what things need to be done to maintain computer?

What I do to maintain computers are these:

- Install it clean the first time

- Make the system lean (deactivating services I don't use, removing special effects I don't need)

- Install applications I need

- Optimizing applications settings and options

- Removing Startup applications that don't necessarily need to run at startup

- Install an antivirus program, run update, set it to run securely upon startup and password protect it

- Install a virtualization program, and protect system drive (such as C:\)

- Mark unprotected drive (such as D:) to be checked for errors on startup.

- Activate system virtualization

- Clone the whole system (and drives) image, save it to an external hard drive.

That system is bullet proof.

Backups are nice. Depending on how much data you want to keep, you can get a flash drive or an external hard drive for that. This is just in case all else fails when your computer won't start up and you have to completely wipe your computer's hard drive.

Blowing out your computer to get rid of dust is good practice. Heat is the enemy of your computer and dust keeps heat in. You can use a can of compressed air, a handheld electric blower, or a vacuum. If it's a laptop computer, you'll have to blow compressed air into the fan intake/outtakes. These are pretty much just the holes in the bottom of the laptop.

Also, defragmenting your disc doesn't have to be done that often. I do it twice a year (which may be pushing it), but it depends on how much you use your computer. (I use mine a lot)

Hope that helps.

One other thing that you should do to maintain your computer in addition to the other pieces of advice is that you shouldnt download from untrusted sites.