Diskwipe, then XP reinstall
David
search for it. Apologies. If you can point me to a thread I will be happy
to go there.
I have an old Dell PC,( vintage 2003), with XP Home Edition. It has been
updated regularly, so the XP version is current. But the machine is so
burdened with junk software that it can barely crawl anymore. I need to
wipe the disk and re-install XP.
I have the original SP-1 reinstallation disk that was provided by Dell with
the purchase.
My question: What is the best way to bring the re-install up to the current
release version?
Thank you very much, in advance.
Ǝиçεl
Bill in Co.
the SP3 update. That will bring you a good ways up to date, but if you want
more updates, you can go to the MS website for more.
HeyBub
> This question has probably been asked before, but I can't figure out
> how to search for it. Apologies. If you can point me to a thread I
> will be happy to go there.
>
> I have an old Dell PC,( vintage 2003), with XP Home Edition. It has
> been updated regularly, so the XP version is current. But the
> machine is so burdened with junk software that it can barely crawl
> anymore. I need to wipe the disk and re-install XP.
No you don't.
Jose
Why don't you just fix up what you have?
Guesstimate the time it takes you to create a new XP slipstreamed CD
(and hope it works) or use your SP1 CD (is it a Dell CD or a genuine
Microsoft CD?), backup all your personal data, reformat your drive,
reinstall XP and all your various chipset/motherboard drivers you
acquired since you first got your system, get back on the Internet to
update your Service Pack(s) and then download and install all the
Critical Updates from MS, locate, reinstall and configure all your
application software from scratch and then update all them and finally
restore any personal data you backed up before you started. Then
spend a day or two or three adjusting and tweaking to get things back
to normal.
Guesstimate about 1 hour to analyze and optimize current your system
performance and configuration (depending on what is going on).
Which is more appealing?
I have never reinstalled XP on this old machine in 6+ years and it
still runs great in spite of my continual abuse and burdening.
Daave
HeyBub and Jose are probably correct. That is, unless your PC is
compromised beyond belief, reinstalling XP is most likely not necessary.
It is better to identify the problem and solve it. Otherwise, it will
most likely return.
If you are certain there is no malware, skip ahead to steps 4 and 5 and
let us know your Commit Charge figures and which hard drive access mode
you see (i.e., DMA or PIO).
In the event that you must perform a Clean Install, there is an SP3
installation file you may download from Microsoft. You should download
and save it to an external hard drive now. Or you can create a CD that
contains SP3. You have two choices:
You should definitely look at and print these two pages:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windowsxp.general/msg/a066ae41add7dd2b
Here are the usual causes of sluggishness:
1. Malicious software (malware). You need to rule this out first! This
page has excellent information:
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Viruses_Malware
2. Certain programs that are designed to combat malware (e.g., Norton
and McAfee). Ironically, they can slow things down because they simply
use way too many resources. Sometime they cause conflicts with other
programs. And their default mode is to scan your entire hard drive each
time you boot up. Fortunately, there are other antimalware programs
available that use far fewer resources (e.g., NOD32, Avast, and Avira).
3. Too many of certain types of programs always running in the
background -- with or without your knowledge. (Then again, many programs
that run in the background have trivial consequences.)
To determine every program and process you are currently running, use
the Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Processes tab. You should
be able to sort by CPU usage or Memory usage to get a good ideas which
ones are the resource/memory hogs. You should write down the names of
all the processes for future detective work (or take a snapshot and
print it out).
Use these sites to determine what these programs are and to learn how to
configure them not to always run at startup:
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.php#THE_PROGRAMS
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm
Sometimes it is recommended to use msconfig to configure the programs to
not run at startup. A better, more thorough program is Autoruns:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
But before you do this, you should use the preference settings of the
program in question. Otherwise, for some programs, they will return to
the startup list anyway!
If you do wish to use msconfig, it may be accessed this way:
Start | Run | type "msconfig" (without the quotation marks) | Enter (or
OK)
4. Not enough RAM, which causes the PC to overly rely on the pagefile. A
quick way to determine if this is happening is to open Task Manager
(Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Performance tab. Then note the three values
under Commit Charge (K): in the lower left-hand corner: Total, Limit,
and Peak.
