Q&A / Patrick Marshall
Computer slowing down? Then it's cleanup time

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— Matt Smith, Brier

A: Absolutely. The most common cause of computer slowdowns is a lack of free space on the hard drive. The second is a heavily fragmented hard drive. After that, the next culprits are probably viruses or misbehaving programs.

So the first thing to do would be to go to the Disk Cleanup utility and execute it. That utility will get rid of unneeded files, including temporary Internet files, and free up some more space. To run the utility, double-click on My Computer, right-click the hard disk on which you want to free space and then click Properties. Finally, click Disk Cleanup on the General tab.

If you don't have at least 20 percent of your hard drive free, you'll either want to add another hard drive or remove some files or applications to free up more space.

Also, don't forget to run the Windows Defrag utility, which you'll find listed under the Start menu by going to All Programs/Accessories/System Tools.

Q: I want to use the Disk Cleanup option on my Windows 98 machine. I was wondering if this will delete my Favorites (I did save Favorites to a floppy disk). Also, is there anything else that I need to be aware of before using this? I'm a novice computer user and don't want to delete anything that might hamper my programs or computer.

— John Forest

A: It's funny how often questions that involve the same utilities seem to arrive at the same time.
 
Running Disk Cleanup won't present a problem with respect to your Internet Explorer Favorites. What it will do is:

• Delete temporary Internet files.

• Empty the Recycle Bin.

• Delete files from your temporary folder.

• Remove optional Windows 98 or Windows Me components you don't use.

• Remove installed programs you don't use.

You can choose to have it do any or all of these things, as well as a few other tricks.

Q: I went to an MSN chat room to find out how I can change from opening my e-mail in Outlook Express 6 to Outlook 2000. Three hours later I got all the instructions needed. I followed all the instructions, but Outlook will not accept my ID and password.

After two days, I entered the chat room again, gave all the details again to a new support engineer. After four hours I was told that since my account is configured in HTTP protocol, which is a Web-based account in Outlook Express, Outlook 2000 will not support the configuration.

Should I believe that all the talented people in Microsoft cannot make it possible for me to use Outlook?

— Umesh Nisargand, Bellevue

A: I have yet to find any e-mail that Outlook Express can access and that Outlook 2000 can't. It's just a matter of knowing what kind of e-mail server you're trying to access (POP3, IMAP, etc.) and having the proper incoming and outgoing server names, as well as any user names and passwords associated with the account.

Some e-mail systems have special requirements, such as users must access incoming mail before they can send mail, but there are places in Outlook's configuration utility to specify these things.

But the right place to go to get this configuration information isn't Microsoft. Instead, you'll want to talk to whoever provides your e-mail service. Usually that would be whoever provides your Internet service.

If you're trying to connect to a Web-based e-mail service, such as Hotmail, Outlook has a wizard that makes it easy to set things up properly as long as you have your correct user name and password.

Questions for Patrick Marshall may be sent by e-mail to pmarshall@seattletimes.com or pgmarshall@pgmarshall.net, or by mail at Q&A/Technology, The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists