What Does Geek Squad Do To Optimize My Computer?

by Greg Nemer

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Have you ever went to Best Buy and had them try to sell you a computer optimization service such as PC Tune-up for $39-$49? Have you ever wondered what they do?

Why not do it yourself and save a few bucks.

If you want to speed up your computer, in addition to my previous post on this subject , I found the following information on How Geek Squad optimizes your computer. I think you’ll find it useful.

Here’s what the Geek Squad does when you pay them to speed up and optimize your computer

Most of this information is for a windows (Vista) operating system. You can do most of this yourself:

Change the manufacturers background logo to a standard logo

Place all icons on the desktop into a folder called “Unused Desktop Icons”

Close any side bar gadgetsthat don’t come with vista standard or are ads (AOL Video, Priceline…).

Turn off the screen saver and adjust the power settings

Turn off all toolbars except the quick launch from the start bar

Uninstall specific programs that are requested by the customer including trial software, and toolbars; office or any protection software using their official removal tools

Download and install all Important and Recommended recommended updates

Make restore discs if requested

Run the Customer disc- Geek Squad claims that this is where the value of their service comes from.
Heres’ what it does:

Install Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware protection programs an input box for there serial keys.
Turn off all the non- essentials on computer start -up to speed it up
Performs about 40-70 program adjustments and a ton of registry key edits.
Puts My Computer, My Network, My Documents, Recycling Bin, and Explorer icons (not shortcuts) on the desktop.
Cleans up the registry in case programs were uninstalled and left remnants behind.
Installs all the windows updates from the disc

I know you dont have the valuable customer disk so I did some research and found the following services that are similar so that you can do it yourself.

Tweakhound

Make your own Free Tweaking Toolbox- This is a collection of some of the best freeware available by Tweakhound.
Tweaking Guide by Tweakhound-If you want to tweak your xp to good performance use this guide .
Once there, just go down the list and follow the directions step by step. After you get done you will see better performance .

Use nLite and vLite.

You can find information on this free tool at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLite

Hire the Geek Squad.

Finally, if you dont want to fool with doing it yourself just hire the Geek Squad to do it for you. (not an affiiliate link). This is especailly helpful if your time is more valuable than the money it will cost you to optimize your conputer.

Information source.I got most of this information from this link http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=950346 on the Ubuntu forums. It is from a guy who says he works for the Geek Squad. (I have a linux operating system. see my previous post on Ubuntu- http://www.reallifepurpose.com/how-to-ubuntu-business/)

If you find this article useful or have more tips I’d appreciate your comments in the form below.