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Saturday, December 10, 2016

Networking

1.What do you mean by data communication? 
Ans: It is the exchange of data between two devices via some form of transmission medium such 
as wire cable. The communicating system must be part of a communication system made up of a 
combination of hardware and software.The effectiveness of a data communication system 
depends on three fundamental characteristics: delivery, accuracy and timeliness. 

2.What is simplex? 
Ans: It is the mode of communication between two devices in which flow of data is 
unidirectional. i.e. one can transmit and other can receive. 
E.g. keyboard and monitor. 

3.What is half-duplex? 
Ans: It is the mode of communication between two devices in which flow of data is bi-
directional but not at the same time. ie each station can transmit and receive but not at the same 
time. 
E.g walkie-talkies are half-duplex system. 

4.What is full duplex? 
Ans: It is the mode of communication between two devices in which flow of data is bi-
directional and it occurs simultaneously. Here signals going in either direction share the capacity 
of the link. 
E.g. telephone 

5.What is a network? 
Ans: It is a set of devices connected by communication links. A node can be a computer or any 
other device capable of sending and/or receiving data generated by other nodes on the network. 

6.What is distributed processing? 
Ans: It is a strategy in which services provided by the network reside at multiple sites. 

7.What is point to point connection? 
Ans:It provides a dedicated link between two devices. The entire capacity of the link is reserved 
for transmission between the two devices 
e.g. when we change the TV channels by remote control we establish a point to point connection 
between remote control and TV control system. 

8.What is multipoint connection? 
Ans: In multipoint connection more than two specific devices share a single link. 
Here the capacity of the channel is shared either separately or temporally. 

9.What is a topology? 
Ans: Topology of a network is defined as the geometric representation of the relationship of all 
the links and linking devices (node) to one another.Four basic topologies are star, bus, ring and 
mesh. 
Star – Here each device has a dedicated point to point link only to a central controller called hub. 


Bus -It is multipoint. One long cable acts as a backbone to link all the devices in the network. 
Ring -Here each device has a dedicated point to point connection only with the two devices on 
either side of it. 
Mesh -Here every device has a dedicated point to point link to every other device. 

10.Define LAN, MAN and WAN. 
Ans: LAN- A local area network (LAN) is a privately owned and links the devices in a single 
office, building or campus. 
It allows resources to be shared between personal computers and work stations. 
MAN- A metropolitan-area network (MAN) spreads over an entire city. 
It may be wholly owned and operated by a private company, eg local telephone company. 
WAN – A wide area network (WAN) provides long distance transmission of data, voice, image 
and video information over large geographic areas that comprise a country, a continent or even 
whole world. 



11.Define internet? 
Ans: It is a network of networks. 

12.What is a protocol? 
Ans: It is a set of rules that governs data communication. A protocol defines what is 
communicated, how it is communicated, and when it is communicated. The key elements of 
protocol are syntax, semantics and timing. 

13.What is TCP/IP protocol model? 
Ans: It is a five layered model which provides guidelines for the development of universally 
compatible networking protocols. 
The five layers are physical, data link, network, transport and application. 

14.Describe the functions of five layers? 
Ans: Physical- It transmits raw bits over a medium. It provides mechanical and electrical 
specification. 
Data link- It organizes bits into frames. It provides hop to hop delivery. 
Network-It moves the packets from source to destination.It provide internetworking. 
Transport-It provides reliable process to process message delivery and error recovery. 
Application-It allows ti access to network resources. 

15.What is ISO-OSI model? 
Ans: Open Systems Interconnection or OSI model was designed by the International 
Organization for Standardization (ISO) .It is a seven layer model. It is a theoretical model 
designed to show how a protocol stack should be implemented. 
It defines two extra layers in addition to TCP/IP model. 
Session -It was designed to establish, maintain, and synchronize the interaction between 
communicating system. 


Presentation-It was designed to handle the syntax and semantics of the information exchanged 
between the two systems. It was designed for data translation, encryption, decryption, and 
compression. 

16. What is multiplexing? 
Ans: Multiplexing is the process of dividing a link, the phycal medium, into logical channels for 
better efficiency. Here medium is not changed but it has several channels instead of one. 

16.What is switching? 
Ans: Switching in data communication is of three types 
Circuit switching 
Packet switching 
Message switching 

17.How data is transmitted over a medium? 
Ans: Data is transmitted in the form of electromagnetic signals. 

18. Compare analog and digital signals? 
Ans: Analog signals can have an infinite number of values in a range but digital signal can have 
only a limited number of values. 

19.Define bandwidth? 
Ans: The range of frequencies that a medium can pass is called bandwidth. It is the difference 
between the highest and lowest frequencies that the medium can satisfactorily pass. 

20.What are the factors on which data rate depends? 
Ans: Data rate ie.how fast we can send data depends upon 
i) Bandwidth available 
ii) The levels of signals we can use 
iii) The quality of the channel (level of noise) 



21.Define bit rate and bit interval? 
Ans: Digital signals are aperiodic.so instead of using period and frequency we use bit interval 
and bit rate respectively.Bit interval is the time required to send one single bit.Bit rate is the 
number of bit intervals per second. 