The Total figure represents the amount of memory you are using at that
very moment. The Peak figure represents the highest amount of memory you
used since last bootup. If both these figures are below the value of
Physical Memory (K) Total, then you probably have plenty of RAM.
In case you want to explore this further, you may run Page File Monitor
for Windows XP:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm
5. You might also want to check that your hard drive's access mode
didn't change from DMA to PIO:
http://www.technize.com/2007/08/02/is-your-hard-disk-cddvd-drives-too-slow-while-copying/
and
http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udma_fix/
David
David
Thank you, Jose. Your response IS constructive. And appealing. The
problem is that I am just not smart enough to know what is necessary to
analyze and optimize my current system performance and configuration. I
wish I was. As only one example, there are some 50-75 programs in my Start
Up file that most of which I have no idea what they are doing, and whether
it would be safe for me to disenable them. That's only one example. For
me to educate myself on all that is necessary to know, I fear, would take
much more time than to just wipe the disk and start over. (But this I am
expecting will be bad enough already, as you say.)
Daave
Bruce Chambers
All legitimate WinXP installation CDs are bootable and have the
capability of deleting, creating, and formatting partitions.
Simply boot from the WinXP installation CD. You'll be offered the
opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as part of the
installation process. (You may need to re-arrange the order of boot
devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from the CD.)
HOW TO Install Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;316941
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm
--
Bruce Chambers
Help us help you:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin
Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell
The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot
Jose
This is not a new issue! It is so un-new, I can just copy/paste
guidance to get you started. If some part of it not clear in any way,
let me know so I can change my instructions.
If you want to fix it yourself, do this:
Click Start, Run and in the box enter:
msinfo32
Click OK, and when the System Summary info appears, click Edit, Select
All, Copy and then paste back here.
There would be some personal information (like System Name and User
Name) or whatever appears to be only your business that you can delete
from the paste.
Download and install CCleaner from here:
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
Launch it and save the Startup information to a text file. Click
Tools, Startup, Save to text file... and save the startup information
to your desktop (or someplace you can find it) open the file with a
text editor, select all and paste the contents back here for analysis.
Uninstall CCleaner later if you don't like it (most people seem to
like it for it's other features).
Get the latest CCleaner here:
When you are done, we will be able to see all your startup items and
help you decide what to keep. I have zero Startup items and maybe you
can too.
Right click the Taskbar, choose Task Manager and select the Processes
tab.
Click View, Select Columns, check the box that says: Virtual Memory
Size. Expand the width of the Task Manager by dragging the corners so
you can see all the columns and processes in one window if possible.
Double click a column heading in TM to sort by the column. For
example, sort Task Manager by the CPU or Virtual Memory size column.
Take a screenshot of what you see in Task Manager (see below for
instructions).
To create and email/post/print a screenshot:
Press the Print Scrn button to copy your entire screen to the Windows
clipboard.
Press Alt Print Scrn to copy just the active window to the Windows
clipboard.
Open MS Paint:
Start, Programs, Accessories, Paint
When Paint opens, press CTRL-V to paste the clipboard, save the new
Paint file to your desktop or someplace you can remember. JPG files
take up less hard
disk space than BMP files and are just as readable.
Make as many screenshots as you need. Practice makes perfect. Be
careful your screenshot does not contain any personal information.
Practice viewing your images before you upload them to be sure they
are okay.
Some sites will let you attach a file directly to your post. If the
site has some kind of attachment/upload function it is usually easiest
just to use it.
If there is no such function in your message board to upload files,
then use a free third party image hosting WWW site.
Create a free account on some free picture hosting web site. You can
always remove your account later if you want. Here are some free
image hosting sites:
http://www.imageshack.us/
http://photobucket.com/
Using your free account, upload your screenshot(s) (the JPG or BMP
files) to the site and it will return to you a URL web address (a
Direct Link) for your new image(s) which you can paste the Direct Link
in a message post, email, etc.
