Morning all

I'm not to sure if this is in the right place but i really need a quick answer.

Right at the moment my computer is slower then a essex girl at a chess match , i had to go into task manager to shut something down (which i have to do most of the time to end a program).

I found that i have 63 processes running, is that good or bad ? and how do i speed this thing up?

i have done the normal disk clean-up and de-frag, is there anything else i can do?

many thanks

 

if you're running vista then its not so bad.... but if you're still on XP like me then its time for a clear out! Try going to add and remove programs in the control panel and getting rid of anything you know you have previously installed but don't use any more and go from there. Hijack this is a good tool to find out what is opening up when you start your machine too....

 

thanks i should have said XP, thanks for the advice

 

Can't remember the command but you can look at your startup menu and see which applications boot up with, then unselect them

Tony

 

msconfig

 

Cheers Daz

Tony

 

msconfig ?? your've lost me now!!

 

start > run then enter msconfig in the box.....

this will tell you which programs start up and run as you switch your pc on (the more you have running the slower it will be!!)

some of then will have bizarre names, but chuck each one into google and it will tell you if it is an essential program or an optional one.

try deleteing all your internet history and temporary files too - if you get clogged with all that lot it will slow you down too.

as a guide, i have 41 processes running on mine =D

 

to be brutally honest -- all these procedures like msconfig, regcleaners, disk defrags are only partially succesfull

in reality the only surefire way is a complete reinstall of the os -- a pain but you can employ tactics that make it much easier

I tend to reload my OS (XP) every 6 to 7 months (this is the home pc btw used by 5 people, not my corporate PC)

1. partition the drive into several "disk drives - i.e. C:\, D:\, etc -- keep C:\ for the OS and installed programs nothing else

2. Create a dir on D:\ called data and redirect "my documents" to this (this means that you can reinstall the OS without affecting any of your user data)

3.identify the places in your user profile that need saving -- this will usually be c:\Documents and Settings\username\Desktop and c:\Documents and Settings\all users\Desktop together with your I.E favorites in c:\Documents and Settings\username\Favorites

(if you can be bothered these can be redirected to d:\ automatically)

I would advise against copying the whole user profile

if you use outlook (or outlook express) make sure the mail file is on the d:\

4. Create a dir on D:\ called Installers use this to keep all your downloaded programs (or copy program installers from CD to this dir)

this gives you an easy way of re-adding all the programs again -- once you have reinstalled the OS (in fact I would only reinstall them as and when you need them -- you can then identify which really effect system performance


5. Create a word file called "Software Keys & passwords" --- in fact name it something different, like FIGNODT.doc, use it to store all the licence keys, passwords you use for programs/automatic updates etc etc -- then encrypt this using winzip, you can easily refer to this when you have to reload any programs.

6. create a dir on your D:\ called drivers, use this to store all your hardware drivers - such as Ethernet Adaptors, Display Adaptors


if you follow this sort of regime and a reinstall should only take an hour or two

and you get all the performance back -- for a few months

 

re-install can often be the best way.........

i also used to do this fairly regularly (every 6 months or so) as my PC was in the living room of a shared house and got fairly cluttered pretty quickly.

I just moved everything i wanted to keep (including install files) onto an external hard drive then reinstalled windows, then only programs people actually used (rather than tried once and forgot about) got put back on.

have since kicked all my lodgers out and live with my g/f, her laptop is a nightmare but she stays away from my desktop so its all good!!!!

 

I had this prob with XP in the past. That which was screwing things up was the graphics accelerator settings using all the processor time. Don't have XP now so can't remember where to find the menu to set this to zero (which will make games graphics slow if you use it for games) but everything else will be transformed. Do an internet search for problems relating to whatever graphics card you have and you might find how to access the menu.