You should first get a registry defragmenting program. The program should also look for errors in the registry. (I use a program called WinASO to both defragment and check for registry errors.) Another source of pain and anguish is the anti-virus program. The more recent versions of Norton suck up immense computing resources. You can turn off a bunch of scans that Norton does, and that helps. You should also defrag the hard drive.
Part of the problem is that as XP has been upgraded by MS it eats up more and more resources.
I (my brother in law, really) have a computer that has a SERIOUS case of
>The Slows. It takes FOREVER to open apps, and complete any number of >different tasks.
>
> It is an off-brand box that came from Fry's (I think). I don't recall what
> the architecture is, but I'm pretty sure my 286-based laptop was faster. >
> The computer is on its way to my house for a checkout. I'm not sure what
> my strategy will be.
>
> The machine has a valid version of XP Home edition, but I do not know if
> it has the Restore CD or not. Can I use a different copy of XP to do
> restore operations? I assume that I have to use the Key Code that is on
> the computer, not the one that belongs to the copy of XP that I will > restore from.
>
> Do not hesitate to offer suggestions on what to do ...
>
>
>
Don't let relatives know that you have computer expertise. If you get assigned a computer maintenance or repair job, screw it up. If you are not going to listen to reason, the following may be helpful.
Run
formatting link
no matter what kind of anti-virus ison the machine now.
Defrag the hard drive and make sure that it is not almost full.
Put XP Professional on it.
Make him justify any non-Microsoft software that he has installed.
Do an internet search for WinASO, and get that program. Whenever my laptop starts to take a long time opening up menus or programs I run that program and let it clean my registry. Once the registry is cleaned you should let WinASO defragment the registry. It also has a registry optimizer. Unless you pay for it, you can only fix 10 problems at a time, which isn't too bad unless you have hundreds of errors.
The other option is to watch outside to see when the 14 to 18 year old neighbor kids get home. You can usually hire one of them to fix it up for $20 or so depending on how bad it is. Just make sure the kid is a computer geek.
personally I would atttempt to figure out the offending application or driver before loading _anything_ .
boot the workstation up, bring up task manager, take a look at your resources, what is using the most memory, what is the CPU at, you may find a service or app is using tons of memory...an example would be AOL messenger...if so de-install or kill that process.
It sounds to me if the box is dead slow unless your hard drive is spinning endlessly, you probably have your memory or cpu maxed out by some process.
If your hard disk is spinning endlessly, you can always remove your pagefile then defrag then add it back. if the page file gets fragmented especially with low RAM it can slow things down...
Earl you are so right. As the resident Techie in my family I should have screwed up my first few times I helped out. Now I get the machines running smooth only to have it farked up again by those I just fixed it for.
Earle Hort> Don't let relatives know that you have computer expertise. If you get
oops didn't see that - well sounds like you found the culprit...100% cpu yeah that will slow you down...here's a good link on optimizing your page file ...
formatting link
The Task Manager was reporting CPU Usage at 100%, but now is hovering in a range of about 5% to 30%, and seems to spend most of the time at about
If you have the install disks - not the recovery disks that came with the machine - you are home free. You can use the recovery version (if the OEM supplied it) on the machine it shipped with (others if you are clever and a bit lucky) but the honest-to-goodness Install Disks from MS will work on anything meeting hardware specs.
I have a problem with about all of the anti-virus apps at times. I've watched McAfee bring even the fastest machines to their knees. One office had all sorts of email traffic and the 2007 version basically killed the box during mail retrieval. To see if that is the problem, disconnect the machine from the net, do a full scan, then turn the virus scanner OFF and see what it's doing.
For a really infected machine - which this office got a couple of times - I pull the drive and install it as a secondary drive in another machine to scan it and clean it up.
My Dad has an AMD 2.5 MHz with 384mb of 2100 ram, I have a Celeron 2.2 with
756mb of the obsolete 133 MHz ram which runs incredibly faster. The only real difference in the systems is the amount of RAM installed.
That being said there are a number of settings that you can change to speed up windows.
From Explorer select 'Tools" then 'Internet Options" Select "Delete Cookies", "Clear History", and both options of 'Delete Files'. This may take a while, the longer it takes the worse shape the system is in.
Make sure you have removed all of Norton's and that the MS firewall is turned off. I used to run Norton Suite and Internet Security... after the
2004 version the drag on the system is oppressive so I only run Internet Security now (includes AntiVirus)
Go to the "Control Panel", then select "System", then "Advanced", then under 'Performance: select "Settings". The default is "Let Windows Decide" which will scientifically poll, survey, investigate, and finally choose the worst possible combination imaginable.
If you select "Best Performance" it turns off a lot of the visual settings that use up resources, it also doesn't look so good. Click on the options one at a time an see if the change is important to you......I have found that most of these make no difference to me except the last choice.... "Use visual Styles on windows and buttons" will re-establish XP back to color.....
Select 'Advanced" again and go to 'Virtual Memory: As you have too little 'real' memory you can make XP use hard drive space instead. It is slower but will get your programs running.
If you got "$40,000 worth of Free software" I hope you have removed most or all of it as it is useless.... that is why it was free....
From "My Computer" select your root drive and select "Disk Cleanup", allow it to clean up anything it finds. Then go to "Tools" and "Error Check" the drive. It will actually do the checking the next time you start the system and takes a fair amount of time (it will tell you how far it is through each step)
We will assume you have already deleted all the 'free' nudie pictures, programs, and screen savers that have been downloaded and installed.
99.44/100% are virus laden and the remaining 0.56% aren't worth having.
If you are virus laden if may be faster to format the drive and reload everything (the first thing to install after XP is the virus software)
In the case of a reload you can still use the recommendations listed above to increase performance.
As for using 'your' serial number and another copy of XP..... I do not know. The problem with many of the "Restore" CDs is they insist on reloading that $40k worth of wasted space.
Unless your needs are unusual all you need out of Office is Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and my main use of Excel and PowerPoint is the stuff people send me for laughs or to review.
This raises a good point also.... remove any program from the 'Startup" folder that doesn't actually have to be there. These programs consume resources that you are already too short of.
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