22.What is Nyquist bit rate formula? 
Ans: For a noiseless channel, the Nyquist bit rate formula defines the theoretical maximum bit 
rate 
Bitrate=2* Bandwidth*log2L 
Where Bandwidth is the bandwidth of the channel 
L is the number of signal level used to represent the data 
Bitrate is the bit rate in bits per second. 


23.Define Shannon Capacity? 
Ans: Shannon Capacity determines the theoretical highest data rate foe a noise channel. 
Capacity= Bandwidth * log2 (1+SNR) 
Bandwidth is the bandwidth of the channel. 
SNR is the signal to noise ratio, it is the statical ratio of the power of the signal to the power of 
the noise. 
Capacity is the capacity of the channel in bits per second 

24.What is sampling? 
Ans: It is the process of obtaining amplitude of a signal at regular intervals. 

25.Define pulse amplitude modulation? 
Ans: It is an analog to digital conversion method which takes analog signals, samples it and 
generates a series of pulse based on the results of the sampling. It is not used in data 
communication because the series of pulses generated still of any amplitude. To modify it we use 
pulse code modulation. 

26.Define pulse code modulation? 
Ans: Pulse code Modulation modifies pulses created by PAM to create a completely digital 
signal. 
For this PCM first quantizes the PAM pulse. Quantization is the method of assigning integral 
values in a specific tange to sampled instances.PCM is made up of four separate processes: 
PAM, quantization, binary encoding and line encoding. 

27.What is Nyquist Theorem? 
Ans: According to this theorem, the sampling rate must be at least 2 times the highest frequency 
of the original signal. 

28.What are the modes of data transmission? 
Ans: Data transmission can be serial or parallel in mode 
In parallel transmission, a group of bits is sent simultaneously, with each bit on a separate line.In 
serial transmission there is only one line and the bits are sent sequentially. 

29.What is Asynchronous mode of data transmission? 
Ans: It is a serial mode of transmission. 
In this mode of transmission, each byte is framed with a start bit and a stop bit. There may be a 
variable length gap between each byte. 

30.What is Synchronous mode of data transmission? 
Ans: It is a serial mode of transmission.In this mode of transmission, bits are sent in a 
continuous stream without start and stop bit and without gaps between bytes. Regrouping the bits 
into meaningful bytes is the responsibility of the receiver. 




31.What are the different types of multiplexing? 
Ans: Multiplexing is of three types. Frequency division multiplexing and wave division 
multiplexing is for analog signals and time division multiplexing is for digital signals. 

32.What is FDM? 
Ans: In frequency division multiplexing each signal modulates a different carrier frequency. The 
modulated carrier combines to form a new signal that is then sent across the link. 
Here multiplexers modulate and combine the signal while demultiplexers decompose and 
demodulate. 
Guard bands keep the modulating signal from overlapping and interfering with one another. 

32.What is TDM ? 
Ans: In TDM digital signals from n devices are interleaved with one another, forming a frame of 
data. 
Framing bits allow the TDM multiplexer to synchronize properly. 

33.What are the different transmission media? 
Ans: The transmission media is broadly categorized into two types 
i)Guided media(wired) 
i)Unguided media(wireless) 

34.What are the different Guided Media? 
Ans: The media which provides a conduct from one device to another is called a guided media. 
These include twisted pair cable, coaxial cable, and fiber-optic cable. 

35.Describe about the different Guided Medias. 
Ans: Twisted pair cable consists of two insulated cupper wires twisted together. It is used in 
telephone line for voice and data communications. 
Coaxial cable has the following layers: a metallic rod-shaped inner conductor, an insulator 
covering the rod, a metallic outer conductor (shield), an insulator covering the shield, and a 
plastic cover.Coaxial cable can carry signals of higher frequency ranges than twisted-pair cable. 
Coaxial cable is used in cable TV networks and Ethernet LANs.Fiber-optic cables are composed 
of a glass or plastic inner core surrounded by cladding, all encased in an outer jacket.Fiber-optic 
cables carry data signals in the form of light. The signal is propagated along the inner core by 
reflection. Its features are noise resistance, low attenuation, and high bandwidth capabilities. 
It is used in backbone networks, cable TV nerworks, and fast Ethernet networks. 

36.What do you mean by wireless communication? 
Ans: Unguided media transport electromagnetic waves without using a physical conductor. This 
type of communication is referred as wireless communication. 
Here signals are broadcaster through air and thus available to anyone who has a device to receive 
it. 


37.What do you mean by switching? 
Ans: It is a method in which communication devices are connected to one another efficiently. 
A switch is intermediary hardware or software that links devices together temporarily. 

38.What are the switching methods? 
Ans: There are three fundamental switching methods: circuit switching, packet switching, 
And message switching.In circuit switching, a direct physical connection between two devices is 
created by space division switches, time division switches or both. 
In packet switching data is transmitted using a packet switched network. Packet switched 
network is a network in which data are transmitted in independent units called packets. 

39.What are the duties of data link layer? 
Ans: Data link layer is responsible for carrying packets from one hop (computer or router) to the 
next. The duties of data link layer include packetizing, adderssing, error control, flow control, 
medium access control. 

