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Throughout its life (whether that be six months or six years), your PC collects digital junk that begins to erode its performance. This junk includes data and software you don't need, leftovers from applications you've supposedly uninstalled, and useless bits of data still stored on your Windows registry.

Here are a few quick ways you can clear this junk off of your PC and live a happier digital life.

Email Sent Items Folder
Most email software stores every email you send. While individual emails are small, lots of emails begin to add up. Emails sent with file attachments are even larger! So you need to clear out the unneeded sent emails.

If you keep your sent emails for any reason, you can still clear up a lot of space by deleting emails older than a few months or by removing just the file attachments from emails already sent.

For instance, I keep only three months' worth of emails in my "sent" folder and archive to different folders important emails. Every so often, I check the "sent" folder and highlight and remove all of the emails older than three months. Not only does this clear up a fair amount of disk space (I send a lot of emails), but it speeds up Outlook as well.

If you sort your emails by size, you can selectively remove only those which are very large, remove the file attachments from selected emails, and more. Most email clients allow this to be done.

Kill the SpyWare and AdWare
There are a lot of tools for doing this, but it should definitely be on your list of regular maintenance tasks to scan for and remove these menaces. I recommend that you use AdAware (http://www.AaronzWebWorkz.com/adaware.html) and SpyHunter (http://www.AWWStore.com/spyhunter/).

You can help prevent getting more of them in the future by ensuring that your Web browser doesn't have auto-install or Install on Demand enabled. This allows web sites to install software automatically without your permission.

You can turn these off in Internet Explorer under the Tools>Internet Options>Advanced tab and unchecking "Enable Install on Demand (Internet Explorer)" and "Enable Install on Demand (Other)."

Another habit to get into is to do a Google search before downloading and installing any freeware or shareware software. Simply go to Google.com and search for the software's name followed by the words "spy" or "spyware" and see what comes up. Many times you'll find message boards full of agonizing stories of the software's criminality. More than one of these is a good sign the software isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Defrag Your Hard Drive
While for many this seems obvious and most of us have it set to happen automatically, this is an often-overlooked bit of maintenance that needs to be addressed. At the very least, you should be running Windows Disk Cleanup and the Windows Defragmenter on a semi-monthly basis.

Better yet, you should be using a good tool like Norton SystemWorks to do this for you (as well as many other tasks). It's easier to run, includes many utilities that are not included with Windows (but should be), and generally does a better job of it.

Disk Cleanup is located in your Accessories>System Tools folder beneath the Start button. The defragmenter is located in the same menu.

Cleaning the Windows Registry
This is a big step towards increasing your system's performance, which is why I've saved it for last. The Windows Registry is the database that contains all of Windows' information on how all of its thousands of components work together and (for many of them) are configured. Everything from bootup information to the color of your title bars is contained within this database.

So cleaning it up is no small chore. Doing so by hand, is not just tedious, but is courting disaster - a disaster which could render your system inoperable.

Better to use good software to do the job for you.

Norton SystemWorks, mentioned earlier, does a good job of this as part of its bundle. To really get the job done, though, you'll need something made specifically for this task. Registry First Aid from Rose City Software is a good choice and pretty cheap ($21). You can download a trial version of Registry First Aid from my website here: http://www.AaronzWebWorkz.com/resources/recommended.shtml#rfa

So there you have it. Do these simple steps, and do them regularly, and you'll have a great computer for as long as you decide to own it.

Aaron Turpen is the proprietor of Aaronz WebWorkz, a web services company providing consultation, development, and more to small businesses online. Aaron publishes several newsletters regularly and is the author of many ebooks, including "The Layman's Guide to Doing Business Online" and "The eBay PowerSeller's Book of Knowledge." Visit him online at http://www.AaronzWebWorkz.com