OT - computer speed

|| William Tasso wrote: ||| On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 20:19:19 +0100, Richard Brookman ||| wrote: ||| |||| Rule of Tim - somebody here will know. |||| |||| My laptop has been getting steadily slower over the last 6 months. |||| ... ||| ||| Backup the data and reinstall from scratch? ||| ||| --William Tasso ||| ||| Land Rover - 110 V8 ||| Discovery - V8 || As usual, I agree with William on that. Most Windoze systems still || benefit from || a regular clean install on a regular basis. ||

Agreed. I am still a bit confused as to why they should need this - or rather why my work PC (running XP as well) never gets any attention and still runs as fast as they day I got it.

Not entirely keeping to the subject but I will always place my data on separate partition to the operating system. That way, when (not if!) Windows goes belly up you can reinstall Windows in full without worrying about securing the data. (I think that my 'data' may be defined differently to yours. You refer to files in general. I specifically mean stuff created by me - photos etc. for example.)

Putting the swap file onto another partition will not help speedwise unless, as William mentions, it's on another hard drive. However, if you had a variable size swap file on the 'C' drive (Windows default) and the drive was filling up with rubbish there would be an increasingly smaller space for the swap file to be able to use. If the swap file is on another partition it's safe from being squeezed. As you seem to have around 12Gb of space this shouldn't be the cause of your problem.

The Windows updates themselves are not the problem it's the backup files that are created to allow you to uninstall the updates. I believe (but don't take my word for it) that it's safe to delete these.

|| On 2006-08-22 15:40:48 +0100, "fanie" || said: || ||| As has been commented, installing service packs can have a ||| significant effect. I took a clean 2K machine, with just doze ||| loaded it was using about about 50Mb. Downloaded all the service ||| packs and updates and that shifted to nearer the 120Mb level, and ||| this was before installing software. || || In addition to all that has been mentioned, 256MB RAM is nowhere near || enough for an average XP SP2 machine these days. You really should || have a minimum of 512MB. With the extra loads that XP SP2's firewall || adds as well as the numerous service pack's and security centre, the || more memory you can install the better and it is currently one of the || cheapest upgrades you can perform. Ideally 1Gb would give your || laptop a new lease of life. || || || -- || Darren Griffin || PocketGPSWorld -

|| The Premier GPS Resource for News, Reviews and Forums

That would make sense. The laptop has two memory slots, each capable of

256MB. From new, it has had 256 in the user-accessible slot, but fitting 512 in there doesn't work (I've tried it). The other slot is deep within the bowels of the case, and I got half way there and stopped, as I was in danger of breaking something. They certainly don't make it easy. Dell recommends "back to the factory" for this - surprise surprise.

William Tasso wrote:

|| On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 18:34:04 +0100, Richard Brookman || wrote: || ||| William Tasso wrote: ||| ||||| On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 20:19:19 +0100, Richard Brookman ||||| wrote: ||||| |||||| Rule of Tim - somebody here will know. |||||| |||||| My laptop has been getting steadily slower over the last 6 |||||| months. ... ||||| ||||| Backup the data and reinstall from scratch? ||| ||| That's the Final Solution - worked on my daughter's, when she had ||| been spending too much time on kazaa and had a ton of malware. || || That would do it ;) || ||| However, I'd ||| quite like to know why a computer could slow down over the months ||| with no (obvious) reason why, and fix that rather than reformat and ||| re-install. || || How long have you got? been plenty good suggestions in this thread - || could take another six months to work out which apply and elimate the || others. || ||| As ||| I said in my post, my work PC is incredibly fast by comparison and ||| gets no ||| regular maintenance at all. That hasn't deteriorated in a year of ||| my daily ||| use. ||| ||| I'll keep your suggestion in my Last Resort file :-) || || Thought: The easy way is to buy a new HD unit, install onto that || and then load the old HD as a slave [1] - gives instant access to || your old data files and you get a HD upgrade to boot (pardon the || pun). || || [1] possibly marking the entire she-bang as read-only - MMV || -- || William Tasso || || Land Rover - 110 V8 || Discovery - V8

I'd been thinking along those lines - I have a 30GB HD in a case linked to the USB which I use for backups. Perhaps I could swap the drives over, install afresh on the new drive and transfer the important data back as and when. Unfortunately, being a laptop, there is no room to install drives together as master/slave as I have done in a desktop before now.

|| The Windows updates themselves are not the problem it's the backup || files that are created to allow you to uninstall the updates. I || believe (but don't take my word for it) that it's safe to delete || these.

Do you know how I find 'em to delete 'em?

|| Quickest way to defrag a disc is copy all of the data off it and || reformat, wouldn't recommend that for the C drive though, unless you || copy it with something like Norton Ghost.

I'm prepared to do that, but (risks showing total ignorance) isn't a ghost the exact image of the existing drive? And if so, wouldn't it copy all the crap* I want to get rid of at the same time?

