34 very quick "How To" titles.
All of these can be accessed from the same page from the link below.
None of which should take more than a couple of minutes.
Some of the "How to's" involve entering and adjusting the registry, so be warned, "Backup the registry before altering anything" (*)
Any that involve altering the BIOS should only be performed by a PC competent person, or irrecoverable damage can result if not done correctly. (x)
Some of the "How to's" also involve installing a third part program which a link may not be supplied, so just copy and paste the suggested program title into your search bar and search for the program.
http://www.pc-speed-up.com/index.html (http://www.pc-speed-up.com/index.html)
Although I can't vouch for all of them, most that involved altering the registry were tried and had "NO adverse" effect on my PC.
*******************************************************************
01> How to Speed up Access to AVI files (*)
02> How to Speed up Disk Cleanup (*)
03> How to Speed up Image Browsing (*)
04> How to Speed up Menu Display (*)
05> How to Speed up Windows Startup (*)
06> How to Speed up Windows Shutdown (*)
07> How to Speed up Network Browsing (to a Windows 95/98/Me computer) (*)
08> How to Speed up Foreground Applications (*)
09> How to Speed up Performance of disk drives
10> How to Speed up Application load times (*)
11> How to Speed up Outlook Express load times (*)
12> How to Speed up NTFS (*)
13> How to Increase Internet download connections (*)
14> How to Protect your computer from e-mail viruses
15> How to Stop unwanted e-mail
16> How to Format a hard drive
17> How to Block pop ups
18> How to Backup Outlook email accounts
19> How to Backup Outlook email
20> How to Backup computer
21> How to Defrag your Computer
22> How to Get rid of a computer virus
23> How to Lock your computer
24> How to Use MP3 files as your wake up alarm
25> What's inside of your PC mainboard
26> More about BIOS
27> How to Use the BIOS utility (x)
28> How to Update the BIOS (x)
29> How to Optimize HDD using SMART
30> How to Optimize AGP settings
31> How to Gets rid of Spyware
32> How to Gets rid of Spam
33> How to Recover lost passwords
34> How to Tweak internet speed
*******************************************************************
None of the above articles belong to me or have been formatted by me, all thanks and gratitude to the originator/s.
Although I have slightly changed some of the titles for ease of readability.
"Personally I would not bother with any of the adverts/programs that appear on most, or all of the pages referring to cleaning up the PC" but the choice is yours.
edit: minor typo & new text added.