2. Managing and monitoring opportunities in Windows 7
Table of Contents
1. Defragment and Optimize Drives..........................................................................................................2
2. Device Manager ....................................................................................................................................3
3. Disk Cleanup..........................................................................................................................................4
4. Event Viewer.........................................................................................................................................5
5. Performance Monitor ...........................................................................................................................6
6. Services .................................................................................................................................................7
7. Task Manager........................................................................................................................................8
8. Task Scheduler ......................................................................................................................................9
9. Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.........................................................................................10
10. Windows Memory Diagnostic.........................................................................................................11
3. Managing and monitoring opportunities in Windows 7
1. Defragment and Optimize Drives
What is?
Optimizing the drive is one of the best ways we can improve computer performance. Windows
includes features to help optimize the different types of drives that PCs use today. It can
optimize solid-state drives as well as defragment mechanical drives.
How to access
Control panel > Administrative tools > Defragment and Optimize Drives
My computer > Right click on a drive > Properties > Tools > Defragment and Optimize Drives
How to use?
Open Defragment and optimize drives.
Click the drive you want to optimize.
To determine if the drive needs to be optimized, click Analyze.
After Windows is finished analyzing the drive, check the Current status column to see whether
you need to optimize the drive. If the drive is more than 10% fragmented, you should optimize
the drive now.
Click Optimize.
4. Managing and monitoring opportunities in Windows 7
2. Device Manager
What is?
You can use Device Manager to see the devices installed on your PC, update driver software for
our devices, check to see if hardware is working properly, and change hardware settings.
How to access
Control Panel > Device Manager
How to use
Double-tap or double-click a device category to expand it. If there's a yellow warning icon Yellow
warning icon that shows there might be a device problem on the name of a device, there might
be a problem with it. Click the device, Click Action, and then click Properties to see details about
that device.
5. Managing and monitoring opportunities in Windows 7
3. Disk Cleanup
What is?
Disk Cleanup will check our system and then present you with a list of things that can be
removed to free up space. It will tell us how much space can be gained by removing unnecessary
files in our computer.
How to access
Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Disk Cleanup
How to use?
Open Disk Cleanup.
If you see a drop-down menu with a list of drives, choose the drive you want to clean (generally
the C drive).
Click OK.
In the Disk Cleanup for OS dialog box, choose the checkboxes for the file types you want to
delete.
Click OK.
When you see a dialog box that prompts you whether to permanently delete the files, click
Delete Files.
6. Managing and monitoring opportunities in Windows 7
4. Event Viewer
What is?
The Event Viewer displays the Windows event log. Applications, services, and Windows itself
write messages to the event log. Viewing the log can sometimes help you identify a problem and
look up a specific error message, but most of the messages here aren’t important.
How to access
Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer
7. Managing and monitoring opportunities in Windows 7
5. Performance Monitor
What is?
The Microsoft Windows Performance Monitor is a feature found in Windows 7 that allows us to
view and monitor the performance of your computer either in real time or from a log. In the
picture below, is an example of the Performance Monitor running in real time and is graphing
the percentage of the processor time. Additional values could be added to this chart by right-
clicking on the chart and clicking Add Counters.
How to access
Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Performance Monitor
8. Managing and monitoring opportunities in Windows 7
6. Services
What is?
The Services tool displays the services installed on our Windows system and allows us to
manage them. Services are low-level programs that run in the background. Many of these
services are included with Windows and perform essential system tasks.
How to access
Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services
9. Managing and monitoring opportunities in Windows 7
7. Task Manager
What is?
Task Manager shows you the programs, processes, and services that are currently running on
your computer. We can use Task Manager to monitor your computer’s performance or to close
a program that is not responding.
We can also use Task Manager to view network status and see how your network is functioning.
If more than one user is connected to our computer, we can see who is connected, what they
are working on, and we can send them a message.
How to access
Press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC
Right click on an empty area of Task bar and click Task manager
10. Managing and monitoring opportunities in Windows 7
8. Task Scheduler
What is?
Windows uses the Task Scheduler to automatically run processes at scheduled times. The Task
Scheduler application allows us to set our own programs to run on a schedule, view our system’s
scheduled tasks, and manage them.
How to access
Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Task Scheduler
11. Managing and monitoring opportunities in Windows 7
9. Windows Firewall with Advanced Security
What is?
The Windows Firewall with Advanced Security is a tool which gives us detailed control over the
rules that are applied by the Windows Firewall. We can view all the rules that are used by the
Windows Firewall, change their properties, create new rules or disable existing ones.
The Windows Firewall with Advanced Security includes some monitoring features as well. In the
Monitoring section we can find the following information: the firewall rules that are active (both
inbound and outbound), the connection security rules that are active and whether there are any
active security associations.
How to access
Control Panel > System and Security > Windows Firewall > Advanced settings.
12. Managing and monitoring opportunities in Windows 7
10. Windows Memory Diagnostic
What is?
The memory diagnostic tool checks our random access memory (RAM) for defects.Tt writes data
to different sectors of your RAM and reads it back. If it gets different data back, it knows our
RAM is malfunctioning. This is usually a hardware problem and can generally be solved by
replacing at least one stick of RAM.
How to access
Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Windows Memory Diagnostic
How to use
Open Windows Memory Diagnostic
A pop-up will appear on your screen, asking how you'd like to go about checking the memory.
The first option will restart your machine and check the memory right now, and the second
option checks the next time you choose to reboot. Pick the option that best suits your needs.
Your computer will load a screen that shows the progress of the check and number of passes it
will run on the memory. Watch the memory diagnostic tool for errors.
