Intended Use: Steps to take when someone asks me to check their computer out. Not fixing any particular problem/issue, but give it a general overview and fix anything that crops up. If you’re doing this on your own, use a schedule that works for you. Shouldn’t gain anything by doing it more then once a month. Worth doing if it’s been more then six months. Anywhere between that is personal preference.

Performance Monitor Report
      Run “perfmon /report” Results show what Windows thinks the systems status is. Good general overview of system, and may quickly show problems.

Check Event Viewer for real errors
      Run “Computer Management” (Control Panel / Administrative Tools). System Tools / Event Viewer / Custom Views / Administrative Events. You will have Warnings, most likely Errors, and quiet possibly Criticals. Look through and see if any in the past week or so are actually problem issues. As opposed to windows normal grumblings.

Turn off unneeded services
      Computer Management / Services. Sort by Startup Type and look through what is starting Automatically. If you think you can turn it off, stop it first. If the system hasn’t crashed, set it to “Manual”. Take notes of what has been changed (at least until after a successful reboot). After looking through Automatics, check Manuals for any oddities that are running. Not likely, but you’re here anyways.

Turn off unneeded startup programs and plugins
      Run “CCleaner“, then Tools / Startup. Set anything you don’t need to “No”. Then Browser Plugins, and do the same. You can be more aggressive here then in services, it’s harder to make a non-booting system with these. Again, note what you change.

Confirm backup schedule
      What tool(s) are being used for backup? What is the schedule? Are they running as expected? Spot check the backup, are the files there and readable?

Check for unneeded software to uninstall
      Control Panel / Programs and Features (probably, versions of windows vary slightly). What things in here are no longer being used? Or hopelessly behind versions? Any known junkware? Are Flash and/or Java installed, if so are they even needed?

Update Windows
      Windows Update should be running automatically. Check to be sure. Control Panel / Windows Update

Update anti-virus
      Again, should be updating automatically. Check to be sure. Most likely system tray icon, but possible accessible elsewhere. Varies on anti-virus used. If no anti-virus present, make sure Windows Defender is running (Control Panel / Windows Defender).

Confirm firewall on
      If running a separate firewall, check as active. If not, Control Panel / Windows Firewall. While settings can be oddly done, generally if it’s on and you can get to the internet, it’s good enough.

Update web browser
      While browsers should be updating themselves, check to be sure. Internet Explorer: Handled by Windows, but get another browser. Firefox: Help / About Firefox. Chrome: Help / About. For both Chrome and Firefox, install uBlock Origin. If Firefox Power User, install NoScript.

Update any other internet facing software
      Check for other internet connected software (email, ftp, torrent, etc). Make sure they are updated. Details vary for each piece of software. Generally, Help / About will give you a website to check versions.

Reboot and double check
      Reboot the computer, so that any changes made above take effect. When it’s back up and running do a few common things to make sure no obvious problems exist. Go to a webpage, check email, etc. Also double check any problems encountered in the above steps were in fact fixed.