When you first open the box of your computer and hook it up, usually you're upgrading to a faster processor, a larger hard drive and a newer operating system. The first time you open a file, run some applications and use the Internet, you are immediately blown away by the faster performance.

Of course, what happens next is that you start to use your computer each and every day. That great performance slowly starts to degrade. The hard drive gets clogged up and slows down. Your processor starts to slow down and you load it with applications that are running every time you boot up. The Internet pours on the files and history on your hard drive and bogs down its operation.

That great speed you remember when your computer was just out of the box is gone, and your new computer starts to remind you of your old computer.

What about if you've had a computer for a while and really do not want the expense of an upgrade? You remember being perfectly happy with your computer before it became bogged down and performing slowly or you might simply want a speed improvement and then can save the hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars upgrading.

Not to mention all the time and effort it takes to upgrade a computer. All those files? All your applications? All those installations? Everything has to be moved over, usually manually. It's not a fast process to get your files, emails, address books and so forth moved over to a new computer.

What if you could find a way to double the speed of your computer? Perhaps you could save the time and expense of having to upgrade, or if you did upgrade your computer you can return it to the out-of-the-box experience you had when you first bought it – only this time it would be even faster.

The main two areas where you can increase the speed of your computer is through hardware optimization, such as your CPU/processor, hard disk, modem, CD drive and memory; and software optimization, such as your Internet browser, Outlook, Media Player, application software such as Office and others. Many people try PC repair software but if there's nothing wrong with the operation of your computer, it could simply be that you need to alter your hardware and software settings to optimize performance.

Hardware optimization can give you a boost of 100% to 500% when downloading on the Internet, for example. You can double the speed and suddenly the time it takes to open and close applications gets cut in half. Boosting your modem speed can give you up to five times faster surfing on the Internet.

Software optimization will make applications such as Internet Explorer, Word, Excel, Media Player, Outlook, spyware removal programs and many others run much faster.

You can do all of this automatically with PCSpeedTweaks. This reference will take you through everything you need to do to optimize your computer hardware and software. You'll learn all the insider tips to faster performance.

There are, of course, some things you can do even now to improve PC performance:

• Go to "Start," right click on "My Computer," and select "Properties." Click on the Advanced tab and by the Performance section click "Settings." Disable all or some of these:
  
  

  	Fade or slide menus into view Fade out menu items Show shadows under menus Slide open combo boxes Slide taskbar buttons Use a background image Use Common tasks in folders
  	You'll now get faster windows performance.

  
  
• Disable programs you’re not running any longer by clicking “Start” then “Run” and type msconfig. Once the window is up, click on the startup tab and uncheck programs you do not want to start up any longer.
  
  
• Free system resources by disabling unnecessary services by clicking the start button. Select “Run” and type: services.msc. Once that window has loaded, you can turn off unneeded services by selecting them with the mouse.
  
  
• Remove Windows Messgenger if you’re not using it. It loads every time you start your computer and if you’re not using it – uninstall it. Go to Add/Remove programs in the control panel and select to Add/Remove Windows Components. Remove the checkmark from “Windows Messenger”
  
  

There are dozens of other ways to improve PC performance. PCSpeedTweaks covers all of these and in a few short steps your computer can operate twice as fast or more. Bring back that out-of-the-box experience or get yourself a computer upgrade without the expense and time of actually replacing your PC. Most people don’t know these steps to faster computer performance.