When it comes to getting the best performance out of your computer, nothing can beat a Solid State Drive (SSD). Right out-of-the-box, they are significantly faster reading / writing data than a Hard Disk Drive (HDD). But there are a few things that you have to do differently with an SSD. Here's how to safely optimize your solid state drive.

There are plenty of articles out there that will give you a ton of different tweaks you can use to speed up the SSD access time, from turning off disk indexing to disabling Prefetch and Superfetch. Some may work for you; some may not. Generally speaking, if you're running Windows 7 or higher, the operating system should recognize the SSD and modify its behavior accordingly. The following tweaks are entirely safe and will not harm your system in any way.

General SSD maintenance

SSDs operate differently from HDDs, and there are a couple of things you should never do to an SSD. Since SSDs have limited read/write cycles, any program that intensively accesses the SSD could shorten the drive's life span. Running a disk defragment program on an SSD is not recommended. And as far as Check Disk (CHKDSK) is concerned, you'll need to contact the manufacturer of your SSD to find out if they recommend it or not.

Microsoft started building in support for SSDs in Windows 7 / Windows Server 2008 R2 and has expanded on it in Windows 8 / 8.1 & Windows Server 2012. Since the low-level operation of SSDs is different from HDDs, the Trim command was introduced to handle delete/format requests. To verify that Trim is on, you'll need to open an Administrative Command Prompt.

How to open a Command Prompt with Administrator privileges in Windows 7

How to open a Command Prompt with Administrator privileges in Windows 8

How to open a Command Prompt with Administrator privileges in Windows 10

You can verify that Trim is enabled by typing the following into an Administrative Command Prompt:

If the command returns a 0, then Trim is enabled. If it returns a 1, then it is not. To enable Trim, type the following into the Admin Command Prompt:

SSD free space maintenance

SSDs do have one downside; their capacity can be smaller than HDDs. The capacity of SSDs is getting closer to HDDs every day, but the price for a 1 to 2TB SSD can be kind of expensive. If you have a smaller capacity SSD, maintaining an adequate amount of free space is necessary.

Now there are two scenarios for setting up computers with SSDs: Single-drive (SSD only) and Multiple drives (SSD + HDD). Laptops are usually single-drive, and desktops are almost always multiple-drive. Here are a few ways to maintain free space.

Single-drive (SSD only)

The options here are limited. You could store your files like documents, photos, and music to an external drive or the cloud to free up space. Here are a few more ideas.

Turn off Hibernation.
With the speed of an SSD, boot times will be relatively faster than with an HDD. You'll find that you can boot your computer just as fast as if you brought it out of hibernation. And since hibernation writes the system memory to disk, you'll free up the same amount of disk space equal to the total system memory. And if you have a lot of memory, this can free up a big chunk of space on your SSD.

Disable Windows hibernation and free up disk space

Turn off the virtual memory/pagefile.
Use this with caution! Technically, virtual memory is used when all of the system memory is full. If you have a large amount of system memory (16GB or more) and you don't run memory hog software like Photoshop, you should be alright disabling it. And you'll free up a few GB's of drive space in the process.

Managing Virtual Memory / Pagefile in Windows 7

Managing Virtual Memory / Pagefile in Windows 8

Managing Virtual Memory / Pagefile in Windows 10

Clean up the drive regularly.
Temporary files and browser caches are a few items you'll need to keep an eye on. Using a program like Piriform's CCleaner or Disk Cleanup that comes with Windows will take care of these files. Disk Cleanup can also be run as a scheduled task.

Free up more disk space with Windows 7 Disk Cleanup

Clean up your hard drive in Windows 8 with Disk Cleanup

Clean up Windows 10 with Disk Cleanup

Clean up and optimize your computer for free with CCleaner

Multiple-drive (SSD + HDD)

This is the optimal setup. Everything under a single-drive scenario applies here. Windows and program files need to be on the SSD. Almost anything else that Windows doesn't require for regular operation can go over to the HDD.

Move the virtual memory/pagefile.
Instead of turning it off, move it to the HDD (see link above).

Move personal files to HDD.
Your documents, photos, and music can take up a large amount of space on your drive. Get them off of the SSD and over to the HDD.

