Why you should get into the habit of rebooting your computer once a week.
As a managed IT service provider, we encourage our clients to call us whenever they need IT support. After all, we are their IT department and if they’re having trouble with their computer, they need to know they can count on us to help them resolve their issues and get back to work fast. But so often, we get asked questions that don’t have a good rhyme or reason for happening.
Examples of questions recently asked include:
- I use a particular font all the time, but all of the sudden it’s not in my font list. Can you help me find it?
- My computer is running SO SLOWLY lately. Is it time for an upgrade?
- I’ve tried to print this document like a dozen times and it isn’t printing.
You’ve likely been asked the question, did you reboot computers? When confronted with obscure issues like in the above examples, before we start to diagnose the symptoms, we often look to see when the last time the client’s computer was rebooted. More often than not, the answer is measured in weeks or months. After a reboot, the issue reported almost always resolves.
The reason a reboot often works
There are so many important processes that happen when a computer is rebooted. At the bare minimum, upon a reboot, operating system updates are installed, hosted services are reinitiated, and temporary file caches are refreshed. Additionally, some software applications that aren’t optimized to efficiently use your computer’s resources, such as memory, that can substantially hinder your machine’s performance, are ended. And in an enterprise environment, when a device reboots and a user logs in, a series of scripts may be run to trigger any number of things, from mounting network drives to updating printer drivers, virus definitions, and software applications.
We recommend get a computer reboot into your schedule once a week
We realize there’s a balance between your productivity during the workweek and your computer’s general health. When you leave the office for the weekend, you can use this chance to shut down your computer for a computer reboot. During the workweek, go ahead, leave your computer on and your files open all week. But, when you leave for the weekend, save your work, reboot the computer, and head out to happy hour.
Some addition resources: