You will now be at the Internet Settings screen. Specify whether you would like to optimize your Internet connection settings by checking or un-checking the checkbox. You can see a list of the all changes PC Pitstop Optimize has recommended that should help increase your Internet speeds. Here are some of the entries you may receive:

• Maximum Transfer Unit (MTU) The maximum packet size that is sent and received over the Internet.

• TCP Receiving Window Size The amount of data that is received before confirmation.

• Default Time to Live The length of time the data is kept before being discarded.

• Automatic MTU Detection Allows your system to identify the MTU size.

• Blackhole Detection Checks if connected systems supports Automatic MTU discovery.

• Large TCP Windows Support for larger amounts of data before confirmation of received.

• Fast retransmission and recovery Allows for a fast transaction recovery after lost packets.

• Selective Acknowledgements Allows for recovery without re-sending existing data after lost packets.

• Number of Allowed Simultaneous HTTP Connections Number of open connections to a single website at one time. Click Next to continue.

Step 7: Remove Unnecessary Startup Programs

Now you will be at the Unnecessary Startup Programs screen. Select the programs that you would like to disable from starting up each time you start your PC. Here are some of the most common unnecessary programs that you may want to disable:

• qttask.exe - QuickTime Icon This is Apple’s Quick Time Tray Icon, which lets you start Quick Time from the System Tray. This unnecessary program uses as much as 750KB of memory. Even if disabled, you can still start Quick Time from its Start menu icon or by clicking an associated file such as .MOV.

• realsched.exe - RealPlayer This is a scheduler for some generally unneeded functions, such as occasionally checking to make sure that RealPlayer “owns” certain media types.

• realplay.exe - RealPlayer This is RealPlayer’s system tray icon (called StartCenter), which runs when Windows starts to preload some RealPlayer components and provides a tray icon to access RealPlayer. However, this application also uses up valuable system resources. Even if disabled, you can still start RealPlayer from its Start menu icon or by clicking an associated file such as .MP3.

• hkcmd.exe - Intel Hotkeys This is part of the drivers for boards with Intel 81x graphics chips, and allows you to define hotkey combinations to change video resolutions. This is not something that most users do often, and it can be done through Control Panel (Intel Graphics icon) or Desktop Properties pretty quickly. It’s recommend to stop this task to save resources and prevent accidental use of the hotkey feature.

• soundman.exe - Realtek Sound Manager This application lets you manage and control some of the esoteric features of the Realtek sound chip. Most users don’t need to change any of these features and can safely disable this program.You can always use the standard Windows volume control to change the sound volume.

• waol.exe - America Online This is the main AOL executable; however, it does not need to start during Windows boot. You can always start America Online as needed, via its Start menu entry or desktop icon. For more information on these applications or others, you can click each item to learn more about the program, which can help you determine which programs to remove. Click Next to continue.

Step 8: Optimize Your Registry Entries

You should now be at the Registry Entries screen. Specify which type of registry entries you would like Optimize to clean. Note The registry contains information that Windows continually references during operation, such as profiles for each user, the applications installed on the computer and the types of documents that each can create, property sheet settings for folders and application icons, what hardware exists on the system, and the ports that are being used. Optimize looks for specific registry keys that can slow the computer’s performance. These are typically invalid keys containing information about COM and ActiveX objects. These objects are parts of programs, and when you remove the programs, these keys sometimes still exist. Optimize safely removes these keys if the COM object no longer exists. Areas of the registry where Optimize looks for the invalid keys are:

• Invalid Class IDs (CLSID) This is a universally unique identifier (UUID) that identi- fies a COM component. Each COM component has its CLSID in the Windows registry so that it can be loaded by other applications.

• Invalid Program Identifiers (ProgID) A programmatic identifier is a registry entry that identifies a COM component and can be associated with a CLSID.

• Invalid Type Libraries (TypeLib) This identifies a type library file contain standard descriptions of data types, modules, and interfaces that can be used to fully expose objects with ActiveX technology.

• Invalid Interfaces This is a group of logically related operations or methods that provides access to a component object. In addition, to help in your determination, you can view the particular entries for each registry type that Optimize is suggesting to clean, by clicking the Details button. Click Next to continue.

Step 9: Optimize Your PC Performance

Now you will see the Performance screen Choose which recommended items you would like to optimize. Here are some of the entries you may receive and explanations for each:

• DisablePaging This specifies whether user-mode and kernel-mode drivers and kernel-mode system code can be paged to disk when not in use. The computer will perform faster when the hard disk is not used for RAM. This loads the OS into the much faster RAM.

• ContigFileAllocSize This is the size of the contiguous space that is used when allocating disk space. The less space that needs to be searched for information, the less time the operation will take, and the faster the computer will function.

• NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate This entry determines whether New Technology File System (NTFS) updates the last-access timestamp on each directory when it lists the directories on an NTFS volume. This optimization speeds up file processing. The information is still available, but it is just not done as the default.

• DisableScreenSaver This turns the system screen saver on or off. This is done during the defragmenting process to speed things up. Each time the screen saver comes on the process has to shut down the screen saver and start over.

• AlwaysUnloadDll This determines whether Windows caches system DLLs. This frees up memory in older systems and can speed up the shutdown process, as well.

• LargeSystemCache This determines whether the system maintains a standard size or a large size file system cache, and influences how often the system writes changed pages to disk. The less disk writing there is, the faster the performance.

Steps you through the process of the actual optimization. THE OPTIMIZATION After completing the PC Pitstop Optimize scan and configuration.

Step 1: Enter License Information

Enter your name, license key, and email address in the appropriate fields. After successful registration, you’ll be notified via a message on the screen.

Step 2: Start the Optimization

You will now be at the Optimize Phase screen. Click Next to review the results.

Step 4: The Results

You can review the items that the program optimized. When you’re done, click Finish to exit the program. TO OPTIMIZE YOUR PC This article shows how to perform many tasks that will help optimize your PC. Performing these additional tasks, along with using PC Pitstop Optimize, regularly or at least once a month will ensure your PC runs faster and more efficiently.