Post that Direct Link web address back here in your response and we
can click on the link address and see your screenshot. Post as many
as you need - the sites are free.
When you are done, what you post for others to use should look
something like this:
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/6530/taskmanagerv.jpg
While you are waiting for feedback on your stuff, do this:
Download, install, update and do a full scan with these free malware
detection programs:
Malwarebytes (MBAM): http://malwarebytes.org/
SUPERAntiSpyware: (SAS): http://www.superantispyware.com/
They can be uninstalled later if desired.
HeyBub
> Thank you for your constructive response, "HeyBub"
>
You're welcome.
I just want to leave the world a better place than I found it.
T Shadow
>> Thank you for your constructive response, "HeyBub"
>>
news:eisar5FA...@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>>> >No you don't.
>
>
> You're welcome.
>
> I just want to leave the world a better place than I found it.
Go to dictionary.com and look up constructive and sarcasm.
David
responses! As always, this NG is so knowledgeable and helpful!
My original intent, for lack of time, was to take the box in to the shop
and have them do the diskwipe, (while saving the drivers, etc.), and then
do the XP reinstall. Afterwards I would reinstall the few applications
myself.
You all have convinced me that I should first try to clean things up by
myself. But I still have a serious time problem, and you have just given
me a month's worth of spare-time homework. Please forgive me if I do not
respond immediately, because I intend to first fully digest everything that
you have provided so that I don't do something stupid. You folks are far
more familiar with all of this than I am.
I will respond as soon as I can. For now, thank you again!
Erwin Moller
> Thank you for your constructive response, "HeyBub"
>
David,
Heybub is wellknown in here for his pisspoor advice.
You'll find better responses from others. ;-)
Regards,
Erwin
--
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to
make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the
other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious
deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult."
-- C.A.R. Hoare
David
For context, my initial OP post, dated 30 May, is at the bottom of this
post in case it has been lost from your thread. You folks gave me a lot of
homework, and I have only now gotten far enough along with that to make a
meaningful response.
This post is directed primarily at Jose and Daave, who both encouraged me
to try and fix my existing system rather than to "Diskwipe and Reinstall".
I don't know whether I am up to this task, but here is an initial thrust:
First of all, let me say that I feel quite sure that there is no malware
problem with the system. I have had both McAfee and Webroot SpySweeper
running for several years now. I know that they are resource hogs, but
they have kept me out of trouble so far. I will probably take your advice
though and go with "lighter" products when their subscriptions expire. I
should note here, however, that the subject system slowdown has happened
(albeit gradually) long after these two products were initially installed.
Regarding the DMA/PIO issue, I have attempted to describe it in words but
finally gave up. There appear to be four combinations of answers, not
easily described, so I am just including images: (This is my first attempt
to try to use an image hosting service like this with USENET, so I hope it
works. If anyone has trouble viewing these, please tell me.)
http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/9924/primaryidechannel.jpg
http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/8333/secondaryidechannel.jpg
If I can presume that I have passed the malware and PIO tests, then here is
a text file of my msinfo32 file:
msinfo32 Summary 9 June 2010
OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name [Snip]
System Manufacturer Dell Computer Corporation
System Model Dimension 4550
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 7 GenuineIntel ~2657 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Dell Computer Corporation A03, 11/12/2002
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume2
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.5512
(xpsp.080413-2111)"
User Name [Snip]
Time Zone SE Asia Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 58.03 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 1.22 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
And here is a text file of my CCleaner startup file:
Yes HKCU:Run ctfmon.exe "C:\WINDOWS\system32\ctfmon.exe"
Yes HKLM:Run ATIPTA "C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI
Control Panel\atiptaxx.exe"
Yes HKLM:Run Adobe Photo Downloader "C:\Program Files\Photoshop
Elements\apdproxy.exe"
Yes HKLM:Run Microsoft Works Portfolio "C:\Program
Files\Microsoft Works\WksSb.exe" /AllUsers
Yes HKLM:Run nmctxth "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Pure
Networks Shared\Platform\nmctxth.exe"
Yes HKLM:Run nmapp "C:\Program Files\Pure Networks\Network
Magic\nmapp.exe" -autorun -nosplash
Yes HKLM:Run SunJavaUpdateSched "C:\Program
Files\Java\jre6\bin\jusched.exe"
Yes HKLM:Run mcui_exe "C:\Program
Files\McAfee.com\Agent\mcagent.exe" /runkey
Yes HKLM:Run WorksFUD "C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Works\wkfud.exe"
Yes HKLM:Run SpySweeper "C:\Program
Files\Webroot\WebrootSecurity\SpySweeperUI.exe" /startintray
Yes Startup Common Adobe Reader Speed Launch.lnk C:\Program
Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Reader\reader_sl.exe
Yes Startup Common Microsoft Office.lnk C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Office\Office10\OSA.EXE
Yes Startup Common Microsoft Works Calendar Reminders.lnk C:\Program
Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Works Shared\wkcalrem.exe
(If you are wondering what Pure Networks\Network Magic is, it's a
"pretty-GUI" network management program for people who aren't very smart
about networks. That's me.)
