Windows 7 - System Maintenance Troubleshooter - Turn On or Off

   Information

The System Maintenance Troubleshooter automatically performs common maintenance tasks below weekly in Windows 7. It either fixes any found problems automatically, or reports the problems through Action Center.

What it fixes:

• Broken shortcuts - Broken shortcuts are invalid references to programs and other resources. For example, a desktop shortcut for a USB device may be regarded as broken if the USB device is not connected when the System Maintenance troubleshooter performs its maintenance. When there are more than 4 broken shortcuts on the desktop, then all broken shortcuts on the desktop are removed.
• Troubleshooting history is taking up disk space - Frees up disk space by removing troubleshooting history logs older than 1 month.
• System time is incorrectly set - Sets the correct system time and synchronize system clock with the time server. When the system time is set incorrectly, features that rely on time measurement such as Product Activation, malware scanners, browser certificates, etc... might not work correctly.
• Unused desktop icons - Icons and shortcuts on the desktop that have been unused in 3 months are removed.
• Disk volume errors - Frees up disk space by repairing hard disk volume errors such as bad sectors, lost clusters, cross-linked files and directory errors. These problems can cause the file system to report incorrect volume details and occupy excessive disk space.
• Error reports are taking up disk space - Frees up disk space by removing error reports and logs older than 1 month.

This tutorial will show you how to change the troubleshooting settings for Computer Maintenance to turn the System Maintenance Troubleshooter on or off.

If turned off, System Maintenance Troubleshooter will no longer automatically perform the tasks above. You will still be able to manually run System Maintenance Troubleshooter though.

   Warning

You must be logged in as an administrator to be able to do this tutorial.

1. Open the troubleshooting Change Settings (click on link) window.

2. To Turn On System Maintenance Troubleshooter
NOTE: This is the default setting.

A) Under Computer Maintenance, select (dot) On (Recommended), and click on OK.

B) Go to step 4.

3. To Turn Off System Maintenance Troubleshooter

A) Under Computer Maintenance, select (dot) Off, and click on OK.
NOTE: You may need to refresh the desktop after step 4 to hopefully restore any shortcuts that were hidden/removed by the System Maintenance Troubleshooter.

4. If prompted by UAC, then click on Yes.

5. When finished, close the Troubleshooting window.