I know I have a paper I wrote in here somewhere called "Best Practises" w/ heaps of good stuff to follow.

Just thought I mention/remind that there are 3 basic things do to, @ least daily, that are suggested as minimum household chores:

1. Internet Options - Delete & Delete
2. CCleaner
3. Disc Clean 'on steroids'

Helps keep the machine humming along nicely.

And things like Windows Updates & MSE or WD happen, by default, @ night BUT, only if the machine is ON or Asleep. You may be screwing yourself if you keep shutting the machine off all the time.

Cheers,
Drew

That's right, many scheduled tasks will not run until the next time while the computer is shutdown. But many will run if the computer is sleeping, just make sure that the option is checked to allow it to wake the computer to run, if there is one.

Some maintenance tasks will automatically run in the background after a few minutes of non-use (power on, but not physically running any apps). I've removed my 3rd party defrag tool, & letting Win 8 RP's built in maintenance take care of it.

I've noted that the Action Center notifies the user that auto maintenance is going to take place at a certain time, but the user can go ahead & run them, if desired. Whatever, don't miss out on it, as this helps to keep the OS in as much of a healthy state as possible.

CCleaner is the best optimization tool that I've ever used. Properly used, it gets rid of the lead in the OS that will drag it down. As well as securely deleting any personal info stored in these files (like recent transactions, passwords, etc). Every time that I make a transaction, after logging off the site, CCleaner is the very next tool ran, every time.

Excellent points, Drew!

Cat

I do number 1 and number 3 automatically.

#1 - I have my browsers set to delete all history when they close. I just keep the sites I sign on to.

#2 - At least a couple times a week here for the Cleaning section. Only when I uninstall an app for the Registry section

#3 - My Cleanup batch file is in my Start Up folder and runs at Windows Start up. I have included Disk Cleanup on steroids in the batch file.