40.What are the types of errors? 
Ans: Errors can be categorized as a single-bit error or burst error. A single bit error has one bit 
error per data unit. A burst error has two or more bits errors per data unit. 



41.What do you mean by redundancy? 
Ans: Redundancy is the concept of sending extra bits for use in error detection. Three common 
redundancy methods are parity check, cyclic redundancy check (CRC), and checksum. 

42.Define parity check. 
Ans: In parity check, a parity bit is added to every data unit so that the total number of 1s is even 
(or odd for odd parity).Simple parity check can detect all single bit errors. It can detect burst 
errors only if the total number of errors in each data unit is odd.In two dimensional parity checks, 
a block of bits is divided into rows and a redundant row of bits is added to the whole block. 

43. Define cyclic redundancy check (CRC). 
Ans: C RC appends a sequence of redundant bits derived from binary division to the data unit. 
The divisor in the CRC generator is often represented as an algebraic polynomial. 

44. What is hamming code? 
Ans: The hamming code is an error correction method using redundant bits. The number of bits 
is a function of the length of the data bits. In hamming code for a data unit of m bits, we use the 
formula 2r >= m+r+1 to determine the number of redundant bits needed. By rearranging the 
order of bit transmission of the data units, the hamming code can correct burst errors. 

45.What do you mean by flow control? 
Ans: It is the regulation of sender’s data rate so that the receiver buffer doesn’t become 


overwhelmed.i.e. flow control refers to a set of procedures used to restrict the amount of data 
that the sender can send before waiting for acknowledgement. 

46.What do you mean by error control? 
Ans: Error control refers primarily to methods of error detection and retransmission. Anytime an 
error is detected in an exchange, specified frames are retransmitted. This process is called 
automatic repeat request (ARQ). 

47.Define stop and wait ARQ. 
Ans: In stop and wait ARQ, the sender sends a frame and waits for an acknowledgement from 
the receiver before sending the next frame. 

48.Define Go-Back-N ARQ? 
Ans: In Go-Back-N ARQ, multiple frames can be in transit at the same time. If there is an error, 
retransmission begins with the last Unacknowledged frame even if subsequent frames arrived 
correctly. Duplicate frames are discarded. 

49.Define Selective Repeat ARQ? 
Ans: In Selective Repeat ARQ, multiple frames can be in transit at the same time. If there is an 
error, only unacknowledged frame is retransmitted. 

50.What do you mean by pipelining, is there any pipelining in error control? 
Ans: The process in which a task is often begun before the previous task has ended is called 
pipelining. There is no pipelining in stop and wait ARQ however it does apply in Go-Back-N 
ARQ and Selective Repeat ARQ. 



51.What is HDLC? 
Ans: It is a bit oriented data link protocol designed to support both half duplex and full duplex 
communication over point to point and multi point links.HDLC is characterized by their station 
type,configuration and their response modes. 

52.What do you mean by point to point protocol? 
Ans: The point to point protocol was designed to provide a dedicated line for users who need 
internet access via a telephone line or a cable TV connection. Its connection goes through three 
phases: idle, establishing, authenticating, networking and terminating. 
At data link layer it employs a version of HDLC. 

53. What do you mean by point to point protocol stack? 
Ans: Point to point protocol uses a stack of other protocol to use the link, to authenticate the 
parties involved, and to carry the network layer data. Three sets of protocols are defined: link 
control protocol, Authentication protocol, and network control protocol. 


54.What do you mean by line control protocol? 
Ans: It is responsible for establishing, maintaining, configuring, and terminating links. 

55.What do you mean by Authentication protocol? 
Ans: Authentication means validating the identity of a user who needs to access a set of 
resources. 
It is of two types 
i)Password Authentication Protocol(PAP) 
ii)Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol(CHAP) 
PAP is a two step process. The user sends a authentication identification and a password. The 
system determines the validity of the Information sent.CHAP is a three step process. The system 
sends a value to the user. The user manipulates the value and sends the result. The system 
Verifies the result. 

56.What do you mean by network control protocol? 
Ans: Network control protocol is a set of protocols to allow the encapsulation of data coming 
from network layer protocol that requires the services of PPP. 

57. What do you mean by CSMA? 
Ans: To reduce the possibility of collision CSMA method was developed. In CSMA each station 
first listen to the medium (Or check the state of the medium) before sending. It can’t eliminate 
collision. 

58.What do you mean by Bluetooth? 
Ans: It is a wireless LAN technology designed to connect devices of different functions such as 
telephones, notebooks, computers, cameras, printers and so on. Bluetooth LAN Is an adhoc 
network that is the network is formed spontaneously? It is the implementation of protocol 
defined by the IEEE 802.15 standard. 

59.What is IP address? 
Ans: The internet address (IP address) is 32bits that uniquely and universally defines a host or 
router on the internet. 
The portion of the IP address that identifies the network is called netid. The portion of the IP 
address that identifies the host or router on the network is called hostid. 

60.What do you mean by subnetting? 
Ans: Subnetting divides one large network into several smaller ones. It adds an intermediate 
level of hierarchy in IP addressing. 