Modifying the default locations of user files and library properties in Windows 7

Modifying the default locations of user files and library properties in Windows 8

Modifying the default locations of user files and library properties in Windows 10

There are plenty of other tweaks you can do, like moving the location of your browser cache and temp folders to the HDD. You can find all of that information and more with a quick search on Google.

Note: This article was based on Paint.NET version 4. Since this article was written, Paint.NET version 5 has been released. Click here to read the newer Paint.NET 5 article.

One of the things I like to do besides repairing computers is creating graphics. Over the years, I have used many different image editing programs, including Photoshop and CorelDraw. But for free graphics programs, you just cannot beat Paint.NET.

Lately, I have been back through some of my older articles and updating the content. Even though I wrote this article a few years ago, Paint.NET is still one of my favorite graphics programs. And it just keeps getting better all of the time.

The user interface inside of Paint.NET 4

Paint.NET was initially created to replace the Paint program included in Windows but has evolved in to so much more since then. It includes such features as layers, effects, transparency, blending, and best of all, plugins.

With hundreds of plugins available, you can expand on the out-of-the-box graphic capabilities of Paint.NET. Since I have a digital camera that will take photos in RAW format, I found a plugin that opens that type of file. I also use Photoshop and have found a plugin to open those files too.

Paint.NET uses an asynchronous, fully multithreaded rendering engine and supports hardware acceleration via the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit). Selections are anti-aliased, and selected outlines rendered with 'dancing ants' animation, significantly improving the contrast between the sample and image. And the user interface is clean and straightforward to use.

The Settings dialog box inside of Paint.NET 4

There are now two (2) versions of the Paint.NET program. The original Windows desktop version and the UWP (Universal Windows Platform). The Windows desktop version is available for download for free from the dotPDN website. The UWP version is available for purchase from the Microsoft Store.

Paint.NET system requirements

• Windows 10, Windows 8.1, or Windows 7 SP1 with platform update
• .NET Framework 4.7.2
• 1 GHz processor (dual-core recommended)
• 1 GB of RAM

For more information on Paint.NET, follow the links below:

Get Paint 4
What's new in Paint.NET

There are some computers out there that still use a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) for storage and could be upgraded to a Solid State Drive (SSD). Each drive type has pros and cons: HDDs are cheaper and have more storage, but SSDs are extremely fast (especially when connected to an M.2 slot). So, if your existing computer has an HDD, odds are you could replace it with an SSD. Here's how to upgrade your computer's hard disk drive to a solid-state drive.

I wrote an article not long ago on how to upgrade the hard drive in your computer and refer back to it often. It describes how to clone a smaller drive to a larger one of the same type. Since SSDs typically have less storage than HDDs, this time, I'll have to shrink the existing HDD partition(s) down below the capacity of the target SSD before I can clone it.

As in the article mentioned above, the first thing to do is check the existing HDD. Doing this will ensure there are no errors that may prohibit the cloning of the drive.

How to check your drive for errors in Windows 11

How to check your drive for errors in Windows 10

Now we have to start cleaning up the drive. Windows has a built-in tool called Disk Cleanup (cleanmgr.exe) that works well at getting out the clutter. Try using it from an admin command prompt; that way, you'll get more options.

Clean up Windows 11 with Disk Cleanup

Clean up Windows 10 with Disk Cleanup

Since we are trying to get the maximum amount of free space we can, we will have to delete some files, including documents, photos, videos, etc. Doing a backup right now will ensure we have a copy of all the files if we need to recover some later.

How to backup your Windows 11 computer using Windows Backup

How to backup your Windows 10 computer using Windows Backup

The next thing we have to do is find out what is taking up space on the existing HDD. For this, I'll use a copy of Space Sniffer. After a quick look, I see that I can free up several gigabytes of space by permanently removing the hibernation file and temporarily deleting the swap file. Windows will warn you about having no swap file, but we will be recreating the swap file once the drive cloning is complete.

Disable Windows hibernation

How to manage Windows 11 Virtual Memory

How to manage Windows 10 Virtual Memory

The next thing we need to do to the drive is to defragment it. For this task, I'll use the built-in Defrag and Optimize Drive app.

