Integration Technologies Inc. recommends rebooting your
business computer at the end of each day and then leaving it at the logon screen.
While this won’t prevent all computer issues, it certainly has a lot of
advantages. Let’s look at a few of them.
First, if we leave the computer
powered on at night, it has an opportunity to check for and install updates,
run disk defragmentation, update antivirus software and run scans, along with
other maintenance tasks. It’s able to do this at night, so those tasks
don’t slow you down during the day. If you’re setup to do so, leaving it
powered on overnight also keeps the computer available so you can access it
remotely.
If you reboot your computer as
you’re leaving your desk for the day, you don’t have to wait for the computer
to shut down, run any update tasks and fully reboot. The computer takes
care of all that while you’re away from your desk.
The reboot itself allows your
operating system to shut down all of your running programs, clear memory and
essentially get a “fresh start.” This daily reboot will help prevent
small annoyances and issues that tend to creep up when your computer has been
powered on for days or weeks on end. Frequently, Windows updates also
need to restart the computer to complete their installation. Your daily
reboot allows this to happen, so new updates can continue to be downloaded and installed
as they’re available. Consequently, this also helps keep your computer a
little more secure.
Scott Johnston
Network Engineer