61.What are the advantages of fiber optics cable ? 
Ans: The advantages of fiber optics cable over twisted pair cable are Noise resistance-As they 
use light so external noise is not a factor. Less signal attenuation-fiber optics transmission 


distance is significantly greater than that of other guided media.Higher bandwidth-It can support 
higher bandwidth. 

62.What are the disadvantages of fiber optics cable? 
Ans: The disadvantages of fiber optics cable over twisted pair cable are 
Cost-It is expensive Installation/maintenance-Any roughness or cracking defuses light and alters 
the signal Fragility-It is more fragile. 

63.What are the propagation type of radio wave ? 
Ans: Radio wave propagation is dependent upon frequency.There are five propagation type. 
i)surface propagation 
ii)Tropospheric propagation 
iii)Ionospheric propagation 
iv)Line of sight propagation 
v)space propagation 

64.What do you mean by Geosynchronous Satellites ? 
Ans: Satellite communication uses a satellite in geosynchronous orbit to relay signals.The 
Satellite must move at the same speed as the earth so that it seems to remain fixed above a 
certain spot..Only one orbit can be geosynchronous.This orbit occurs at the equatorial plane and 
is approximately 22,000 miles from the surface of earth. 

65.What are the factors for evaluating the suitability of the media ? 
Ans: The factors are cost,throughput,attenuation,Electromagneric interference(EMI),securtty. 

66.What do you mean by medium access control(MAC) sublayer. 
Ans: The protocols used to determine who goes next on a multi-access channel belong to a 
sublayer of the data link layer is called the multi-access channel(MAC) sublayer.It is the buttom 
part of data link layer. 

67.What do you mean by ALOHA ? 
Ans: It is the method used to solve the channel allocation problem .It is used for: 
i)ground based radio broadcasting 
ii)In a network in which uncoordinated users are competing for the use of single channel. 
It is of two types: 
1.Pure aloha 
2.Slotted aloha 

68.What is pure ALOHA? 
Ans: It lets users transmit whenever they have data to sent.Collision may occur but due to 
feedback property sender can know the status of message.conflict occur when at one time more 
bits are transmitted.The assumptions are : 
i)all frame size is same for all user. 
ii)collision occur when frames are transmitted simultaneously 
iii)indefinite population of no of user. 


iv)N=number of frames/frame time 
iv)it obeys poisson’s distribution if N>1 there will be collision 0<1 

69.What is slotted ALOHA? 
Ans: In this method time is divided into discrete intervals,each interval corresponding to one 
frame.It requires user to agree on slot boundaries.Here data is not send at any time instead it wait 
for beginning of the next slot.Thus pure ALOHA is tuened into discrete one. 

70.What do you mean by persistent CSMA(carrier sense multiple access) ? 
Ans: When a station has data to send,it first listens to the channel to see if anyone else is 
transmitting at that moment.If channel is busy it waits until the station becomes idle. When 
collision occurs it waits and then sends.It sends frame with probability 1 when channel is idle. 



71.What do you mean by non persistent CSMA(carrier sense multiple access) ? 
Ans: Here if no one else is sending the station begins doing so itself.However if the channel is 
already in use,the station does’t continuously sense it rather it waits for a random period of time 
and then repeats.It leads better channel utilization but longer delay. 

72.What do you mean by p persistent CSMA(carrier sense multiple access) ? 
Ans: It applies to slotted channels.when a station becomes ready to send,it senses the channel.If 
it is idle it transmits with a probability P,with a probability Q=P-1 
It defers until the next slot.If that slot is also idle,it either transmits or defers again with 
probability P and Q.The process is repeated until either the frame has been transmitted or another 
station begins transmitting. 

73.What is FDDI? 
Ans: It is high performance fiber optic token ring LAN running at 100Mbps over distance up 
1000 stations.FDDI access is limited by time.A FDDI cabling consist of two fiber rings. 
i)one transmitting clockwise 
ii)one transmitting counterclockwise 

74.What is Firewalls? 
Ans: It is an electronic downbridge which is used to enhance the security of a network. It’s 
configuration has two components. 
i)Two routers 
ii)Application gateway 
the packets traveling through the LAN are inspected here and packets meeting certain criteria are 
forwarded and others are dropped. 

75.What is Repeaters ? 
Ans: A receiver receives a signal before it becomes too weak or corrupted,regenerates the 
original bit pattern,and puts the refreshed copy back onto the link.It operates on phycal layer of 
OSI model. 


76.What is Bridges? 
Ans: They divide large network into smaller components.They can relay frames between two 
originally separated LANs.They provide security through partitioning traffic.They operate on 
phycal and data link layer of OSI model. 

77.What is Routers ? 
Ans: Router relay packets among multiple interconnected networks.They receive packet from 
one connected network and pass it to another network.They have access to network layer 
addresses and certain software that enables them to determine which path is best for transmission 
among several paths.They operate on phycal,data link and network layer of OSI model. 

78.What is Gateway ? 
Ans: It is a protocol converter.A gateway can accept a packet formatted for one protocol and 
convert it to a packet formatted for another protocol.It operates on all the seven layers of OSI 
model. 