And here is an image of my Task Manager's process tab:
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/9181/taskmanagere.jpg
Please note that at your suggestion I have already downloaded and ran
"Autoruns.exe", and have already disabled a number of items before the
above taskmanager snapshot was taken. These already appear to have
increased the processing speed noticeably.
Also please note that I am not so concerned about the time required for the
system startup. I am much more concerned about the processing speed once
startup has completed. Anything you can tell me to help to increase that
speed will be greatly appreciated.
Finally, I am attempting to provide you a lot of information above in ways
that I have never done before, so if some of it doesn't work, or doesn't
make sense, please tell me and I will try again. Suggestions welcome.
Thanks again, guys!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Daave
in the correct mode (DMA), you either need to add more RAM or uninstall
McAfee and Webroot and go with better replacements. (A Clean Install
will *not* help you with your performance if you intend to reinstall
McAfee and Webroot!) I would use Avira AntiVir for your antivirus
program and MalwareByte's AntiMalware and SUPERAntiSpyware for your
non-viral anti-malware programs.
But, again, to determine if you are relying too heavily on your pagefile
(a definite cause of sluggishness!), open Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del)
and click the Performance tab. Then note the three values under Commit
Charge (K): in the lower left-hand corner: Total, Limit, and Peak. (In
your screen shot, at the bottom, I was able to see Total and Limit. But
Peak is important, too!)
The Total figure represents the amount of memory you are using at that
very moment. The Peak figure represents the highest amount of memory you
used since last bootup. If both these figures are below the value of
Physical Memory (K) Total, then you probably have plenty of RAM.
In case you want to explore this further, you may run Page File Monitor
for Windows XP:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm
Mike S
You can breathe new life into your system, I would consider the following:
- get at least 2GB of RAM total
- remove the items below from the startup
- if you can *overclock it I would research that so you understand how
to protect your cpu from overheating while getting more performance out
of it.
*http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim4550/specs.htm#1101572
Intel� Pentium� 4 microprocessor that runs at 1.80, 1.90, 2.0, or 2.20
GHz internally and 400 MHz externally; or 2.26, 2.4, 2.53, 2.66, 2.8, or
3.06 GHz internally and 533 MHz externally
- tell us what kind of video card you have
You can use Mike Lin Startup cpl if you want a nice gui (it will place a
new icon "Startup" in the control panel and you can check or uncheck
startup entries quickly, easily, and reversibly).
ATIPTA "C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI
Control Panel\atiptaxx.exe"
Adobe Photo Downloader "C:\Program Files\Photoshop
Elements\apdproxy.exe"
Microsoft Works Portfolio "C:\Program
Files\Microsoft Works\WksSb.exe" /AllUsers
nmctxth "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Pure
Networks Shared\Platform\nmctxth.exe"
nmapp "C:\Program Files\Pure Networks\Network
Magic\nmapp.exe" -autorun -nosplash
SunJavaUpdateSched "C:\Program
Files\Java\jre6\bin\jusched.exe"
WorksFUD "C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Works\wkfud.exe"
Adobe Reader Speed Launch.lnk C:\Program
Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Reader\reader_sl.exe
Microsoft Office.lnk C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Office\Office10\OSA.EXE
Microsoft Works Calendar Reminders.lnk C:\Program
Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Works Shared\wkcalrem.exe
Mike
Mike S
RAM discussions you may find interesting:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/itproxpsp/thread/83584c69-a000-42cd-9f16-d40cd69d8011
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080408225454AAwpTgy
Also visual effects can impact performance
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5030748.html
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/personalize/performance.mspx
Jose
That is all very good information.