How to defragment and optimize your drive in Windows 11

How to defragment and optimize your drive in Windows 10

If the capacity of your drives match

If the capacity of your old drive and new drive are the same capacity, you are ready to clone your drive. The following link has instructions and links to the software to do it.

How to clone the drive in your Windows computer

Once you have your old drive cloned to the new one and you have swapped them out, go ahead and re-enable the swap file. Re-enabling hibernation is a personal choice.

If the capacity of your drives do not match

If the capacity of your old and new drive differ, you will have to manually resize the Boot partition (C: drive). Right-click on the Start button to bring up the Power User menu and select Disk Management. Here you will find all of the drives currently attached to your computer.

If you have more than one drive attached to your computer, you will need to determine which drive has the operating system. This drive will usually have three partitions: EFI System Partition, Boot Partition and Recovery Partition.

Once you have located the correct drive, you need to check the partition structure. The EFI System Partition is always the first partition (the start of the drive) on the left side of the graphical view of the drive, with the Boot Partition in the middle and the Recovery Partition on the right side (the end of the drive). If you have more than one partition behind the Boot Partition, you will need to contact a computer technician to assist with the upgrade.

Since we need to resize the Boot Partition (C:\ drive), you will need to disable and remove the Recovery Partition and recreate it after the drive has been upgraded. This can only be done using an Administrative Command Prompt.

How to open a Command Prompt with Administrator privileges in Windows 11

How to open a Command Prompt with Administrator privileges in Windows 10

When you have an Admin Command Prompt open, type the following to find the location of the Windows Recovery Environment (WindowsRE) boot image and press Enter.

reagentc /info

Take note of the harddisk# and partition#. Then, type the following to disable the WindowsRE boot image and press Enter.

reagentc /disable

Then type the following and press Enter. This will bring up the command-line version of Disk Management.

diskpart

Then type the following to list all of the disks attached to your computer and press Enter.

list disk

To select the disk with the Recovery Partition, type the following and press Enter. This should be the same harddisk number that you made note of earlier.

sel disk #

To select the Recover Partition, type the following and press Enter. This should be the same partition number that you made note of earlier.

sel part #

To delete the WinRE partition, type the following and press Enter.

delete partition override

If your old drive is larger than your new drive, you will need to shrink the Boot Partition. To do this, open Computer Management, expand the Storage section in the left column and select Disk Management. In the right column, right-click on the partition marked as Boot (usually C:) and select Shrink. Remember to take the size down at least 10-15% below the capacity of the new SSD.

Shrinking a partition down in Windows

Once the partition has been resized, it's time to clone the drive. The following article details how to clone your hard drive, including links to the cloning software.

How to upgrade the hard drive in your computer

Note: An issue not addressed in the article above is the form factor; the existing SATA HDD is 3.5" form factor, and SATA SSDs are 2.5" form factor.

This can easily be resolved by using a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter bracket.

Once the drive cloning is complete, and the system is running again, we need to expand the boot partition to use any free space available. Open Computer Management, expand the Storage section in the left column and select Disk Management. In the right column, right-click on the partition mark as Boot (usually C:) and select Expand. Make sure to leave 1GB of space at the end for the Recovery Partition.

To recreate the Recovery Partition, you will need to open an Admin Command Prompt. At the prompt, type the following and press Enter.

diskpart

First thing you need to do is check if the disk partition style is a GUID Partition Table (GPT) or a Master Boot Record (MBR). To do that, type the following and press Enter. Check if there is an asterisk character (*) in the Gpt column. If there is an asterisk character (*), then the drive is GPT. Otherwise, the drive is MBR.

list disk

If your disk is GPT, type the following and press Enter.

create partition primary id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac

Then type the following and press Enter.

gpt attributes =0x8000000000000001

If your disk is MBR, type the following and press Enter.

create partition primary id=27

Once the partition has been created, you will need to format it. Type the following and press Enter.

format quick fs=ntfs label=”Windows RE tools”

To confirm that the WinRE partition is created, type the following and press Enter.

list vol

To exit from diskpart, type the following and press Enter.

exit

To re-enable WinRE, type the following and press Enter.

reagentc /enable

If for any reason the WindowsRE fails to re-enable the Recovery Partition, an in-place upgrade will rebuild the Recovery Partition.