79.What do you mean by Data Terminal Equipment(DTE) ? 
Ans: It is any device that is source of or destination for binary digital data.At phycal layer it can 
be a terminal computer. They generate or consume information. 

80.What do you mean by Data Terminating Equipment (DCE) ? 
Ans: Data circuit terminating equipment includes any functional unit that transmit or receives 
data in the form of an analog or digital signal through a network.DTE generates digital data and 
passes them to a DCE ,the DCE converts the data to a form acceptable to the transmission media 
and sends the converted signal to another DCE on the network. 



81.What do you mean by protocol stack ? 
Ans: The list of protocols used by certain system ,one protocol per layer is called protocol stack. 

82.What do you mean by peer ? 
Ans: Entities comprising the corresponding layers on different machines are called peers.It may 
be 
• hardware device. 
• processes 
• human being 
peers communicate by using protocol. 

83.What do you mean by broadcasting ? 
Ans: Broadcast system allow addressing a packet to all destination by using a special code in 
address field.when packet is transmitted it is received and processed by every machine on the 
network. 


84.What are the advantages of broadcast network. 
Ans: 
• a single communication channel is shared by all computers. 
• packets are transmitted and received by all the computer. 
• address field is attached to whom it is intended. 
• multicasting is used in network. 

85.What do you mean by point to point network? 
Ans: Point to point network consist of many connections between individual pair of 
machines.large networks are point to point.Routing algorithm plays an important in point to 
point network.It uses stored ad forword technique.It is a packet switching network. 

86.What are the design issue of layers ? 
Ans: The design issue of layer are 
• Addressing technique.ie source and destination address 
• Types of communication 
• Error control 
• Order of message. 
• Speed matching 
• Multiplexing and demultiplexing. 

87.What are the protocols in application layer ? 
Ans: The protocols defined in application layer are 
• TELNET 
• FTP 
• SMTP 
• DNS 

88.What are the protocols in transport layer ? 
Ans: The protocols defined in transport layer are 
• TCP 
• UDP 

89.Define TCP ? 
Ans: It is connection oriented protocol.It consist byte streams oeiginating on one machine to be 
delivered without error on any other machine in the network.while transmitting it fragments the 
stream to discrete messages and passes to interner layer.At the destination it reassembles the 
messages into output stream. 

90.Define UDP ? 
Ans: It is unreliable connectionless protocol.It is used for one-shot,client-server type,requesr-
reply queries and applications in which prompt delivery is required than accuracy. 




91.Define IP ? 
Ans: Internetwork protocol (IP) is the transmission mechanism used by TCP/IP protocol.It is an 
unreliable and connectionless datagram protocol.It provides no error checking and tracking. 

92.What do you mean by client server model ? 
Ans: In client server model ,the client runs a program to request a service and the server runs a 
program to provide the service.These two programs communicate with each other. One server 
program can provide services to many client programs. 

93.What are the information that a computer attached to a TCP/IP internet must possesses 

Ans: Each computer attached to TCP/IP must possesses the following information 
• Its IP addesss 
• Its subnet mask 
• The IP addesss of the router. 
• The Ip address of the name server. 

94.What is domain name system(DNS)? 
Ans: Domain Name System (DNS )is a client server application that identifies each host on the 
internet with a unique user friendly name. 

95.What is TELNET ? 
Ans: TELNET is a client –server application that allows a user to log on to a remote 
machine,giving the user access to the remote system. TELNET is an abbreviation of terminal 
Network. 

96.What do you mean by local login and remote login ? 
Ans: When a user logs into a local time-sharing system ,it is called local login. When a user 
wants to access an application program or utility located on a remote machine,he or she performs 
remote login. 

97.What is Network Virtual Terminal ? 
Ans: A universal interface provided by TELNET is called Network Virtual Terminal(NVT) 
character set.Via this interface TELNET translates characters (data or command) that come from 
local terminal into NVT form and delivers them to the network. 

98.What do you mean by Simple Mail Transfer Protocol ? 
Ans: The TCP/IP protocol that supports electronic mail on the internet is called Simple Mail 
Transfer Protocol.SMTP provides for mail exchange between users on the same or different 
computer and supports Sending a single message to one or more recipient Sending message that 
include text, voice,video,or graphics.Sending message to users on network outside the internet. 

99.What is Hypertext Transfer Protocol(HTTP) ? 
Ans: It is the main protocol used to access data on the World Wide Web .the protocol transfers 
data in the form of plain text,hypertext,audio,video,and so on. It is so called because its 


efficiency allows its use in a hypertext environment where there are rapid jumps from one 
document to another. 

100.What is URL ? 
Ans: It is a standard for specifying any kind of information on the World Wide Web. 

101. What is World Wide Web ? 
Ans: World Wide Web is a repository of information spread all over the world and linked 
together.It is a unique combination of flexibility,portability,and user-friendly features .The 
World Wide Web today is a distributed client-server service,in which a client using a browser 
can access a service using a server.The service provided is distributed over many locations called 
web sites. 