*whether it's files, backups, settings, whatever

On or around Tue, 22 Aug 2006 19:10:29 +0100, "Richard Brookman" enlightened us thusly:

that depends on what software you're using and what other protection you put on it. On mine, for example I have Outpost firewall v3.51 which has a built-in spyware detector, so windows firewall is turned off. Outpost is set to "rules" mode which will only allow what you tell it to allow for each bit of software. I almost never use IE and then only under supervision, it's not allowed to connect to anything without asking. OE is not on the machines at all.

in general, software only gets to do what I think it should: for example, Agent is only allowed to connect via POP3 or SMTP to the relevant mail server hosts, and via NNTP to the news server.

If you use OE or IE regularly, I'd go with SP2 which I think patches some vulnerabilities in those. I'd still not use windows firewall, though - mickeysnot seem to have no idea about network security...

On or around Tue, 22 Aug 2006 20:59:00 +0100, "Larry" enlightened us thusly:

I have a thing called PerfectDisk 7 which is much nicer than windows' thing, and more useful - you can do scheduled defrags (at times when the machine isn't going to be in use) and stuff like that.

In my case (W2000), there's a great load of folders in my c:\winnt folder with names like $NtUninstall....

They haven't gone yet but I'm sorely tempted.

Speaking with my IT Consultancy hat on here I'd have to agree about NAV, wouldn't let it near my client systems, but OE is a pretty decent newsreader, it has its problems but it works well in conjunction with OE-Quote when configured properly.

Having converted to Mac recently I long for a decent newsreader!

I've always felt that this is because work computers are normally used in a much 'safer' manner - kids at home go places mere mortal adults fear to tread, download keygens, dubious music & so on that may well contain a hidden payload, or just plain badly written software. I always advise clients not to put work computers on a home network - by all means take them home, but keep 'em isolated from the unwashed ones.

Karen

The other point to bear in mind is that if the data on there is that important to you, it's important enough to back up anyway. Sooner or later, hard drives fail & you lose all anyway. Burn to a CD /series of CDs, memory sticks, DVD, or network copy to a larger PC.

Of course these days the real issue is that with the enormous hard drives now sold as standard, back up solutions haven't really kept pace with the storage needs, so second hard drives become much more a necessity for this purpose.

With that in mind, when setting up your systems make sure that all your data has a common root, such as My Documents (did you know you can define where that is?) and then copy EVERYTHING in that directory tree somewhere else.

On or around Tue, 22 Aug 2006 22:13:15 +0100, Dougal enlightened us thusly:

don't get rid of them if you want to uninstall stuff. I think they're records of installations so that when you uninstall XYZ it knows how to uninstall it.

There are also backup install things, which are not the same thing; Nero left a load on this machine. These are things that unpack a CD into 3 CD-s worth of install files, then don't have the courtesy to remove them after the install is complete. These, you can remove, mostly.

On or around Tue, 22 Aug 2006 22:54:43 +0100, Darren Griffin - PocketGPSWorld.Com enlightened us thusly:

there are some for Macs. I've often rather fancied a Mac, but the problem traditionally is that bang-for-buck, PCs were cheaper and software more readily available. I think this is not so much the case now, but there's still a lot more software for PC than for Mac even so.

main problem with OE is that it ships and installs wide-open; it's possible to make it secure (and make it work reasonably) but you have to do a lot of farting about to make it so, and joe public doesn't bother and thus spreads viruses all over the place.

it's not too onerous: o

that much is true.

||| Agreed. I am still a bit confused as to why they should need this ||| - or rather why my work PC (running XP as well) never gets any ||| attention and still runs as fast as they day I got it. ||| || I've always felt that this is because work computers are normally || used in a much 'safer' manner - kids at home go places mere mortal || adults fear to tread, || download keygens, dubious music & so on that may well contain a || hidden payload, || or just plain badly written software. I always advise clients not to || put work computers on a home network - by all means take them home, || but keep 'em isolated from the unwashed ones.

True, if my daughter's PC was anything to go by. However, my work PC and my home laptop get used by just the one person - me. The only difference (as far as I know, which ain't much) is that the work PC runs off the central server, so all the AV software, firewall etc are remote from my desktop. (Thinks - might have answered own question, turn off the AV as an experiment.)

AV =3D=3D Anti Virus? never use it, on any platform.

Also - Firewall should be a separate box/appliance/unit dedicated to the= =

task of firewalling - anything else renders it more likely to =

interference. Firewalls running as software on the box they're =

'protecting' are about as much use as a chocolate Tea Pot.

Very whimsical. Bill is no unlettered clod. See ya at the Renaissance Faire Billy Boy.

I'd go along with William - if anyone attacks my firewall (just a D-Link modem/router), the firewall box just hangs immediately, stops the bastards cold. My server is not affected, all I lose till I restart the firewall is internet access. They cost next to nothing, and are a good first line of defence.

However, I do use A/V software, as customers sometimes send me files to look at that have an unexpected bonus ...