Now I want to give you my tips on how I "clean" and maintain the operating system.  Many of these things I do on a regular basis, usually every week or so, but one thing I try to do is keep it consistent.  When backing up files (which we will discuss), I make it a habit to do on Fridays at the end of my week.  This is just my personal preference, but the important thing is a task like backing up is done.

Spyware

Now I'm not going to tell you why you should keep spyware out, because I'm confident you already know.  However, I am going to tell you the tools that I use to keep my PC clean of spyware. 

• Ad-Aware - This is one of the most popular anti-spyware applications out there today, and I'm sure everyone here is pretty familiar with it.  I try to run this every other day or so, even daily if I get the chance.
  
• Windows Defender - This is a free download from Microsoft, and despite a rough start in beta, it has developed into a really nice program.  This program will sometimes catch things not otherwise detected by Ad-Aware.

There are many more good anti-spyware applications out there, but these have always been reliable.  I regularly run "quick scans", but take this opportunity to run some full scans even though it take longer.
 

Anti-Virus

There are dozens and dozens of anti-virus programs out there.  I'm not going to debate which is best, but I am going to recommend you find one that you like, whether it's free or paid, and use it.  I run a complete scan weekly, and I always make sure it is actively monitoring my e-mail client as well.

Whatever program you use make sure the definitions are up to date, and schedule full system scans on a regular basis.

Clean out the junk

Temp files, cookies, auto-complete history, the list goes on and on.  Over time your PC is going to accumulate all these things and you are going to want to clean them up. 

• CCleaner - No doubt this is the best application for this purpose.  This is another program I run on a regular basis, but I do not clean my registry entries with this.  I ran into several programs including applications not wanting to start (Office 2003), so I would be very careful and make sure you backup your registry if you decide to use it.
  
• Eusing Registry Cleaner - If you must clean your registry entries, then this is what I recommend and use.  Make sure you always make up a backup of your registry before any changes or "cleaning". 

While we are on the subject of cleaning out disk space.  Do you ever wonder what is taking up all that space on your hard drive?  Is something taking up maybe too much space, and you need to track it down?  Well Object Desktop users have a valuable tool......DriveScan.

DriveScan will let you graphically map out your hard drive, and make it easy for you to view what is taking up space on your drives.

Back it up

While backing up your data is not really "cleaning", it is a very important and I wanted to touch on it.  I'm sure almost everyone here has read or a story about someone who has lost important data, and I would bet many members here at WC have had it happen to them.

I use two applications to backup my data.

• KeepSafe - KeepSafe will backup your files in real-time, so if a document you are working on crashes or becomes corrupt,  then you can go back to the last one KeepSafe saved.  Read more about it here, and be sure to download a trial and you will see how valuable this program is.
  
• Acronis True Image - I know people that backup their data to CD's, DVD's, thumb drives, and whatever else you can think of.  I use True Image to make image of both my entire drive, and the "My Documents" folder on a regular basis. 

There are several different techniques on how to backup your data, but make sure you have some type of plan to keep your data safe.

Defrag

This is the perfect time of year to run a defrag on your PC.   In Windows XP you can use the Disk Defragmenter to analyze and if needed, defrag your hard drives.  More information on how defrag your drives can be found here.

Reformat

Sometimes it's good just to start fresh.  So I usually backup all my data, wipe my drives, and start with a clean installation of Windows.  Once you get your installation done, that is also a good time to a make an images of the drive so you can restore it to that "clean" state once again. 

I know many of you use different tools than I do, and I would like to hear what applications you use to keep your PC "clean" and maintained.