How to perform a repair upgrade of Windows 11

How to perform a repair upgrade of Windows 10

Once the boot partition has been resized, you can enable the Windows swap file. For more information on upgrading computer drives, click on the following links.

How to clone the drive in your Windows computer

How to upgrade the hard drive in your computer

It seems whenever I tell someone that I repair computers for a living, I almost always get asked the question, "What do you recommend for anti-virus software?". I tell them I use a layered approach to security, not relying on just one program for protection. I'm not particularly eager to use all-in-one security suites. It's not that I don't trust any particular software; I don't like having only one piece of software protecting my computer. Here's how to use layered security to protect your computer.

Software firewall

Windows has had a good firewall built-in since Windows Vista, and it's turned on by default. It comes pre-installed inside of Windows and is ready to go. There are also some great free and paid firewall products. And you will also find software firewalls included in most security suites, like McAfee or Norton. It's your choice.

Always remember that when you connect to the Internet, do it through a router or hotspot. Never connect a wired network connection directly to the Internet jack on your modem. With a router or hotspot, some form of Network Address Translation (NAT) happens, so you are not directly connected to the Internet.

Anti-virus software

This one is a no-brainer. Microsoft has included a built-in anti-virus program inside of Windows since Windows 8.1 and has worked hard to make it a top-rated program. And if you install a different anti-virus program, Windows Security will detect it and turn its real-time protection off. But you can still have it run periodic scans.

There are plenty of free and paid anti-virus programs on the market, and I have used quite a few different ones over the years. Some internet service providers like Cox Communications even offer free security suite software.

The only thing to remember when picking an anti-virus program is the system's performance you're installing it on. I would not install a full-blown security suite like Norton or McAfee on a laptop.

Anti-malware / anti-adware software

Anti-virus software typically looks for, you guessed it, viruses. I've cleaned out several pieces of malware and adware that anti-virus programs missed because it wasn't a virus. Quite a few anti-malware programs are meant to be run side-by-side with anti-virus software.

When it comes to anti-malware programs, Malwarebytes is the most popular. If you want real-time scanning, you will need a license. If you want to periodically manually scan your computer, the free version will work just fine.

Now with the rise of pop-up bogus security warnings, adware is becoming the biggest threat to consumers. Malwarebytes has a great program called AdwCleaner for finding and removing adware in all popular browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, etc.).

Using anti-virus software together with anti-malware and anti-adware programs creates excellent layered security. As the old saying goes, "Never put all of your eggs in one basket.".

With the cost of Microsoft Office going up, not to mention the subscription / non-subscription thing, it's nice to know there are alternatives out there. One of the best office alternatives has to be OpenOffice. And it just so happens that the Apache Software Foundation recently released a new version of their free productivity software, OpenOffice 4.

The main screen inside of OpenOffice 4

For those who are not familiar with it, OpenOffice is a suite of office productivity programs that rivals Microsoft Office. It has everything you could need for creating great-looking documents, spreadsheets, and slideshow presentations. Here's a complete list of all of the programs included in OpenOffice 4.

OpenOffice 4 has some significant improvements over previous versions. A new Sidebar contains the most commonly used functions for that program, which can be docked, floating, or completely hidden. There is also much improved compatibly with Microsoft Office documents. The drawing, graphics, and gallery functions have also been enhanced, along with the copy & paste and drag & drop functionality.

The new Sidebar inside of OpenOffice 4 shown docked and floating

OpenOffice does use Java, but it's not required for installation, as it can be added later on. Compatibility with other document formats is pretty impressive, but Star Office is no longer supported. OpenOffice can automatically load/convert and convert/save Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) and Design Science Mathtype documents. The only file types that it cannot save to is the Microsoft Office 2007 - 2019 .???x formats.

And since OpenOffice is open-source, there are hundreds of third-party extensions to expand on the functionality of the applications. Add in a copy of GIMP or Paint.NET, and you have a complete and free desktop publishing package.

OpenOffice 4 is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac operating systems. For more information on OpenOffice 4, just follow the links below:

Apache OpenOffice Open Source Project

Download OpenOffice 4