Use Disk Cleanup to delete some of the temporary and other unwanted program files that can slow down Windows 8. To access it, first open the Start screen by clicking All Programs. Next, click Accessories, and then click System Tools. You can also find this tool by opening the Start screen and typing cleanup. In the Search results, click Free Up Disk Space By Deleting Unnecessary Files.

You might be prompted to indicate what drive you want to clean; in most cases, you will choose the C drive. By default, Disk Cleanup recommends what items it can delete, but it also offers additional options if you want to reclaim even more space, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. The Disk Cleanup tool

Clicking Clean Up System Files displays additional options, including the choice to delete operating system restore files. However, you should remove these only if you are very confident that Windows 8 is running completely fine.

Many of the temporary files on your computer are from your web browser. The method to clear these temporary files differs from browser to browser, but with the desktop version of Microsoft Internet Explorer 10, which ships with Windows 8, you can easily locate them for removal and cleaning by clicking Safety on the browser toolbar and then selecting Delete Browsing History. You can also access the Delete Browsing History dialog box by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Delete on your keyboard when in the desktop version of Internet Explorer.

In the Delete Browsing History dialog box shown in Figure 5, you can delete temporary Internet files and other items that are not deleted by Disk Cleanup while still preserving the data you want to keep.

Figure 5. Cleaning up temporary files in Internet Explorer

Almost all of the tools and utilities for keeping Windows 8 running efficiently are made by third parties. There is one tool that stands head and shoulders above the rest in the opinion of both me and many IT professionals. In fact it’s so popular you might already be using it.

People used to say that Windows had a ceiling of 30 programs that could be installed before the operating system became unstable. Whether there is any truth to this is a great computing mystery. There is no doubt, however, that the more software you install in Windows 8, the more unstable it becomes. The point at which this happens will depend entirely on the software you install. For instance, if you install no software on a computer, which isn’t very likely, it will run for an extremely long time simply because there’s nothing installed that can be incompatible with anything else.

Windows often fails or crashes because of incompatibilities with a software component or a hardware driver. This happens because there are so many hundreds of thousands of software packages and hundreds of thousands of hardware devices that no manufacturer or Microsoft could ever test every possible combination for stability. Microsoft offers certification programs for software and hardware in Windows 8, but this still won’t test against how a specific piece of hardware or software will interact with other hardware and software, especially packages that haven’t been through the optional certification.

Windows is built on an open platform, and anyone, including enthusiastic amateurs, can write applications for it. This is why Windows is now the most flexible and extensible computing platform in the world.

Bespoke software written for organizations does not always go through the sometimes very expensive Microsoft certification program. Why send your software to Microsoft to certify when you’ll only be using it yourself?

So, a limitless number of combinations of hardware and software can be installed on a computer. This makes the whole system unpredictable, and although Microsoft has made great strides to make Windows 8 as stable as it can possibly be, problems can still occur.

My tips for avoiding problems with installed software and hardware are as follows:

One of the most important strategies that you can implement to avoid instabilities with Windows 8 is to turn on Windows Update and have it download updates on a regular schedule. Periodically, incompatibilities are reported and fixed by Microsoft and then distributed through Windows Update on what is frequently referred to as Patch Tuesday—the second Tuesday of every month. These updates can fix all types of issues that can cause Windows to become unstable or unresponsive, so it’s important to leave Windows Update turned on.

By default, a great many programs you install run automatically every time you start your computer. This includes common favorites such as Adobe Acrobat Reader and Apple iTunes software.

Some of these software packages are updaters. People have been asking Microsoft to allow third-party vendors to distribute their updates via Windows Update for years now, but it has not happened yet. For some software, it is worth keeping the updater running. Adobe Acrobat PDF files, for instance, are a frequent source of virus infection, so, although you might not want the Adobe Updater software running every time Windows starts, you should run it manually at least every month. However, there’s a strong argument to run other updaters, such as iTunes, only when you actually want to run the software.

The problems caused by auto-running software aren’t just that they can slow down your computer and even push up your carbon footprint (you’d be surprised how much extra money you’re paying on your electricity bill by running these things!). They can cause other issues, such as file fragmentation and temporary file clutter, just by being in the background.

Auto-running software is now managed in the Task Manager which you can access by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del on your keyboard or by right-clicking on the taskbar.

Once you’re in the Task Manager, click the More Details button, and then click the Startup tab (see Figure 6). Here you will see what programs are set to run at startup and what impact Windows calculates they each have on boot time.

Figure 6. Managing Startup Programs in the Task Manager

You can disable a particular application (or re-enable it) by clicking to select it and pressing the Disable button.

You might want to deselect some packages to save file clutter, processor cycles, and yes, even money on your electricity bill. Remember, the more the computer is doing, the more electricity and battery it will use.

With earlier versions of Windows, you needed to format your hard disk and reinstall the operating system regularly as it became unstable. Since the introduction of Windows XP this has become less of an issue, but for computers that are used frequently, amassed temporary files and incompatibilities can cause problems over time. For this reason I recommend that, if possible, you restore Windows 8 from a backup every twelve months or so.

This doesn’t need to be a complete reinstall. You can simply restore from a Windows System Image that you have created which contains all your settings and software. Because this is a clean image, however, you can consider the computer reinstalled.

You know that the copy you have backed up will be fresh and working fine, so I advise that you restore this backup, update it by using Windows Update, update any programs as necessary, and then back up this new system.

You should set aside one half day or so to reinstall Windows, and take your time updating your system thoroughly before locking it down again in a fresh operating system image backup.

Unlike previous versions, Windows 8 does a pretty good job of maintaining itself. In fact you could rely on the automatic maintenance tool, the automatic defragmenter, and just run CCleaner occasionally to tidy up temporary files and you’d be perfectly fine.