M
mayayana
> Okay, thanks everybody for comments. I have agreed with the general
> consensus for the most part and have avoided the use of such "cleaners"
but
> performance has become so poor and remained that way despite cache control
> and defrag and so on that Ive started reaching for straws.
>
A reinstall is always good, as several have
already noted. If you have pre-installed Windows
it's even better to use disk image backup, so that
a re-install doesn't also include a day of cleaning
up advertising and "shovelware" that came pre-installed.
One other thing worth checking, which I didn't see
mentioned, is to delete the Temp. Internet Files through
the IE Internet Options window. Then set the cache level
very low. There doesn't seem to be a default cache
size, so it just keeps growing. On a high speed connection
where IE is used it can grow fairly quickly. There's
no direct connection between the IE cache and
Explorer, but the two do seem to be linked through
Microsoft's unfortunate decision to tangle their browser
up with the system. I've seen an extremely large cache
slow down a system dramatically. It's as though Windows
is searching the cache when displaying Explorer windows
or Desktop changes.
Of course, a hundred other things can slow you down,
but that's one of the hundred worth checking. Other
than that there's the obvious XP bloat that can be trimmed:
* Shut off the graphical "skins" - which require a great
deal of memory and computation - and use the "classic"
Desktop - especially if you don't have a lot of RAM to
spare.
* Turn off services. I was looking into that recently and
found a total of 58 (!) common services that are either
expendable, wasteful, or downright risky on a standalone
PC. Microsoft sets a number of services to run by default
that are irrelevant or even risky for many people.
* Download Autoruns:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/AutoRuns.mspx
Run it and carefully look through the list of software
that runs at startup. There are a large number of
small utilities that will set themselves to start
unnecessarily. There are also large programs like
MS Office and OpenOffice that are so bloated they
virtually load themselves in the background so that
they'll seem responsive if and when you run them.
And one of the worst offenders in terms of startup
bloat is hardware. Something like a printer or CD
writer software will often install 2 or 3 useless utilities
without asking.
With someone who installs software and hardware
without carefully monitoring startup programs, it's
easy to end up with a couple dozen useless
parasites running in the background. And that's on top
of useless services. It can all result in a large load on
the system.
> consensus for the most part and have avoided the use of such "cleaners"
but
> performance has become so poor and remained that way despite cache control
> and defrag and so on that Ive started reaching for straws.
>
A reinstall is always good, as several have
already noted. If you have pre-installed Windows
it's even better to use disk image backup, so that
a re-install doesn't also include a day of cleaning
up advertising and "shovelware" that came pre-installed.
One other thing worth checking, which I didn't see
mentioned, is to delete the Temp. Internet Files through
the IE Internet Options window. Then set the cache level
very low. There doesn't seem to be a default cache
size, so it just keeps growing. On a high speed connection
where IE is used it can grow fairly quickly. There's
no direct connection between the IE cache and
Explorer, but the two do seem to be linked through
Microsoft's unfortunate decision to tangle their browser
up with the system. I've seen an extremely large cache
slow down a system dramatically. It's as though Windows
is searching the cache when displaying Explorer windows
or Desktop changes.
Of course, a hundred other things can slow you down,
but that's one of the hundred worth checking. Other
than that there's the obvious XP bloat that can be trimmed:
* Shut off the graphical "skins" - which require a great
deal of memory and computation - and use the "classic"
Desktop - especially if you don't have a lot of RAM to
spare.
* Turn off services. I was looking into that recently and
found a total of 58 (!) common services that are either
expendable, wasteful, or downright risky on a standalone
PC. Microsoft sets a number of services to run by default
that are irrelevant or even risky for many people.
* Download Autoruns:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/AutoRuns.mspx
Run it and carefully look through the list of software
that runs at startup. There are a large number of
small utilities that will set themselves to start
unnecessarily. There are also large programs like
MS Office and OpenOffice that are so bloated they
virtually load themselves in the background so that
they'll seem responsive if and when you run them.
And one of the worst offenders in terms of startup
bloat is hardware. Something like a printer or CD
writer software will often install 2 or 3 useless utilities
without asking.
With someone who installs software and hardware
without carefully monitoring startup programs, it's
easy to end up with a couple dozen useless
parasites running in the background. And that's on top
of useless services. It can all result in a large load on
the system.