This advice will keep your computer system running efficiently.  A computer’s speed is determined by your hardware, version of Windows, system configuration, and the care taken with the information it stores. 

If your computer system is still running poorly after following this advice, it could be time to upgrade your hardware.

Restart / Shut Down All Computers

This should be done at least once a week as it refreshes system resources available to your computers.  This can improve system performance immediately.

Sleep mode is not the same as shutting down / restarting, and does not provide the same benefits.

Disk Clean-up

This removes temporary files left on your computers from everyday use.

  • Click on your Windows Start button and type cleanmgr in the Search bar.
  • Press [Enter] or click on cleanmgr.exe.
  • In the Drive Selection screen, select your C: drive and click OK.
  • The utility will then begin analysing and calculating the files that can be cleaned up.
  • Select Temporary Internet Files and Temporary Files and click OK.
  • When prompted, click Delete Files.

Pack Tables & Check Tables

These utilities remove any empty records from your Retailer database, recreates indexes and ensure that the database is up-to-date.

These utilities can only be run on your MAIN computer.

Retailer must be closed on all computers while you run these utilities. They typically take 5-10 minutes each.

To run Pack Tables:

  • On the desktop, double-click on RetailerV3 Backup.
  • On the left-hand side, click on Pack Tables.
  • Click Yes to confirm and then click on Start.
  • When the process is finished, click Close.

To run Check Tables:

  • On the desktop, double-click on RetailerV3 Backup.
  • On the left-hand side, click on Check Tables.
  • Click on Start.
  • When the process is finished, click Close.

Disk Defragmenter (Windows 7 and earlier)

This process can take a long time (depending on the degree of fragmentation and the speed of your system) and will stop if you try to do other tasks on your computer.  We recommend you run this process overnight. Newer versions of Windows will perform this automatically, so running it manually is unnecessary.

  • If you haven't done so yet, restart/reboot your computer to make sure no programs are still running.
  • On the desktop, double-click on RetailerV3 Backup.
  • Click on Settings.
  • Click on Database Settings.
  • Click on Stop.
  • When the Stopping Database Engine screen disappears, click on Close.
  • Click on the Windows Start button and type defrag in the Search bar.
  • Press [Enter] or click on Disk Defragmenter.
  • Select your C: drive and click on Defragment Disk.
  • Let the process run through until a message appears telling you that it has finished.

Run Anti-virus Scan

For Windows 10 or later, we do not recommend using an anti-virus program, as the built-in Windows Defender is sufficient. Windows Defender will automatically scan your computer periodically; there is no need to manually perform a scan.

You should run a full anti-virus scan to ensure that no malware is present that could compromise your system. 

You need to make sure that the C:\Tower folder is added as an exception in your antivirus software.

Unfortunately, due to the variety of antivirus software on the market, we can not provide instructions on how to run a scan. We suggest that you refer to the instructions from the antivirus company's website or contact them directly.