You can see from TM where your Virtual Memory is going (at least you
do not have the Spybot Teatimer!), but if you are not getting the
infomational message that XP s increasing the size of your paging file
(are you?) then XP would seem to be happy. If you have some $$$, get
a meg or two, but you have more than me so I am jealous.
You do have some things running you probably do not need. The good
part is, you can now use CCleaner to just disable the startup items,
reboot and see how things look. I have zero startup items, but
sometimes you need to have some depending on your situation and the
way you like to operate.
Disabling things does not uninstall things. If you reboot and
something is not right, reenable the item and reboot.
Before disabling things you may want to research them a bit and see
what they do and if they help or hurt your perfomance.
Right away I would disable:
ctfmon (read about it and see if you ever use it - probably not).
reader_sl.exe (Adobe Speed Launcher installs automatically when you
install their reader - boo!)
jusched.exe (the Java updater) I usually see disabling this shave
15-30+ seconds off a reboot time and you can still update Java when I
feel like it and I see no degradation in any WWW page performance (and
I measure carefully). It is a reboot/startup pig.
That McAfee stuff gives me the creeps. I don't like McAfee personally
and don't remember if it installs Services along with those startup
items, but you can see from Task Manager it is a virtual memory hog.
I am not going to install McAfee to find out either, but you can
disable them temporarily and see how things look after a reboot.
Ditto on SpySweeper - don't know how it will effect your day to day
stuff, disable it, reboot and see.
I have no kind of real time protection for the Internet by choice - it
slows me down and I don't go places I am likely to pick up anything -
unless I do it on purpose for testing. That bare naked environment
may not be right for you, but the more protection you have going on,
the slower things are going to be - but better performance comes with
some risk for some folks. More protection is not always good - you
can overdo things by applying too many layers (this happens a lot).
I don't recall if you can disable just parts of McAfee or not - you
probably do not want it scanning emails for example or all your
Internet traffic, etc. You will have to look at the options or
somebody else can tell you more about it. It may do "everything" on a
default install.. You can certainly disable it all right now, reboot
and browse the Internet intelligently and safely and test your usual
activities you like to do and maybe you will say - wow, this is great
but I feel too vulnerable and will pay the penalty in performance for
more protection.
With CClearner you can disable everything and turn them back on one at
a time, or turn them off one at a time (I would definitely turn off
the 3 I mentioned before).
Some things I do not recognize, but you probably do and you can
disable them, reboot and enable them again and take a look at things
now.
Now you know how to look at your Task Manager a bit and see what
effects the changes have (this is good to know).
You can post screen shots now too - this is a big help so we are not
guessing what is going on.
You have the tools now to start adjusting things. Make some changes,
see how it goes and come back with results, problems, questions...
When you get settled down with some adjustments, we can take a look at
your XP Services - waayyyyy too many probably.
David
1) Do the two images I sent (primary and secondary IDE channels) indicate
to you that I am indeed running DMA? I don't understand them completely.
Why does one of them indicate PIO?
2) At your suggestion, I have been monitoring Total, Peak, and Limit for
several weeks now. Total and Peak have consistently been well below Limit,
so I am understanding from you that RAM should be O.K. Please do correct
me if you still think I need to pursue this further with your dougknox
link.
3) Points well taken re McAfee & Webroot!
David
1) Please note my comment above to Daave re RAM. I am sensing a
difference of opinion here, but am not smart enough to understand the
difference. Can you please explain? (Not being critical, just trying to
understand.)
