks from Symantec, a suite of utilities that includes

Norton Utilities (to discover and repair many Windows and drive problems

and encompassing the Speed Disk defragger and the Norton Protected

Recycle Bin), Norton AntiVirus, CheckIt Diagnostics, and more.

Figure 19-3:
Norton
Speed Disk
at work: The
legend in
the lower
left shows
the types of
files being
moved and
demarks
those that
should not
be relocated
because of
system
require-
ments.

Chapter 19: Essential Utilities for Laptop Users 295