Say what you will about Microsoft, it does a good job when it comes to system maintenance tools. Sure, apps like Check Disk and Defrag might be bare-bones, but they get the job done. Disk Cleanup is easily the best of bunch, reclaiming space even dedicated third-party programs can't. Now, Microsoft is putting DC out to pasture, in favour of something new.

A new version of an app comes out, you update. No brainer. Except in the case of CCleaner, which has been all over the place in terms of privacy and security in recent times. Fortunately, it looks like the system maintenance app is back on track as of version 5.46.

How does that Dark Knight Rises quote go again? "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain"? Turns out, this applies to software as much as it does to superheroes. CCleaner, once the premiere tool against crap-installing programs, is becoming the very thing it was designed to fight.

With Windows 10, Microsoft has slowly been working towards a more streamlined way of sending updates to users (when it's not forcing them down your throat). To this end, by February 2019, "express" patches will be the dominant update method.

You probably spend more time than you realise copying, moving, renaming, and otherwise organising files on your Windows hard drive — so knowing how to do all of this faster and smarter can claw back a serious amount of time. Here are 20 of our favourite hacks and tricks for mastering File Explorer and file management in Windows.

For many — myself included — CCleaner has been the go-to tool for freeing up drive space for years. And while it does the job well, it never hurts to be on the lookout for better programs. Take Wise Disk Cleaner — it not only does much of what CCleaner can do, but goes the extra mile in a lot of ways.

Microsoft Windows can get messy. It's not (always) the operating system's fault. You download tons of apps and files, and create new content stuff of your own, until your "Downloads" directory looks like a landfill for old content. Your desktop is so full of icons, you can't see your pretty wallpaper. Your Start Menu looks like an app buffet. In short, your operating system is a mess, but it's not unfixable.

A reader has an issue with USB devices. Specifically, their system sometimes restarts when they plug something into a USB port. On a scale of one to "that's not good", we're a lot closer to the right side than the left, but there a few tricks they can try to hopefully get a little relief.

Before you throw out that old desktop or laptop, consider upgrading its storage. Whether your computer uses a hard drive or an older solid-state drive (or SSD) it's probably time to upgrade it. SSDs are getting faster every years and replacing the storage in your old computer with a new SSD won't cost you too much, it won't take that long to fit, and it will make a huge difference to the speed of your computing experience.

Inevitably your computer slows down. You try to open a website and it grinds to a halt, or read an email and it churns along sluggishly. A slow computer, in many ways, is worse than a broken one -- or at least infinitely more frustrating.

Drive space isn't as big a concern as it used to be, but if you're sporting an SSD as a main drive and it's on the smaller side, every megabyte counts. Once you've squared away the low-hanging fruit, you'll always come back to Windows itself. Usually, there isn't much you can delete from the operating system folders, however, with some finesse and the right tools, you can banish old, bit-hungry drivers.

Knowing the difference between HDMI and USB qualifies me as the local tech "expert", so folks often invite me around to fix their computer problems. I'll let you into a little secret though: Most of the time, I'm not doing anything all that impressive or magical. Troubleshooting basic computer problems is actually pretty straightforward.

What's the first thing you do with a shiny new Windows notebook? The only answer to this question is "format and reinstall the OS". It'd be nice if you could just, you know, use the gadget you bought, minus the vendor-installed and mostly useless software. Windows 10 might be Microsoft's first OS to make this possible.

These days, graphics drivers don't just install the software your OS needs to communicate with your GPU. With hardware accelerated video decoding, game recording and other services being provided, you might find a lot of unneeded odds and ends running on your system. Fortunately, disabling them is easy.

Everyone has their own bag of diagnostic tricks when Windows decides to chuck a wobbly. While OS corruption isn't as big a problem as it used to be thanks to journalled file systems and tools such as System Restore, you can still be caught with your pants down by malware, viruses and other nasties. In those cases, a utility called SFCFix might get you out of trouble where other options fail.

These days, a new operating system can be downloaded from the web and installed in a couple of reboots or "purchased" for free from an App Store. It might seem like a clean install isn't worth the time and effort. Nothing could be further from the truth. Upgrades may be convenient, but sometimes it's better to give yourself a clean slate and not just for that "fresh out of the box" feeling.

When it comes to upgrading my operating system, I've always been a fan of the clean slate. That way you can be sure nothing remains of the previous installation, providing some protection against future hiccups. However, if you were running the Technical Preview of Windows 10 and just took the plunge to the final release, you might be missing a few gigabytes of drive space.

Automatic updates sound like a great idea in theory, but having a newer driver install itself behind your back, cause a problem and force you to troubleshoot for a few hours is no fun at all. Fortunately in Windows, it's possible to tell the operating system to apply platform patches only and leave the driver updates to you.

Dedicated system cleaners are good and all, but sometimes a more surgical approach is needed for freeing up disk space. Take Chrome -- while you can nuke its history and cache from orbit, you might find a single folder or directory created by Google's browser is hogging your drive.