102.What is HTML ? 
Ans: Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is a language for creating static web pages 






Friday, October 7, 2016

10 Quick Ways to Speed Up a Slow Windows PC

10 Quick Ways to Speed Up a Slow Windows PC

Concerned Businessman Working At His Desk
Windows PCs don’t have to slow down over time. Whether your PC has gradually become slower or it suddenly ground to a halt a few minutes ago, there could be quite a few reasons for that slowness.
As with all PC issues, don’t be afraid to give your computer a reboot if something’s not working properly. This can fix quite a few problems and is faster than attempting to manually troubleshoot and fix the problem yourself.

Clean Your PC the Easy Way with CleanMyPC

If you want to clean up your PC the easy way, CleanMyPC is a great tool to get the job done easily, and it will even keep your computer clean automatically.
Unlike the competition, it also includes great tools like a Clean Uninstaller, to get rid of applications and clean up the junk that they leave behind. All with the click of a button.

Find Resource-Hungry Programs

Your PC is running slow because something is using up those resources. If it’s suddenly running slower, a runaway process might be using 99% of your CPU resources, for example. Or, an application might be experiencing a memory leak and using a large amount of memory, causing your PC to swap to disk. Alternately, an application might be using the disk a lot, causing other applications to slow down when they need to load data from or save it to the disk.
To find out, open the Task Manager. You can right-click your taskbar and select the “Task Manager” option or press Ctrl+Shift+Escape to open it. On Windows 8, 8.1, and 10, the new Task Manager provides an upgraded interface that color-codes applications using a lot of resources. Click the “CPU,” “Memory,” and “Disk” headers to sort the list by the applications using the most resources. If any application is using too much resources, you might want to close it normally — if you can’t, select it here and click “End Task” to force it to close.

Close System Tray Programs

Many applications tend to run in the system tray, or notification area. These applications often launch at startup and stay running in the background but remain hidden behind the up arrow icon at the bottom-right corner of your screen. Click the up arrow icon near the system tray, right-click any applications you don’t need running in the background, and close them to free up resources.

Disable Startup Programs

Better yet, prevent those applications from launching at startup to save memory and CPU cycles, as well as speed up the login process.
On Windows 8, 8.1, and 10, there’s now a startup manager in the Task Manager you can use to manage your startup programs. Right-click the taskbar and select “Task Manager” or press Ctrl+Shift+Escape to launch it. Click over to the Startup tab and disable startup applications you don’t need. Windows will helpfully tell you which applications slow down your startup process the most.

Reduce Animations

Windows uses quite a few animations, and those animations can make your PC seem a bit slower. For example, Windows can minimize and maximize windows instantly if you disable the associated animations.
To disable animations, press Windows Key + X or right-click the Start button and select “System.” Click “Advanced System Settings” on the left and click the “Settings” button under Performance. Choose “Adjust for best performance” under Visual Effects to disable all the animations, or select “Custom” and disable the individual animations you don’t want to see. For example, uncheck “Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing” to disable the minimize and maximize animations.

Lighten Your Web Browser

There’s a good chance you use your web browser a lot, so your web browser may just be a bit slow. It’s a good idea to use as few browser extensions, or add-ons, as possible — those slow down your web browser and cause it to use more memory.
Go into your web browser’s Extensions or Add-ons manager and remove add-ons you don’t need. You should also consider enabling click-to-play plug-ins. Preventing Flash and other content from loading will prevent unimportant Flash content from using CPU time.

Scan for Malware and Adware

There’s also a chance your computer is slow because malicious software is slowing it down and running in the background. This may not be flat-out malware — it may be software that interferes with your web browsing to track it and add additional advertisements, for example.
To be extra safe, scan your computer with an antivirus program. You should also scan it withMalwarebytes, which catches a lot of “potentially unwanted programs” (PUPs) that most antivirus programs tend to ignore. These programs try to sneak onto your computer when you install other software, and you almost certainly don’t want them.

Free Up Disk Space

If your hard drive is almost completely full, your computer may run noticeably slower. You want to leave your computer some room to work on your hard drive. Follow our guide to freeing up space on your Windows PC to free up room. You don’t need any third-party software — just running the Disk Cleanup tool included in Windows can help quite a bit.

Defragment Your Hard Disk

Defragmenting your hard disk actually shouldn’t be necessary on modern versions of Windows. It’ll automatically defragment mechanical hard drives in the background. Solid-state drives don’t really need traditional defragmentation, although modern versions of Windows will “optimize” them — and that’s fine.
You shouldn’t worry about defragmentation most of the time. However, if you do have a mechanical hard drive and you’ve just put a lot of files on the drive — for example, copying a huge database or gigabytes of PC game files — those files might be defragmented because Windows hasn’t gotten around to defragmenting them yet. In this situation, you might want to open the disk defragmenter tool and perform a scan to see if you need to run a manual defrag program.

Uninstall Programs You Don’t Use

Open the Control Panel, find the list of installed programs, and uninstall programs you don’t use and don’t need from your PC. This can help speed your PC up, as those programs might include background processes, autostart entries, system services, context menu entries, and other things that can slow down your PC. It’ll also save room on your hard drive and improve system security — for example, you definitely shouldn’t have Java installed if you’re not using it.