2) I think I'm gettting in over my head with overclocking -- but I will
study your link
3) The video adaptor is 128 DDR ATI Radeon 9700 TX
4) I've just become familiar with Autoruns. Can you please give me a
comparison with the Mike Lin Startup? (Since they are both new to me.)
5) Thank you for ID'ing the startup items below. I will go after them!
Daave
David wrote:
> Thanks, Daave,
>
> 1) Do the two images I sent (primary and secondary IDE channels)
> indicate to you that I am indeed running DMA? I don't understand
> them completely. Why does one of them indicate PIO?
One is for the hard drive and the other for the optical drive. I am sure
the hard drive is on the primary IDE channel and is using Ultra DMA Mode
5. That is good to know. :-)
> 2) At your suggestion, I have been monitoring Total, Peak, and Limit
> for several weeks now. Total and Peak have consistently been well
> below Limit, so I am understanding from you that RAM should be O.K.
Not necessarily! The Limit includes your pagefile, so that's *not* what
you compare it to! Rather, compare it to the Physical Memory (that is,
the actual RAM). The Commit Charge listed in your screen shot is
dangerously close to the amount of physical RAM (not good!). And that
figure corresponds to Total, that is the amount at the time you took the
screen shot. But there are other times, too! Peak is necessary to know,
too. And I'm sure that that value is significantly higher than 501MB!
And that would explain the phenomenon known as "paging."
There is a portion of your hard drive (which is *much* slower than RAM)
that is devoted to some of your system's memory needs (the pagefile).
Your goal is to utilize your RAM for all your memory needs and *not* the
pagefile (with some exceptions). Once you rely on the pagefile,
performance crawls. It will crawl even if you don't see any warnings
that your pagefile needs to be resized. The point is to have enough
physical RAM so that you do not rely on the pagefile. It's possible you
don't even need to purchase more RAM. As long as you run lean
(memory-wise), 512MB RAM might very well be all you need.
That being said, if you choose not to run lean and keep McAfee and
Webroot on your system, adding more RAM might be all you need to boost
performace, too. But McAfee (and maybe even Webroot?) is still known to
hog CPU cycles, too, so maybe not!
> Please do correct me if you still think I need to pursue this further
> with your dougknox link.
That would give you the most accurate information. It's easy to do; I'd
do it.
> 3) Points well taken re McAfee & Webroot!
Yup. Those are the biggest memory hogs. Unisntalling them and replacing
them with the programs already mentioned might very well be all you need
to boost performance. You have received other suggestions, too, about
unnecessary startup programs. The best way to stop them from loading,
however, is to go into the Preferences or Settings section of each
program and configure them not to run at startup. Using msconfig or
other startup managers might work, too, but in some cases, these tricky
programs (like QuickTime and, I believe, Java) place yet another entry
in the startup cue and it's cat and mouse! When I have more time, I'll
provide suggestions to disable certain startups included in your list.
Also keep in mind that if you never use the program anymore, you might
as well uninstall it. :-)
You might want to replace Adobe Reader with the much leaner Foxit PDF
Reader.
Mike S
> Thanks, Mike,
>
> 1) Please note my comment above to Daave re RAM. I am sensing a
> difference of opinion here, but am not smart enough to understand the
> difference. Can you please explain? (Not being critical, just trying to
> understand.)
I think you're in good hands with Daave, if you determine that you don't
need more physical RAM after studying your actual RAM usage then you
should be fine.
> 2) I think I'm gettting in over my head with overclocking -- but I will
> study your link
>
> 3) The video adaptor is 128 DDR ATI Radeon 9700 TX
Nice card! I wouldn't spend any money on a new video card just yet.
> 4) I've just become familiar with Autoruns. Can you please give me a
> comparison with the Mike Lin Startup? (Since they are both new to me.)
Autoruns has far more features than the Mike Lin Startup control panel
applet (is that the right name?), for my own use - when I want to just
add or remove something from Windows startup quickly that's what I use.
It's very easy to understand and use, but Autoruns has a lot more
features and you can learn a lot by using it and studying the various
features and what they deal with in your Windows setup.
> 5) Thank you for ID'ing the startup items below. I will go after them!
