windows maintenance notes

There are three free good programs out there that I would recommend. Optimally, you would have a fresh clean operating system, then apply all the updates for the OS and the software. For Windows, this would be a timely operation. After you get the OS optimized you would then install the three programs listed below. You have to maintain them on at least a weekly basis, preferably on a daily basis. By "maintain" I mean you need to apply updates to the signatures and database files the programs use, then you have to scan the computer and fix the discovered issues.
The programs I mentioned also have some hidden options that are installed by default. In order to avoid installing them you have to select the custom install option for each program and then remove all of the add ons during the install. You remove them from the install simply by taking the check out of the box next to the program. They typically install things like Google toolbars or some other features like that. These add ons just take up screen real estate and other valuable resources ie; cpu, memory, etc...
I would start by downloading and installing that CCleaner program.  After you install it there are two scans you will want to run. It's been a month or so since I last looked at it so I can't remember exactly what they're called. The first one is the default scan.  After install, just open the program and choose the default options and run the scan from the front page. You will be prompted to fix items, choose fix all items. After that you should run the registry scan and choose to fix all selected items. You will be asked to back up the registry. Choose yes to be safe and then just point to the desktop for a place to save the backup. There are a couple other options in that program that allow you to control programs that start during start up.

Ad-Aware is an anti-spyware and anti-virus program developed by Lavasoft that detects and removes malware, spyware and adware on a user's computer. According to Lavasoft, Ad-Aware detects spyware, computer viruses, dialers, Trojans, bots, rootkits, data miners, aggressive advertising, parasites, browser hijackers, and tracking components.

CCleaner (formerly Crap Cleaner), developed by Piriform is a donationware utility program used to clean potentially unwanted files and invalid Windows Registry entries from a computer.

ClamWin is free, open source antivirus software for Microsoft Windows. It provides a graphical user interface to the ClamAV (Clam AntiVirus) engine.