Reset Your PC / Reinstall Windows

If the other tips here didn’t fix your problem, the one timeless solution to fix Windows problems — aside from rebooting your PC, of course — is getting a fresh Windows installation.
On modern versions of Windows — that is, Windows 8, 8.1, and 10 — it’s easier to get a fresh Windows installation than ever. You don’t have to get Windows installation media and reinstall Windows. Instead, you can simply use the “Reset your PC” feature built into Windows to get a new, fresh Windows system. This is similar to reinstalling Windows and will wipe your installed programs and system settings while keeping your files.

If your PC is still using a mechanical hard drive, upgrading to a solid-state drive — or just ensuring your next PC has an SSD — will offer you a dramatic performance improvement, too. In an age where most people won’t notice faster CPUs and graphics processors, solid-state storage will offer the single biggest boost in overall system performance for most people.

How to Write a Batch Script on Windows

How to Write a Batch Script on Windows

Do you know how to use the Command Prompt? If you do, you can write a batch file. In its simplest form, a batch file (or batch script) is a list of several commands that are executed when you double-click the file. Batch files go all the way back to DOS, but still work on modern versions of Windows.
PowerShell scripts and Bash scripts may be more powerful, but batch files can still be plenty useful if you need to run basic Windows commands.

Batch File Basics

A batch file is simply a text file saved with the .bat file extension. You can write one using Notepad or a more advanced text editor like Notepad++, but don’t use a word processor like Microsoft Word.
Let’s create a simple batch file. First, open Notepad. Type the following lines into it:
ECHO OFF
ECHO Hello World
PAUSE
Next, save the file by clicking File > Save. Give it any name you like, but replace the default .txt file extension with the .bat extension.
For example, you might want to name it hello_world.bat .
You now have a batch file with the .bat file extension. Double-click it to run it. This particular batch file sets ECHO off (which cleans up the output by hiding the commands from being printed at the prompt, prints the text “Hello World” to the screen, and then waits for you to press a key before it ends.
If you didn’t add PAUSE to the file, the batch file would simply run its commands and then automatically close. In this case, it would print “Hello World” to the window and then immediately close the Command Prompt window. When you want to quickly run commands without seeing the output, you can omit this. If you’re running several commands, you could place the PAUSE command in between them.

Writing a More Complex Batch File

It’s fundamentally simple to create a batch file. The only thing you need to change is what you type into Notepad. To run several commands, you type each one on its own line and the batch file will run each one in order.
For example, let’s say we want to write a batch file that runs several network diagnostic commands. We might want to run ipconfig /all to view network information, ping google.com to see if Google’s servers are responding, and tracert google.com to run a traceroute to google.com and see if there are any problems on the way.
In the most basic form, we could simply place all those commands in a batch file, one after the other, like so:
ipconfig /all
ping google.com
tracert google.com
PAUSE
When we run this file, we’d just see the output of each command right after the other. But this isn’t necessarily the ideal way to write a batch file.
For example, you might want to add comment lines. Any line that begins with a :: is a comment line and won’t be executed. That makes them a useful way to explain what’s happening in the file for anyone you might give it to–or for your future self, who might forget why you put a certain command in there.
You might also want to add the “ECHO OFF” command to the beginning of the file. This is typically added to the start of most batch files. When you do this, the commands themselves won’t be printed to the Command Prompt, but the results will be. For example, you’ll see the network connection details but not the “ipconfig /all” line. Most people don’t care to see the commands, so this can clean up the output.
So here’s what that might look like:
:: This batch file checks for network connection problems.
ECHO OFF
:: View network connection details
ipconfig /all
:: Check if Google.com is reachable
ping google.com
:: Run a traceroute to check the route to Google.com
tracert google.com
PAUSE
There are other directions you could go with a batch file like this. For example, you might want to have your batch script run the above commands and then dump the output to a text file you can view later. To do so, you’d use the >> operator after each command to append its output to the text file. As we’re going to read the output from the text file anyway, we can omit the PAUSEcommand.
:: This batch file checks for network connection problems
:: and saves the output to a .txt file.
ECHO OFF
:: View network connection details
ipconfig /all >>  results.txt
:: Check if Google.com is reachable
ping google.com >> results.txt
:: Run a traceroute to check the route to Google.com
tracert google.com >> results.txt
After you run the above script, you’d find a file named results.txt in the same folder as the batch file with the output of the commands. The Command Prompt window will automatically close once the batch file is done running.
The example we’re using above relies on actually printing information to the Command Prompt so the user can read it. However, many batch files are designed to be run non-interactively. For example, you could have a batch file that deletes multiple files or directories whenever you double-click it. You’d just need to use the del command to delete files or the deltree command to delete directories. Remember, you’re just using the same commands you’d run in a Command Prompt window.
Fundamentally, that’s the point of most batch files–just running a few commands one after another. However, batch files can actually be significantly more complex than this. For example, you can use “IF” statements along with the “GOTO” command to check the value of something and then skip to different lines depending on the result. This is more like writing an actual small program than a quick and dirty script. That’s one reason why .bat files are sometimes called “batch programs.” If you want to do something more complex, you’ll find plenty of guides to doing specific things with batch programming online. But now, you know the basics of how to throw a simple one together.