Preferably in a way that is reversible. I use a network magic program a
while ago, I can't remember what version, but on my old 2GHz Dell laptop
I remember that it slowed down the boot enough to notice.
My compliments on how thorough you are in your approach to learning
about windows, if you don't watch it you'll be doing maintenance on
parents, friends, neighbors, relatives, and classmates computers if
you're not already.
Mike
Jose
More RAM is not the answer to ever woe.
There are too many solutions:
Add more RAM.
That does not always fix the problem, but may relieve the symptom of
the problem. It depends if you are a problem solver or a symptom
reliever.
I have half as much RAM as you and have learned to manage things to
make what I have work very efficiently.
You can already sense the difference of opinion about your RAM? There
should be no "opinion(s)". You either have a problem that can be
solved by more RAM or you don't. Don't get off in the weeds with
opinions.
Having less RAM can encourage you to learn how things really work and
then come up with solutions to use what you have instead of just
putting in more RAM. Sometimes when a problem is not understood, the
advice is just add more RAM. That means the problem is not
understood.
After you get things ironed out a bit and running the best you can
with what you have, THEN you can add more RAM - if your testing shows
you are RAM bound, but it would be nice to know for sure if you need
to or not. You will not have an opinion, you will have a fact.
Autoruns is fine and useful but "use Autoruns" is insufficient
advice. You need to know HOW to use Autoruns on your system, what
areas you might want to leave alone, where you really need to
concentrate your effort, and it is useful to have advance knowledge
that there is no quit without saving or undo with Autoruns.
Along with the "use autoruns" advice should come what to do with it,
how to do it, how to keep yourself out of trouble and what to do if
you happen to overdo things with Autoruns. It is a fine tool and I
recommend it but when I do, it comes with a bit more advice that just
"use Autoruns".
Daave
Mike S wrote:
> My compliments on how thorough you are in your approach to learning
> about windows, if you don't watch it you'll be doing maintenance on
> parents, friends, neighbors, relatives, and classmates computers if
> you're not already.
I agree that David is being quite thorough, taking the time to
thoughtfully synthesize all the info offered.
Daave
Suggestions are inline.
David wrote:
> And here is a text file of my CCleaner startup file:
>
> Yes HKCU:Run ctfmon.exe "C:\WINDOWS\system32\ctfmon.exe"
See these pages:
http://www.pchell.com/support/ctfmon.shtml
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/282599
> Yes HKLM:Run SunJavaUpdateSched "C:\Program
> Files\Java\jre6\bin\jusched.exe"
Start | Control Panel | Java
Click on Update tab. Uncheck the box next to "Check for updates
automatically."
Click on Advanced tab. Expand Java Console. Select "Do not start
console."
Expand JRE Auto-Download. Select "Never Auto-Download."
Expand Miscellaneous. Uncheck those two boxes below.
Reboot.
> Yes HKLM:Run Microsoft Works Portfolio "C:\Program
> Files\Microsoft Works\WksSb.exe" /AllUsers
> Yes HKLM:Run WorksFUD "C:\Program Files\Microsoft
> Works\wkfud.exe"
> Yes Startup Common Microsoft Office.lnk C:\Program Files\Microsoft
> Office\Office10\OSA.EXE
> Yes Startup Common Microsoft Works Calendar Reminders.lnk C:\Program
> Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Works Shared\wkcalrem.exe
Do you have Office *and* Works installed?
> Yes Startup Common Adobe Reader Speed Launch.lnk C:\Program
> Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Reader\reader_sl.exe
As mentioned in another post, you should consider uninstalling Adobe
Reader and replacing with Foxit PDF Reader:
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/
(The Free Reader is on the left.)
But still, the biggest performance boost for you (short of adding RAM)
is to uninstall McAfee and WebRoot and replacing with Avira AntiVir,
MBAM, and SAS. You won't likely need to add RAM at that point. :-)
David
But realize that I would still be nowhere without all the guidance and
recommendations from you experts.
You have given me a lot more homework that I still need to attend to.
And I will. And I will probably have to ask still more questions.
In the meanwhile, thanks again and best regards,
David