Microsoft Disk Defragmenter

Ever noticed how a computer can sometimes seem slower and slower over time? It might not be just your imagination. Because of the way that computers store data it is possible when the computer accumulates or moves around large amounts of data that it slowly becomes disorderly scattered all over the hard drive. This occurrence is referred to as "fragmented" data. Fragmented data can, over time, cause a computer to slow down significantly. Microsoft has included a couple of utilities with Windows to help keep this problem in check. The following are instructions to find the defragmenter software respective to operating system:

• Double Click on My Computer. This should open a window that displays a list of drives that the computer has installed. In this case, we are looking for a drive that has the label "(C:)".
• Using the right mouse button, (if you use a left handed mouse setting, please invert the instructions respectively) click on the C: drive and a menu should open where you clicked. On that menu, click on the option that reads "Properties".
• On the window that just opened, there should be three tabs across the top. One of them will say Tools. Click on that tab. Towards the bottom of the window you should now see a button that says "Defragment Now…" Click on that button to begin the defragmenter.

• Double Click on My Computer (if using XP, My computer can be found on the start menu and only needs to be clicked once to open). This should open a window that displays a list of drives that the computer has installed. In this case, we are looking for a drive that has the label "(C:)".
• Using the right mouse button, (if you use a left handed mouse setting, please invert the instructions respectively) click on the C: drive icon and a menu should open where you clicked. On that menu, click on the option that reads "Properties".
• On the window that just opened, there should be some tabs across the top. One of them will say Tools. Click on that tab. Towards the bottom (in XP it will be the middle) of the window you should now see a button that says "Defragment Now…" Click on that button to open the defragmenter.
• Towards the bottom of this window you should see a button that says "Defragment". Click that button to begin the defragmentation process.

Disclaimer: You should only run disk defragmenter at a time where it will not disrupt your normal computer activity. In some cases, defragmenter can run for hours on end. It is recommended that while defragmenting you do not do anything on your computer, and that you temporarily disable any programs and virus scanning software you may be running, and disable your screen saver if you have one. After the process completes, you should be able to resume normal computer usage.

To disable your screen saver:
in all versions of Windows:

• Double click on My computer
• Double click on Control Panel
• Double Click on Display
• Click on the "Screen Saver" tab at the top of the display window.
• in the drop down menu that allows you to select your screen saver, choose "(None)"
• When you want to turn your screen saver back on, follow the above instructions, but choose your screen saver instead of "(None)"

To disable your Antivirus Program:
Norton Antivirus only:

• Find your Norton Antivirus Icon in the lower, right-hand corner of the screen. *(see images below)
  
• Right click on the icon and a menu should pop up.
• click on disable.  The icon should now appear with a red "X" over it.  it is now disabled. 
• To enable your Norton again, follow the procedures above, but choose Enable.

For information regarding other anti-virus software, consult the manual or help file included with the respective software.