7 Ways To Free Up Hard Disk Space On Windows

7 Ways To Free Up Hard Disk Space On Windows

hard-disk
Hard drives are getting larger and larger, but somehow they always seem to fill up. This is even more true if you’re using a solid-state drive (SSD), which offers much less hard drive space than traditional mechanical hard drives.
If you’re hurting for hard drive space, these tricks should help you free up space for important files and programs by removing the unimportant junk cluttering up your hard disk.

Free Up Disk Space the Easy Way with CleanMyPC

If you want to clean up your PC and free up disk space the easy way, CleanMyPC is a great tool to get the job done easily, and it will even keep your computer clean automatically.
Unlike the competition, it also includes great tools like a Clean Uninstaller, to get rid of applications and also clean up the junk that they leave behind. All with the click of a button.

Run Disk Cleanup

Windows includes a built-in tool that deletes temporary files and other unimportant data. To access it, right-click one of your hard drives in the Computer window and select Properties.
(Alternatively you can just search for Disk Cleanup in the Start Menu.)
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Click the Disk Cleanup button in the disk properties window.
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Select the types of files you want to delete and click OK. This includes temporary files, log files, files in your recycle bin, and other unimportant files.
You can also clean up system files, which don’t appear in the list here. Click the Clean up system files button if you also want to delete system files.
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After you do, you can click the More Options button and use the Clean up button under System Restore and Shadow Copies to delete system restore data. This button deletes all but the most recent restore point, so ensure your computer is working properly before using it – you won’t be able to use older system restore points.
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Uninstall Space-Hungry Applications

Uninstalling programs will free up space, but some programs use very little space. From the Programs and Features control panel, you can click the Size column to see just how much space each program installed on your computer is using. The easiest way to get there is to search for “Uninstall programs” in the Start Menu.
If you don’t see this column, click the options button at the top right corner of the list and select the Details view. Note that this isn’t always accurate – some programs don’t report the amount of space they use. A program may be using a lot of space but may not have any information in its Size column.
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If you’re using Windows 10, you can also open the new PC Settings and go to System -> Apps & features.
Windows_10
This will let you remove either Windows Store apps or regular apps, and should also work on a tablet. You can, of course, still open the regular Uninstall Programs in the old Control Panel if you want.

Analyze Disk Space

To find out exactly what is using space on your hard drive, you can use a hard disk analysis program. These applications scan your hard drive and display exactly which files and folders are taking up the most space. We’ve covered the best 10 tools to analyze hard disk space, but if you want one to start with, try WinDirStat (Download from Ninite).
After scanning your system, WinDirStat shows you exactly which folders, file types, and files are using the most space. Ensure you don’t delete any important system files – only delete personal data files. If you see a program’s folder in the Program Files folder using a large amount of space, you can uninstall that program – WinDirStat can tell you just how much space a program is using, even if the Programs and Features Control Panel doesn’t.
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Clean Temporary Files

Windows’ Disk Cleanup tool is useful, but it doesn’t delete temporary files used by other programs. For example, it won’t clear Firefox or Chrome browser caches, which can use gigabytes of hard disk space. (Your browser cache uses hard disk space to save you time when accessing websites in the future, but this is little comfort if you need the hard disk space now.)
For more aggressive temporary and junk file cleaning, try CCleaner, which you can download here. CCleaner cleans junk files from a variety of third-party programs and also cleans up Windows files that Disk Cleanup won’t touch.
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Find Duplicate Files

You can use a duplicate-file-finder application to scan your hard drive for duplicate files, which are unnecessary and can be deleted. We’ve covered using VisiPics to banish duplicate images, and we’ve also created a comprehensive guide to finding and deleting duplicate files on Windows using free tools.
Or if you don’t mind spending a few bucks, you can use Duplicate Cleaner Pro, which not only has a nicer interface, but has tons of extra features to help you find and delete duplicate files.

Reduce the Amount of Space Used for System Restore

If System Restore is eating up a lot of hard drive space for restore points, you can reduce the amount of hard disk space allocated to System Restore. The trade-off is you’ll have less restore points to restore your system from and less previous copies of files to restore. If these features are less important to you than the hard disk space they use, go ahead and free a few gigabytes by reducing the amount of space System Restore uses.
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Nuclear Options

These tricks will definitely save some space, but they’ll disable important Windows features. We don’t recommend using any of them, but if you desperately need disk space, they can help:
  • Disable Hibernation – When you hibernate your system, it saves the contents of its RAM to your hard drive. This allows it to save its system state without any power usage – the next time you boot your computer, you’ll be back where you left of. Windows saves the contents of your RAM in the C:\hiberfil.sys file. To save hard drive space, you can disable hibernate entirely, which removes the file.
  • Disable System Restore – If reducing the amount of space System Restore uses isn’t good enough for you, you can disable System Restore entirely. You’ll be out-of-luck if you need touse System Restore to restore your system to an earlier state, so be warned.