My PC's soooo sloooow

[theloafer]

hi .mr pig try this site helped me turn off loads of stuff

http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php?submit=&filter=&submit.x=9&submit.y=7

 

[yenrod]

As a matter of interest - what was the problem?

I have a friend whose PC was taking 25 minutes to boot so I took a look at it for her. It turned out that her teenage sons had been spending about 3 hours a day visiting dodgy porn sites and downloading everything that they could get their grubby little hands on. The result? About 500 virtual sexually transmitted diseases (viruses/spyware/general dodginess). The most interesting thing I found was that her dial-up connection up been redirected to a premium rate phone number (fortunately very recently so she hadn't yet run up a massive bill).

I look at the big list of stuff running in the background on my PC and I know that half of it must me crap, but when you don't know what it is you don't know what you can get rid of! :0(

I use CCleeaner and would definately rate big time.

Then defrag it...

And see how it goes...thereafter should be zipp fast - the prob with comps is that you have to be a bloody IT expert on comps nowadays ~ mostly.

I wonder about stuff runing in the background - Vista has lots compared to what you can get rid of thats why quite a few IT jobs I know still run XP as its generally quicker...

 

[spandex]

Helen how is your computer doing now?

 

[HelenD123]

Helen how is your computer doing now?

It's a lot better than it was but I suspect could be improved further. I haven't had chance to try any of the recent suggestions or change my antivirus software yet.

Thanks for the continued suggestions guys.

 

[yenrod]

You could, Helen, try sacking the current anti-virus and getting the stock AVG free

http://www.download.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10320142.html

http://www.tallemu.com/free-firewall-protection-software.html

These go well together on XP....

Also try:

http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/Starter/starter.html

Starter is a nice prog. for monitoring the progs that're running etc...doesn't download crap etc..

This is effectively my set-up when on an XP comp.

 

[peanut]

every time that you download and install any software (including crapcleaner)the software installs a macro in your startup folder. Then every time you boot your PC and go online all these programs dial home to mum to tell them what you have been doing with your pc and what sites you visted etc they also download updates and patches etc.
This is when your pc is also running a anti virus scan and god knows what else . No wonder your pc is on its knees

First thing to do is remove all this crap from your startup folder stuff like office and adobe and nero and winmedia and winzip etc etc you don't need all this stuff to load when you boot your pc.

Then you look at the tasks running in the background and clear the dross there. I only have a max of 19 tasks running on my pc when online.

Its just a question of lots of house -keeping from all the years of accumalation of rubbish choking your pc.

 

[twowheelsgood]

every time that you download and install any software (including crapcleaner)the software installs a macro in your startup folder

rubbish. ccleaner does not run anything at start-up if you uncheck "check for updates" when installing. Lots of things do but it's easy to turn them off - either use ccleaner itself (tools->startup) or in windows (start->run->msconfig)

Then every time you boot your PC and go online all these programs dial home to mum to tell them what you have been doing with your pc and what sites you visted etc they also download updates and patches etc.

What evidence do you have that reputable software reports your surfing habits? - pure FUD.

 

[peanut]

ahhhhh the opinionated arrogance of ignorant yoof


The point that seems to escape you in your haste to score a point in this discussion is that the majority of PC users incl Helen do not appear to know how to 'switch off' auto software updates .

That is why I spent several hours helping Helen with her PC problem through PM's and you spend 5 seconds trying to rubbish others posters constructive help.

Regarding msconfig (which incidentally I have already mentioned in this thread )
msconfig is not automatically installed with XP or Vista and I would doubt 1 PC user in 10000 have even heard of it let alone know how to use it which is why users eventually need assistance ..although clearly not from you

 

[twowheelsgood]

Still doesn't substantiate your claim that any reputable software reports back your surfing habits even if you leave the auto update on.

It's very public spirited of you to help but there is no need to spread FUD.

And there is no need for you to be so rude.

 

[Batzman]

ahhhhh the opinionated arrogance of ignorant yoof


The point that seems to escape you in your haste to score a point in this discussion is that the majority of PC users incl Helen do not appear to know how to 'switch off' auto software updates .

That is why I spent several hours helping Helen with her PC problem through PM's and you spend 5 seconds trying to rubbish others posters constructive help.

Regarding msconfig (which incidentally I have already mentioned in this thread )
msconfig is not automatically installed with XP or Vista and I would doubt 1 PC user in 10000 have even heard of it let alone know how to use it which is why users eventually need assistance ..although clearly not from you

Actually, BITS (The windows auto-update service) is very well optimized not to consume excessive amounts of bandwidth. You shouldn't notice it on any reasonable broadband connection. I really don't think it's a good idea to turn off auto updates. Do you really want your machine to remain vulnerable to things like the conficker worm, or the latest IE exploit of the day? Turning off auto updates is one of the reasons why there are so many machines out there that have virus/spyware problems. an unpatched machine is exactly what malware writers go for, because it's an easy target. Who cares that the updates are 2GB or so. I don't think you can even get a disk smaller than about 120GB these days...

I think you'll find msconfig is installed on most systems, but if you want to review startup programs (because they may not only reside in the startup folder) I'd suggest using MS onecare (it has explanations for what is running, if it can identify them) or the psexplorer that was mentioned in an earlier post.

 

[hackbike 666]

I have a computer that is well over 6 years old (still faster than this laptop on paper) but I reckon it just needs a total clean up basically.Probably a reinstall as it loads up so slow.

 

[oscar]

go into accerioes (in start tab) click sytem, tools then click disk clean up. (I always mark the boxes) also clear up your restore points.

Second is to sort out what programs start when you turn your pc on (so it will start faster)

Go into control panel click windows defender, click tools, click software explorer. click show for all users. then sort out what you want to run or not run when you turn your pc on.

As for your antivirus AVG is free
http://www.download.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10320142.html?tag=mncol;pop

PC TOOLS firewall free
PC Tools threat fire is free
http://www.pctools.com/

Also at Download.com you can get a registry mechanic to clear up broken links and old folders that disk clean up misses

Or you can do it the naughty way by going to pctools and getting there registry mechanic then going to here.
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkZDNJ4m9Ho&feature=related


Once you have installed it and put in the code and serial, just use your firewall to stop it accessing the net as no further updates needed. (but that's the naughty way). Sorry for the for the sloppy wording but i have the plague at the moment.

 

[Speck]

I have been using Avast anti-virus and found it easier to use than AVG.

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

 

[Cullin]

In my 23 years as an IT manager, Crap Cleaner, I have found to be by far the best bit of free software for good housekeeping.
The worst thing as far as loading stuff onto to your PC's, is some of the rubbish, so caller PC cleaning utilities that are given away with some magazines, I found they cause customers more trouble than anything else.

 

[Sittingduck]

+1 for CCleaner!